With the rise of social media, information was able to spread faster and further than it ever has in the past. Often times, before a story even reaches the news, millions of people have already tweeted about it! "We are becoming our own editors and groundskeepers" (Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2011). Unfortunately, similar to your modern-day high school, social media sites are ripe for spreading rumors. If I come across something on a social media site, I will always verify it from a reliable news source before I hold it to be 100% true. If social media sites have taught me one thing, however, it's that nothing is private these days. Once something reaches the web, it's no longer yours.
There are many pros and cons to this way of communication. We are able to communicate on a global scale anytime. Unlike older media sources, technology allows instantaneous interactions. I feel like it's slowly overcoming the world, though. People are constantly on their smartphones, even when out to dinner on a date. We prefer interacting with technology than with each other.
As Curtis (2012) states, "We trust the media as an authority for news, information, education, and entertainment. Considering that powerful influence, then, we should know how it really works." I'm hoping that throughout the course of this term, I am better able to understand how it works.
References
Curtis, A. R. (2012). Mass media influence on
society. University of North
Carolina at Pembroke. Retrieved March 31, 2014, from
http://www2.uncp.edu/home/acurtis/Courses/ResourcesForCourses/PDFs/Mass_Media_Influence_on_Society.pdf
Kovach, B., & Rosenstiel, T. (2011). Blur: How to know what's true in the age of information overload. New York: Bloomsbury.
You made a great point about how it is difficult to believe anything that a person can see on social media. It is awesome that you fact check everything before you believe it. I wish that I did that more often. Instead, I find myself saying something like “I do not know if this is true for sure, but…” which allows me to basically state that I read this somewhere, but cannot prove that it is fact (Baran, 2014; Bauder, 2011; Farhi, 2012). I think that statement is interesting considering that is something that I only recently started saying. It seems to reflect the change in complete facts being presented from everything including news programs to now having speculation be presented as facts. (Baran, 2014; Bauder, 2011; Farhi, 2012; Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2010). The hard part about trying to find out if something is true or not is the fact that there is so much contradictory information out there (Weinberger, 2012). It has become difficult to be able to separate fact from fiction with all of the new media outlets.
ReplyDeleteI also loved that you mentioned that we can be connected on a global scale anytime. I completely agree with you, technology has allowed connects to be made that were not possible in the past, which is a very positive thing (Baran, 2014; Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2010).
Reference:
Baran, S. J. (2014). Introduction to mass communication: Media literacy and culture. (8th ed.) New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Bauder, D. (2011, January 9). Media outlets apologize after falsely reporting Giffords’ death. Associated Press. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/10/media-outlets-apologize-a_n_806603.html
Farhi, P. (2012, December 18). Media too quick to fill in the gaps in story of school shooting in Newtown, Conn. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/media-too-quick-to-fill-in-the-gaps-in-story-of-school-shooting-in-newtown-conn/2012/12/18/368ae690-4959-11e2-ad54-580638ede391_story.html
Kovach, B. & Rosenstiel, T. (2010). Blur: How to know what’s true in the age of information overload. New York: Bloomsbury, USA.
Weinberger, D. (2012, February 17). The changing nature of knowledge in the Internet age [Interview by B. Gladstone]. Retrieved from http://www.onthemedia.org/story/187775-changing-nature-knowledge-internet-age/transcript/
Hello Cathy,
ReplyDeleteExcellent point in regards to the nothing is private anymore. You normally don't think about how sacred your privacy is until you post something that you shouldn't have. New social media is definitely taking over the world and our lives. Its great to take a step back and communicate the old fashion way. Although it is a great way to gain information faster these days, how accurate is the information though? How do we know we can trust it? These questions scare me and make me wonder what exactly is true or not and how will we really know?
-Tiffany
You hit on a key part of our current social vein when you said we often prefer technology over each other. I think it is true and I often wonder why even I do this. It is more comfortable, in many ways, for me to interact over my phone than in person. It gives me time to think about what I will say, and no one can see my reactions to anything they said. There is some sense of safety in it, maybe. Also, I think we are becoming our own editors, but we can't prevent this in a world where anyone can report the news. With anyone providing information, anyone reading it will be forced to do their own editing and fact checking. Our society has created "citizen journalists" thanks to advances in technology, and what follows that is most assuredly a society of citizen editors as well.
ReplyDelete