Musings on an Overwhelming World
Evan Crawley
COM 520 Media Studies
Create to Learn Essay
Dec. 7, 2021
Today’s world at times can be overwhelming. The sheer amount of information and advertising constantly bombarding people from a multitude of directions can seem like too much to handle. This University of Rhode Island COM 520 Media Studies course sought to encapsulate this dynamic field — no easy task. At times, the course format itself mirrored the very subject matter it was exploring through its use of various platforms and programs. Students analyzed videos, research papers and newspaper articles using a wide range of tools. These included digital annotation software, video creation and Wikipedia, to cite a few. It provided a meta approach — not the Facebook company, although that came up too — to studying media literacy; a dynamic approach to scholarship on an ever-changing field.
The course opened with a general overview of media literacy, including a look at the media itself and how it has changed. An article in The Atlantic on rising Instagram stars posting fake sponsored content served as a good indicator to just how interesting this semester would get. As someone in their early 30s, I grew up during the digital/social media age. I’m old enough to remember the beginning, though, with AOL dial-up internet and Yahoo! content pages. Thinking back on where we were just 20 years ago, the very concept of “rising Instagram stars posting fake sponsored content” gives me an ice cream headache. When you think about it a little bit more, though, it unveils a common theme of applying new tricks to previously identified concepts. I remember thinking at the time it reminded me of the work of Erving Goffman, having studied his notion of identity and facework in a previous course (sure enough, it came up the following week). Goffman argued that the way people interact with each other is not all that different from theater. People in different situations put on what he referred to as “masks” to either showcase or mute various parts of their personality. Goffman’s concept remains relevant today, only technology/social media has drastically changed the size of the venue and the budget for costume design.
As the semester progressed, it became clear that how people use the media and the proliferation of algorithms carried some serious — and at times deadly — consequences. We discussed how companies like Google, Netflix and Facebook (among others) utilize algorithmic personalization in an effort to tailor content specific to users. This presents a number of issues. Algorithms can at times reproduce the same biases as their creators, unintentionally supercharging discrimination. The Washington Post highlighted the case of contractors hired by law firms to work on cases during the pandemic using facial recognition software for both security and to ensure people were doing what they were hired to do. The results were disastrous, as the software often failed to identify people of color as well as it did white people, further marginalizing a group that is vastly underrepresented in the field of law. These algorithms at times also were manipulated intentionally, as we saw with the concept of fake news. The New York Times video Operation Infektion detailed how Russia and the KGB proliferated hoaxes, disinformation and conspiracy theories, often using social media. An article in The Atlantic detailed how then-President Donald Trump utilized Twitter to do much of the same. He created a feedback loop where he would claim all bad news about him is a plot against him, reach out to Fox News personalities to promulgate his theory and then ignore any information that disproved his made-up concept.
The question of how to keep Facebook and social media in check yielded some possibilities but no clear answers. Facebook whistleblower Frances Hauden helped expose some of the many widespread issues at the company. The case of Facebook’s role in the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar served was just one example of the harms of Facebook. Members of the Myanmar military used the platform to incite hatred of the minority group through fake accounts and anti-Rohingya propaganda. Furthermore, Facebook failed to regulate this obvious ethical violation for a number of reasons. One, the company lacked resources in the area, namely those who understood the language and various idiosyncrasies of the regional dialect. Not only did the human content moderators fail, but so did its algorithm designed to censor harmful content. There were a number of instances where victims of genocide posted photos or descriptions of what was being done by the Myanmar government, only for Facebook to disable their accounts because of code of conduct violations. Meanwhile, what actually happened was the company silenced the victims of genocide while allowing the perpetrators to continue posting propaganda.
Revelations from Hauden led to further discussions about what is propaganda and how it spreads. This included the topic of post-truth — briefly touched on earlier in this essay with respect to Trump. Some of the tenets of this included accusing a political opponent of creating hoaxes to delegitimize their opinion, appealing to their emotions to counter statistical evidence and anti-scientific movements. Literature on this topic explored how QAnon and other outlier groups use these tactics to galvanize and gain followers. A later video called “How to Radicalize a Normie” further delved into how regular folks are recruited and ultimately turned to the Q side. Each element helped to bring greater understanding of what led to the storming of the U.S. capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. The documentary produced by the New York Times left a particularly lasting impression, speaking to the power of visual media. It is one thing to read about what happened that day; it is something completely different to watch exactly what people did. It shows the true power and danger of digital propaganda, and how actions online led to real-life death and destruction.
Progress is being made to regulate social media giants and discriminatory technology to prevent further incidents like those previously described from happening, but the road is long and largely unpaved. Concepts like antitrust, content regulation and data rights are all being explored as means to this end. The U.S. Congress and Senate each have legislation proposed to provide some forms of regulation and oversight of social media giants, but in most cases they do not do enough to truly curb the problems. It does, however, make for an interesting argument as to how much government oversight is too much or too little. With respect to technology like facial recognition, there are no federal regulations for commercial or government use, despite possible constitutionality questions under the first, fourth and 14th Amendments. Unregulated algorithmic discrimination in voice profiling provides further cause for concern. When, for example, you call a service provider and you hear a pre-recorded message stating they will be recording the conversation for training purposes, most often that is not for training employees. More likely, it is being recorded to gain insights into your identity so that it can be leveraged in future algorithmic marketing.
As for the format of the class, I have mixed emotions. Oftentimes I felt overwhelmed, not necessarily by the volume of or concepts in the material (it felt like the right amount of information to tackle each week) but more so by the variety of platforms for class instructions and submitting work. I may be missing some, but as far as I can recall we used Pathright, Signal, Zoom, Medium, Wikipedia, Kami, Video Ant, Google Doc, Google
Slides/Powerpoint, and Adobe Spark this semester (in addition to traditional, in-class instruction). On one hand, I appreciate the effort to keep it interesting and engaging. I also recognize there is a metacognitive lesson here, learning about a vast, overwhelming field of study while feeling overwhelmed at times by the multiple means of instruction. It allows for a visceral reaction to the content. That said, I feel the subject matter is engaging enough to really hold my interest and there were just too many different platforms to learn. I recognize that getting out of one’s comfort zone is one of the best ways to stimulate growth, I just don’t think this was the best for me (I’m sure others felt strongly the other way, too). Personally, I would prefer to have my total attention on what is a truly fascinating and timely topic.
