In today’s fast-paced technological age, how we consume news is constantly changing. These new modes of consumption are thought by many to be simply new ways of looking at the same old information, but I believe technology is causing a shift in not only how we view the news, but what constitutes it.
The modes of consumption of today are not parallel to those of the past, and the anonymity and structure of the internet has caused us to become a more divided society.
My morning routine consists of three hits of the snooze button on my phone, a tall glass of water, and a scroll through Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. Technology is so ingrained in our daily lives that this is the very first thing I do, oftentimes while still laying in bed.
While I could easily be waking up and scrolling through the homepage of The New York Times, which would be a clear parallel to my grandparents and their morning perusal of the paper, I don’t. I, like many people my age, turn to the technology that is most popular to us (Snapchat, Twitter), and, for at least the first half of the day, this is where the majority of my news content comes from.
Before, news outlets were vetted and verified externally, as they had to have funding and readership to go to press. Now, according to Forbes, the main outlet for consuming news online is social media. On social media, anyone can publish anything for free. This caused the creation of ‘fake news’ to become a phenomenon. We saw this widespread in the past presidential election.
According to webwise, fake news is defined as ‘news’ stories that are entirely falsified, usually to sway people in one direction or the other. The other thing that fake news did, in addition to spreading false information, was further widen the divide between political sides. Whenever someone saw a story they did not like they could simply discredit it as ‘fake news,’ even if it was reputable.
The internet today is not simply a reiteration of the past. It is a new beast entirely. It allows anyone to say anything and what we consume today as ‘news’ may be nothing but ramblings. This Internet is causing us to become less informed, despite the abundance of information it provides. And that is why I believe the Internet, specifically social media, has contributed to the rise of the fake news phenomenon.
Sources:
Explained: What is Fake News?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicolemartin1/2018/11/30/how-social-media-has-changed-how-we-consume-news/#618386a33c3c