The proliferation of fake news is a real concern in recent times. It is very difficult to figure out t what is real and what is unreal, unless the criteria for knowing what is real is known to you. Some people unfortunately do not have to knowledge and skills to be able to realize what is real news and what is fake. These people take anything they read and believe in it and act according to what it says. Unless something is done about it, the impact of fake news will be devastating to both academic audience and the general public. All countries around the globe can be affected with fake news. Politics, Economics, Social Life and other categories of news media come under the impact of fake news.
According to Matthew Gentzkow, an Economist of Standard University, fake news was used to predict the chances of President Trump, the then presidential candidate from winning the election. Gentzkow says "fake"fake news was created and "real" fake news was also created. When people were asked whether they have seen the two, the answers people gave were devastating. In a sense, people are now really confused about the news read in the media.
On social life, fake news has had a negative impact on people and it will continue, if nothing is done about it. An article by Nsikan Apkan, the Digital Science producer for PBS NewsHour, a nurse Kaci Hickox who volunteered in Sierra Leone during the Ebola Virus outbreak was ejected from her house by her landlord because she had "contracted Ebola" upon her return from her volunteering. This was nothing else but the impact of fake news.
According to an article "Lies, Propaganda and fake news: A challenge for our age" by Richard Gray a News Correspondent with BBC says, fakes news is indeed a threat to the democracy. The Pizzagate news story and the UK and the EU were used as an example in his article.The pizzagate story reported about a pedophile who was abusing children at a basement of a restaurant in Washington D.C. which in fact the restaurant in question had no basement at all. Another fake report says the United Kingdom paid 350 million pounds a week to the EU during "leave EU" referendum. The chair of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir Andrew Dilnot says UK paid about 276 million pounds and not 350 million as reported. He says the information is misleading.
According to Gray, it is about time people were made aware of how to differentiate between the real news source from the fake news. He added, it is better to ask whom the information is coming from other than where it is coming from since many of these news sites cannot be trusted. Gray cited an example of when some names popped out in his search for first Black President of the United States. He was surprised to see in his search that the first black president was a man named John Hanson in 1781. Apart from this man as the first US president, other black presidents were Thomas Jefferson and Dwight Eisenhower. That in fact, can be a threat to academic research and the future generation.
For the future of fake news to end, there has to be a legal action taken against those who write and propagate fake news. Taking the first Black President of the United States for example according to the article by Gray, United States history is not something to joke or make money out of. It is demeaning. The present and future generation of school children, when they keep such an information will be difficult to correct, if not impossible.
The teachings about fake news, how to spot, ignore and tell others about it should be incorporated into the school's curriculum. Children, who are growing up should be made aware of these fake news and taught how to ignore and also teach others about its implications. Once children are made to be aware of this, they will develop a strong sense of learning from good sources in their academic research in the near future.
I agree that the impact of fake news will not be good to both the academic and the public audience. I also agree that people should be made aware of fake news. overall I think your post is really good and interesting.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Julia,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you where you mention that some people are unable to distinguish between fake news and real news. Those people do not lack the ability or skills to tell the difference between what is real or fake news. Readers just need to be extra careful when reading the news.
The order in which you have organized your blog is very easy for me to read. Because of the embedded photos and clear test. I also mentioned in my blog post about starting also with educating the younger children on how to recognize what is not real. A great way to do that is as you said by putting into fake news into the school curriculum.
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