Hot Topic - Fake News
The arrival of this New Year was difficult not to notice. For the media world there would be no slow and easy glide into routines established in the hysterical last decade. Seeing car crashes during the morning commute, figuratively, are now normal. 2020 already has burning things falling from the sky.
Media outlets benefit significantly from election campaigns. What always increases is the cost of messaging. Benefactors - mostly large - are attracted to particular candidates for a variety of reasons. The intensity of that attraction can be purely transactional; think quid pro quo. Voters bombarded with that messaging seem easily led. When presented with facts, they are not.
Much in the post-modern age is shifting. That is a feature, not a bug. Some, adhering to Orwellian logic, admit the post-truth era has arrived. Get over it, they say. Only a fool would build a house on shifting sand, say the ages.
The fake news phenomenon has set off alarm bells from the rational side of life. With its reality-busting siblings misinformation, disinformation and propaganda it worries, with justification, those concerned by the spectre of mind control by autocrats and other charlatans. Given pervasive digital platforms fake news traffickers have learned that minds are easily manipulated. It seems George Orwell and Aldous Huxley called it right.
Where elections and social media intersect the result, plain and clear, is disruption. The path to disinformation, fake news and hate speech is Autodromo di Monza through the internet. The track is unforgiving, the crashes spectacular and people turn out to watch. Of course, the sponsors are pleased.
Most every enterprise of modest means reaches an inflection point, usually financial. Particularly vulnerable are those with big, well-known benefactors. Venture capital firms know this and regularly exact their price. Business strategies of the greater and lesser often do not coincide.
Credibility and trust, of course, are fundamental to fending off fake news and charges thereof. An award winning “star” reporter for an illustrious national news magazine was discovered recently to have richly blended fiction with fact in a series of published dispatches. This came at a time when publishers and journalists brooded over their separate and collective dilemma.
See also...
Fake News, Hate Speech and Propaganda
The institutional threat of fake news, hate speech and propaganda is testing the mettle of those who toil in news media. Those three related evils are not new, by any means, but taken together have put the truth and those reporting it on the back foot. Words matter. This ftm Knowledge file explores that light. 48 pages, PDF (March 2017)
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Media in Spain - Diverse and Challenged – new
Media in Spain is steeped in tradition. yet challenged by diversity. Publishers hold great influence, broadcasters competing. New media has been slow to rise and business models for all are under stress. Rich in language and culture, Spain's media is reaching into the future and finding more than expected. 123 pages, PDF. January 2018
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The Campaign Is On - Elections and Media
Elections campaigns are big media events. Candidates and issues are presented, analyzed and criticized in broadcast and print. Media is now more of a participant in elections than ever. This ftm Knowledge file reports on news coverage, advertising, endorsements and their effect on democracy at work. 84 pages. PDF (September 2017)
Order here
Fake News, Hate Speech and Propaganda
The institutional threat of fake news, hate speech and propaganda is testing the mettle of those who toil in news media. Those three related evils are not new, by any means, but taken together have put the truth and those reporting it on the back foot. Words matter. This ftm Knowledge file explores that light. 48 pages, PDF (March 2017)
Order here
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