The media is essential for mass communication because it is used to quickly spread information or ideas to inform people. The media vary from the radio to social media platforms to online newspapers; any platforms that we can receive information from is the media. The media is a powerful tool for people to consume information, and its power can be used for good things. According to King from CNN, in just 19 hours, celebrities and social media influencers have raised more than $1 million to aid the famine in Somalia. Those celebrities used Twitter as a form of mass communication to inform people that there is a huge hunger problem that we need to collectively confront in Somalia (King). Hence, extraordinary things can happen when the incredible power of the media is used for good intentions, so it is no doubt that the media has a profound impact to our society. However, while the media has the power to positively impact the society, it can also inflict great damage when its power is used for bad intentions like disseminating fake news. Fake news threatens the society through the media, and we must stem it by educating and warning people.

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Fake news has been using the media as a powerful tool to harm society, especially those who do not deliberately consume it. Back in the 30s, the radio was like the internet because it allowed people consume information virtually everywhere. Due to the radio’s influential power, Orson Welles elaborately used it to create a live adaptation of “The War of the Worlds” in 1938; according to Chen from the New Yorker, he created a mass hysteria of an alien invasion in the U.S. Unfortunately, The Washington Post reported that people suffered heart attacks from shocks, and a wife nearly committed suicide due to the panic from the hysteria that Welles has created (Chen). Fortunately, the Federal Communications Commission got evolved and regulated the radio to strictly promote “public interest, convenience and necessity” (Chen). However, despite the regulations by the F.C.C. during the 30s to put an end to fake news in the media, fake news still continues to create damage in present time. According to Agrawal from the Los Angeles Times, a North Carolina man walked in a pizza restaurant with his assault rifle to investigate false claims in the media about a child prostitution business runs by Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager in 2016. In that pizza place, fake news endangered the innocent workers, who do not deliberately consume fake news, because the North Carolina man could have taken innocent lives that day. Hence, fake news has the power to negatively affect the people that do not purposely consume it. Still, deliberate fake-news consumers are not safe from the bad effects of fake news.

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Fake news provokes its consumers to be aggressive, and aggressiveness may lead to bad actions from those consumers. Those actions may range from commentating aggressively online to investigating or hurting a pizza restaurant with an assault rifle. According to McCoy from the Los Angeles Times, Wade, a fake news producer, wrote an article based on rumors that he heard on Fox News about George Soros, a liberal activist billionaire who financially supported the anti-Trump protestors. Aggressive comments poured in on Wade’s article, such as “arrest and hang him for war crimes," "I gladly volunteer to take this Traitor to America out," and "jail is way too good for him" (McCoy). Evidently, Wade’s false information provoked hatred and anger in his audience, and his audience could become the aforementioned North Carolina man with his assault rifle. Thus, fake news inflicts damage to its consumers and non-consumers, and therefore the society. Fake news is similar to smoking, where both of them cause damage to their consumers and the people around them. We get educated about smoking and its negative effects from the government frequently, and the effects has been evidently positive. Therefore, it is essential for the government to regularly educated people about fake news, because fake news is just as dangerous as smoking.

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Media literacy is essential in the context of today’s world, since the media are full of false information. Two bills, introduced in California, aim to stem fake news through public education. According Reilly from the Huffington Post, AB 155 by Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez aspires to incorporate “civil online reasoning” into existing educational curriculums to enhance people’ judgement of the credibility and quality of online information. SB 135, by Senate Bill Dodd, aims to “ensure that young adults are prepared with technology literacy and computer skills in order to utilize social media sites responsibly” (Reilly). AB 155 assures that people can adequately evaluate the information they consume online. SB 135 agrees with AB 155 on the importance of media literacy in a technological world, but Senate Bill Dodd thinks that media literacy is not enough to stem fake news because it is only a part of the solution. Therefore, SB 135 introduces the idea that people must use the media responsibly to stem fake news, because fake news cannot produce and grow by itself. Hence, it is pivotal that we vote for these bill in future elections.

