Emerly Lee – Week 10: MisInformation Mania
When was the last time you ever questioned information told to you? Was it when you were doom scrolling at 2 AM in the morning? Or was it when you did that extensively long research project? Or was it when you were watching the news on TV? Chances are, the answer is probably not recently.
Yet, this never became truly evident to me that people take things and run with it until recently, especially with all the political news in recent months. Recently with the uproar of coverage, many of my friends have flocked to me with news they heard while scrolling on social media. And oftentimes, the news they share are reiternations of things that could’ve been fact checked within minutes, but with the fast paced culture that social media has brought about many just can’t be bothered. For example, on Tik Tok I’ve noticed an uproar of Daily Mail stories, a news source that has little to no fact checking mechanisms. Or even looking at the rise of fabricated news through AI, a cycle that no one fact checks and looks relatively convincing during a 3 second scroll.
Even I at times fall victim to this, and as much as we believe it doesn’t affect our perception of the world, the small ounces of information we hear snowball and feed into narrative forming our opinions even if we don’t consciously know it. It’s similar to how rumors start, one person hears something then passes it onto the next person, and before you know it, a narrative that was never actually proven to be true has spiraled into a completely new story.
These narratives have the ability to shape and influence the way we think as a society. It often even surprises me when people approach me with the most out of reach information and continuously take it as fact because of how the media spirals narratives. So now I beg the question to you, when was the last time you questioned misinformation?
Hi Emerly! Your introduction was very intriguing, because as I read through it I realized that I truly do not look into the credibility of the information I am exposed to unless it leaves me utterly incredulous. Honestly, I am guilty of a lot of the behaviors you discussed in your blog, and this is sort of a check-in for me, reminding me to avoid believing everything I see on social media. I was not aware about Daily Mail not being trustworthy, I’ll make sure to look out for that! Your blog was very informative and well written, succinctly covering many key points.
ReplyDeleteHi Emerly! Reading your blog truly made me question how much I should be doubting information online. As a big source of my cultural knowledge comes from social media, it is especially simple to fall into believing information without any necessary fact checking or backing. I really enjoyed the way you used your friends to exemplify a typical content consumer, emphasizing the speed at which we consume information. Your metaphor for the snowball effect really resonated with me and helped me understand how even small, insignificant pieces of information that we do not choose to confirm can completely change our understanding of an issue or cause a large amount of bias. To answer your concluding question, I noticed this pattern when I came across a lot of content regarding the fires in LA. Although short form media made it seem absolutely devastating as all of the most popular LA spots like the Hollywood sign were engulfed in flames, a few simple internet searchers made it abundantly clear that social media was brewing a sensational but false story. I truly enjoyed the way you built your discussion and your ideas in this blog!
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