Fake News in the Media

As of late the epidemic of fake news and the rise of “do your own research” is something that has become increasingly apparent in American society. Thankfully there is more awareness amongst society that the media is becoming increasingly filled with false information that can lead the public astray. The media landscape over the past couple of years has changed drastically as there has been an increase in journalism, social media, and the public’s engagement. Most Americans reach for their news through forms such as Google, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or local media websites. Mobile devices and the latest developments have allowed us to have a vast amount of information at the touch of a screen. Especially for the younger upcoming generations, they are most likely  to get their news through online sources relying mainly on their devices for communication. Because of this it has caused a rapid concern for fake news, and fear that it will only continue to increase.

Since around the presidential election in 2016, the amount of fake news circulating the media such as twitter and facebook and several other forms. Outside of politics, fake news as gravitated to other areas of daily media. It is shown clearly through the state of the country that fake news continues to be the main source as the United States becomes more politically polarized, decreases its institutional trust, and chips away at democracy. Americans consume their news through the digital age with computers, mobile devices, and television. Especially during the uprise of the COVID-19 pandemic it has become increasingly difficult to filter out what news sources are reliable. Many Americans are unsure wether the news sources they look to do their own reporting, roughly half of Americans or more were able to correctly identify whether three of the six sources asked about do their own reporting. Additionally, almost 80% of people have noticed seeing fake news on the covid outbreak which shows how important the issue of fake news is, especially in a drastic time when real facts are most needed to tackle the pandemic.

While the ability to recognize fake sources is increasing, a minimal of Americans are confident in their abilities to do so. However, majority of the population can come to the consensus that fake news causes confusion as it spreads around to the general public. The majority of fake news is spread via social media, whereas TV objectively does not have many fake news stations that exist. This is problematic in the fact that people can easily and knowingly spread false information, it is also concerning because the majority of young adults who will soon be more immersed with politics will be very apprehensive and untrusting towards companies and the government.

Fake news is often for entertainment and satire. The problem with this is that it is hard for people to discern what is satire and what is actual facts, because of this it makes it hard to control the chaos of fake news. Without being able to read the thin line behind entertainment and facts, it is incredibly easy to send the information to peers. With the information being sent, it is rare that people will read the whole piece and do their own in depth research to find the true story, and write off the fake news as facts. On the other side of this there is the issue of clickbait who’s main purpose is to serve viral stories that will generate lots of traction by deceiving the public to earn money. Despite the high volume of false news being spread through social media, it is constructed in a way to make it seem like real news. The difficulty of combating false news comes from these two sides, allowing the people reading to succumb to it.