How To Be A Smart Modern Day News Consumer
The barrier to enter content creation in the cyberage requires one to have access to the internet and the most basic “skill” of being able to create text, images, videos or other mediums of communication. Even if its complete jargon (#covfefe) anyone can be a content creator, which is especially problematic when it comes to news creation. Mainly because it has the abilty to travel fast and because its a cycle where the receiver and transmitter can shift. This is precisely why media literacy in this day and age is extremely crucial.
But you might be asking yourself “Random faceless man on the internet what does media literacy mean?”.
According to Medialit.org:
“Media Literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create media in a variety of forms.”
This includes being able to detect fake news, propaganda, falsehoods and fallacies when consuming news, which might sound pretty basic but according to a Stanford study the current generation’s pretty trash at it.
The researchers called the results as being “dismaying”, “bleak” and even “a threat to democracy”.
When the results of a study sound resoundingly similar to the current American president then that’s definitely an issue that needs to be addressed.
Fake News
Speaking of Donald Trump let’s start off with addressing how to distinguish fake news from real news.
According to the Stanford study by the age of eighteen 88% percent of news is consumed from social media and only 25% of high schoolers can distinguish real from fake news accurately.
According to Buzzfeed’s findings there was more engagement revolving fake news article on social media than there was for real mainstream articles during the 2016 elections.
So as the data clearly shows there’s a lack of media literacy when it comes to detecting fake news. For example an article titled “Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President, Releases Statement” grossed over a million engagements through facebook alone even though the article had no truth to it.
So you must be asking yourself “Random faceless man on the internet how do I know if something is fake news?”. It’s simple, just check the source!
For example a story stating that the pope endorsed trump was garnering a lot of traction online. The source of the story came from a website called WTOE 5 News and if you simply go onto the website’s about us page you would get this results:
The website literally says its fake news and yet when the article was picked by Endthefed.com (the site is now shut) it garnered over a million engagements on Facebook alone.
Let’s look at a different example, in 2015 during a trump rally one of his supporters kicked and punched a black activist and trump responded by tweeting this:
This tweet currently has over 7,000 retweets and 9,000 favorites on twitter and is completely false. How would you detect the fakeness?
Again, just check the source!
According to the tweet, the stats come from Crime Statistics Bureau-San Francisco and guess what? The source doesn’t even exist and all you had to do was just google the name to realize the stats were fake. If you wanted the official ones you just google that too and get it from a reliable source like the FBI.
In fact as an exercise to realize how simple it is go ahead and google it yourself.
But in case you’re a lazy media illiterate, here are the actual figures:
Another great way to get the facts and source checked is to search fact check websites like FactCheck.org or PolitiFact.com.
That wasn’t too hard now was it?
Ok so, you’re officially one step closer to being more media literate, now let’s go on to the next important factor of media literacy…
Bias
According to the dictionary Bias means:
“Cause to feel or show inclination or prejudice for or against someone or something.”
Dealing with bias is a lot trickier because you have to be self-aware enough to know your own biases. When it comes to news consumption people tend to subconsciously (or not) look for what they’re already more inclined to agree with, regardless of the objective truth.
This notion is known as Confirmation Bias, which according to the The Progressive Cynic means :
“[When] We tend to believe new facts that agree with our preconceived notions and distrust facts that conflict with them.”
All news outlets have their own agendas/biases and it’s important to recognize them in order to get the most objective version of the truth.
For more on that, I highly recommend Noam Chomsky’s book: Manufacturing Consent.
Anywho, the most common reason for media biases and agendas are due to politics and the news outlets demographic. For example Fox News is a “right-wing” news outlet and MSNBC a “left” one. Here’s a great example of how they shift tones depending on which 2012 presidential candidate they were covering:
Another factor to take into consideration is the difference between subjective and objective truth. Clearly these news channels aren’t agreeing on the objective ones.
Whats the difference between subject and objective truth you ask? Well, certain statements can be made due to empirical data and are held as being the objective truth. Others may be framed by people’s perspectives and feelings on things and maybe framed as being facts when in reality they are either false or their subject truth (AKA lacking a measurable basis).
Different news outlets have varying track records when it comes to the accuracy of their statements and knowing their credibility is crucial in determining the truth. According to Politifact.com these are the figures for Fox News:
These are the figures for CNN:
As you can see even though CNN is better than Fox News none of them are completely accurate and in order to counter your confirmation bias it’s important to know how credible your news outlets are. This doesn’t just apply to news networks but all news outlets including newer forms of visual news mediums like YouTube. It does not matter how small or big the channels may be, they all of their biases and it’s important to know their subjective truths even if it's not as drastic as outlets like Fox News.
It is also important to subject yourself to many different outlets to see all sides and challenge your own confirmation bias.
Here’s another exercise, watch some Fox News (good luck!) and then MSNBC when they cover Trump and try to garner the truth through your viewing. After that go onto Factcheck.org or Politifact.com to get the objective truth about the news the two networks covered.
These two networks are on the opposite spectrum when it comes to their agendas hence there will almost always be a bias, but sometimes news outlets may go so far in being unbiased that they create a whole new issue…
False Equivalency
According to The Huffington Post False Equivalence:
“Happens when you are led to believe that two things should be given equal weight in your considerations as you come to any given decision, while those two things are not in any way actually equivalent”
So picture this situation based on actual broadcasting brought to us by CNN: there’s a panel of two scientists discussing climate change. One of them is arguing against the fact that it exists and the other one is fighting for the fact that it does. They both get the exact same time on air until the segment ends and the viewer gets to decide which side to pick. That sounds perfect, unbiased, heavenly, objective, fair, balanced and so many other positive adjectives right?
WRONG!
Over 95% of scientists have come to a consensus that climate change exists so it makes no sense to put them both on the same level and frame them in a way that shows both the scientist’s points to be equal when in reality 95% of scientists agree with what one of them is saying and not with the other.
So what can you do as a news consumer in a situation like this? Just be cautious and make sure to not over stress on being so unbiased that you give too much power and validity to something that doesn’t deserve it.
oh and also…
Congratulations!!
If you keep all this in mind, use some common sense, take extra time to fact check and think critically you might be able to look at news through a media literate perspective! (You’re welcome)