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In order to grow, fake news needs irresponsible and dedicated writers to fabricate compelling stories, and it needs an audience to consume. Dedication and irresponsibility come with a price though. According to McCoy from the Los Angeles Times, Wade and Goldman made around ten thousand to forty thousand dollars every month by producing fake news on the media during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Wade and Goldman earn money mainly from running advertisements on their websites; moreover, they frequently use clickbait headlines and elaborated imagery in their articles for views (McCoy). People have the tendency to learn from their mistakes if they are deceived a few times by clickbait headlines and elaborated imagery, so they would stop clicking on Wade’s and Goldman’s articles. Although, people cannot learn from their mistakes if they do not realize that they make one. Wade’s and Goldman’s huge income suggests that their audience do not realize they are being deceive, because the political views and misleading information in their articles frequently agrees with their audiences’ biases. Sharon Kaye, a John Carroll University philosophy professor, states “If a lie is telling you something you want to hear, you’re more likely to think it’s true” (Agrawal). Hence, Wade’s and Goldman’s audience thinks the information they are consuming is true, because that information fit their political biases. Hence, this is the reason why fake news producers keep earning money regardless of their information’s credibility: they effectively exploit the people’s hunger for bias information. Furthermore, biases are problematic for the society because they hinder critical thinking.

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It is extremely difficult for people to think critically when their minds are full of biases from fake news. Bias is subjective, but critical thinking is objective. Objectivity is essential when we logically analyze or summarize something, and subjectivity in an analysis is strictly prohibited. Furthermore, subjectivity can only be used in an opinion or synthesis. Thus, a logical analysis of fake news requires one to be objective; still, it would be difficult for one to objectively and logically analyze fake news if one’s mind is full of biases. This problem goes far beyond analyzing fake articles, because a society without critical thinkers is a society that can be easily deceive. We do not want to be easily convince into fighting unjust wars, and we certainly do not want to be tricked by online con artists. Therefore, it is crucial that individuals empower themselves to think critically, because it helps them harder to be deceived and exploited, and concurrently helps society to battle fake news.

 

Critical thinking involves logically questioning the given information. Therefore, Nick Baumann, a senior enterprise editor at the Huffington Post, suggests a good list of analytical questions for readers to judge information they are consuming: “Does the writer show her work by saying how and where she got her information? Or does she simply assert things? Do the names in this story sound made up? Are experts cited? If you Google their names, are they real? The main question is the classic one: Is this too good to be true?” (Rosenberg). Besides Baumann’s suggestions, Rosenberg from The Washington Post recommends readers to question the articles like: “If there are numbers in the story, where do they come from? A recognized think tank or data-gathering government agency? If the writers quote people, do they provide some indication of whether their sources’ statements are true?” The nine analytical questions above place an emphasis on the contents and sources of the information. Thus, answering those questions should help individuals to effectively evaluate the information that they digest daily on the media. Furthermore, good arguments and solid facts take a huge amount of time and effort to develop, and thus critical thinking should easily eliminate most of the fake news on the media; since, fake news does not regularly provide concrete facts and good arguments. For example, according to McCoy, Wade’s and Goldman’s articles only take a small amount of time and effort to compose, and therefore their articles have vague information and weak arguments. Nevertheless, thinking critically requires individuals to spend a huge amount of time and effort too; moreover, they certainly do not want to carefully analyze every piece of information that they consume daily on the media. Hence, it is the media job to ensure that people consume true information, regardless of the people’s critical thinking ability. Moreover, it is urgent for the media to reduce their prolific amount of false information due to an effect called the “truth illusion.”

