In todays world, with all of the technology and social media, it is very hard to depict fake news from real news. The reality of this is hard to ignore because people, does not matter the age, are easily fooled by the media and they do not know how to tell if the source is truth worthy or not. In reality, it is possible to resist fake news if the individual does the research behind the source but most people
do not take that extra step so they fall for fake news.
There was a study done by Stanford University to back up the " people are easily fooled" statement. The study was done on middle school, high school and college level individuals. The goal of the study was to determine how well these individuals can distinguish the difference between credible information and opinion, advertising or fakes on the internet. The researchers were shocked at the results because of how poor the students did. The result was that the students really struggled on figuring out where the content that they are reading coming from. It was found that more than 80 percent of students failed on distinguishing fake content and real content. " No fooling- fake news is hard to resist".
There are websites that fake news travel faster on than others. Facebook is a huge example on a website that has a lot of news, real or fake, presented on it. According to an article written by Nathan McAlone on the Business Insider website, leading up to the 2016 election, the top fake news on Facebook outperformed real news stories shared by the most popular media companies. The CEO of Facebook was very shocked by that findings and he stated that " the idea that fake news on Facebook- its a very small amount of content- influenced the election in any way is a pretty crazy idea." Facebook admits to resisting standards for fake news was 'wrong'. Facebook is trying to take steps in order to reduce the spread of misinformation on the website but it is going to be hard in order to not take someones freedom of speech rights away.
It is very hard to resist fake news unless the individual does the research behind the source or looks at other sources to see if the information matches. There are news all around us in newspapers, TV, magazines, etc. it is hard to get away from that. The way that fake news is presented is also a good way to grab the attention of a potential reader. Resisting fake news is based on the individual it self and what they believe in and the research that they put in into it.
I think it depends on the effort and intellectual curiosity of the reader in question. Now, with young students, see this NPR report (I think this is the study you and Mikayla cite: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/11/23/503129818/study-finds-students-have-dismaying-inability-to-tell-fake-news-from-real) that shows that for those younger students, they have a hard time assessing fake from real.
ReplyDeleteBut what about adult readers? Could it be a laziness factor, or how we process electronic reading?
What's also interesting about this post is that Facebook is just the social media medium--they're not promoting most of those posts, but the posts are being shared by users. At least they're trying to change how news is presented on their site with the validation updates.
So, can you help readers by showing them how to "research behind the source?" Maybe give us a primer?
I like the way you transition into talking about the way social media sites can affect the public's view on certain issues. However, I do not think t is that hard to tell apart the real from the fake if one would take the time to actually read and think about what the news is trying to say. On a completely different note, I like the little picture you added in the beginning! :)
ReplyDeleteYou've addressed that fake news is hard to distinguish from actual news for a lot of people; maybe adding how people can tell the difference would help? That would probably help others a little more to "resist fake news". Facebook's updates with breaking down how much fake news shows up on their social media is a great idea, though (it's amazing how many fake news posts pop up on there, I've always seen at least three a day, but that's just the minimum).
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