Situation Definition:
The case I chose was on the Fake News. During the past election, we saw the rise of what is now called fake news during this time we saw not only our current President getting his information from fake news sites but also many Americans with Facebook being at the heart of this. The case study I chose was by Sapna Maheshwari about How Fake News Goes Viral. In this case study, she touches on the ethical issues of those that create fake news and their reasoning why and how fast people share fake news, even our current president, without fact checking.
Analysis:
Maheshwari started her case study by discussing a famous tweet by Eric Tucker a 35-year-old co-founder of a marketing company in Texas. Despite having only 40 Twitter followers at the time, he sent out a false tweet that went viral. Tucker tweeted about paid protestors being bused to demonstrations against President Trump. Despite this tweet being false and there we never no buses with paid protestors his tweet was shared 16,000 times on Twitter and 350,000 times on Facebook. President Trump even engaged the tweet. This says a lot about the leadership America chose and the lack of fact checking that seems to be going on in those of power. It confirms the idea even though this idea is false since it is out there already it puts doubts in those who read it regardless of its truth and the fact that it received so many shares shows others that it has to be true despite its falsehood.
A lot of fake news is created by entrepreneurs in the U.S to make money from advertising. This was a rise in the click phenome. It didn’t matter if the story was fake if they got people clicking onto their website which made a lot of fake news sites a lot of money. It talks about how money hungry the false media makes the real media look. The rise in these fake news sites has discredited the journalism and media field considerably. This is the top reason Facebook and Google are now taking significant fact checking steps to stop the trend of fake news. Also due to the fake news, we are starting to see a “generational shift” away from the news, particularly political news (Marchi, 2012). Fake news needs to be stopped as soon as possible as it causes and sways the public opinion in an entirely wrong direction. I believe that fact checking is a necessity in the journalism field. Without fact checking everything that is released is a pure fabrication because that is what fake news is, fabrication.
Conclusion:
Fake news is an issue that is still being dealt with and should continue to be dealt with because I believe that false stories had a huge effect on the sway of the election. I think the lesson learned is that fake news could lead to a permanent distrust of the media by younger generations. Also, that it could cause the downfall of the journalism field entirely; false news should not be a forgotten term but the push the media should have to continue to fact check and shut down all fake news sites.
Reference:
Maheshwari, S. (2016, November 20). How Fake News Goes Viral: A Case Study. Retrieved April 12, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/business/media/how-fake-news-spreads.html?_r=0
Marchi, R. (2012). With Facebook, Blogs, and Fake News, Teens Reject Journalistic “Objectivity.” Journal of Communication Inquiry,36(3), 246-262. doi:10.1177/0196859912458700