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“Truth illusion” is where people’s belief about basic facts is easily distorted if they encounter a prolific amount of incorrect information. According to a 1970s experiment from the University of Toronto, psychologists have discovered that their subjects trusted false information that were presented numerous times (Burgoyne and Hambrick). The experiment above depicted the “truth illusion.” Unfortunately, the truth illusion has been happening in America. According to Pew Research Center in 2016, “64% of U.S. adults who say completely made-up news has caused a great deal of confusion about basic facts of current events.” Pew’s statistic basically states that there is so much fake news in the media that people do not know what is real anymore. On top of that, thinking critically might not be effective because the aforementioned analytical questions require people to search online; however, they would have a difficult time finding real information since most of the search results they receive are likely false. Luckily, in response to Pew’s statistic, Facebook has pledge through denounce fake news through its “Journalism Project,” where it promises to reduce the spread of false information and make it easy to flag fake news (Burgoyne and Hambrick). We do not know how will Facebook stem misleading information, but they certainly do not want to put all their efforts in flagging fake news to warn people.

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Warning people about fake news can be useful, but only to find out that they would forget the warnings. Intuitively, warning people about fake news would help them to stay away from it; similarly, we intuitively warn people to stay away from cigarettes because they are extremely unhealthy. However, it is not that instinctive because according to a 2005 study from the Journal of Consumer Research, people thought the fake information are true, despite that they were warned a few days earlier (Burgoyne and Hambrick). Basically, the study is stating that people would trust misleading information, regardless of their warnings; likewise, it is like warning people that cigarettes are bad, only to find out that they totally forget about the warnings and start smoking a few days later. Thus, battling fake news is not going to be easy and intuitive because it is a digital epidemic, and therefore we must take a scientific approach to effectively cure the epidemic.

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Public service announcements (PSAs) are scientifically proven to be effective at preventing fake news. For instance, according to scientific field studies from Cialdlini, a social psychologist, “pro-recycling PSAs work best when they portray recycling as something that is both approved of and common, and anti-littering PSAs work best when littering is portrayed as something that is both disapproved of and uncommon” (Burgoyne and Hambrick). As a result, we regularly see litterers as unethical and dirty, so we tend not to act like them. Therefore, if we have PSAs that portray fake news as something that are “disapproved and uncommon,” then we would reduce the amount of deliberate fake news consumers and effectively warn people about false information; since, people would see fake news as profoundly immoral, and we would tend to not consume it. Actually, according to Burgoyne and Hambrick, Facebook is working with the News Literacy Project to produce public service announcements that will inform people about fake news. While PSAs can effectively warn people about fake news and reduce its consumers, it can reduce the amount of fake news too. The goal of anti-littering PSAs is to reduce trash on the street, so in the context of this paper: trash is fake news and the street is the media. Logically, when PSAs portray fake news as “uncommon and disapproved,” then there would be less fake news on the media, just as there would be less trash on the street. Thus, PSAs can effectively warn people about fake news, while reducing its consumers and the prolific amount of it on the media. Still, we do not leave out any solutions, like flagging fake news, because we must fight the digital epidemic with everything that we have.

 

The media has a profound impact to our society because it rapidly spreads information or ideas to inform people. While the media’s influential power can be used for good intentions, its power can also be used for evil intentions like disseminate fake news. Undoubtedly, fake news is harming the society by endangering the people, obstructing critical thinking, and distorting information. Fortunately, the government is getting involved in educating people about media literacy, and it is pivotal that we vote for AB 155 and SB 135 in future elections. Popular social media platforms, like Facebook, are joining forces with the government to stem fake news by applying public service announcements to warn people and flagging fake news. However, instead of placing our faith in the government’s and the media’s efforts to stop fake news, we should train our minds to think critically about the information that we consume. By training ourselves to become critical thinkers in a technological world, we would evolve into an advanced society where we are free from the perils lurking on the media.

 

                                                                                     

Sources:

1. Agrawal, Nina. “Where Fake News Came in – and Why Some People Believe It.” The Los Angeles Times, 20 Dec. 2016, www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-fake-news-guide-2016-story.html . Accessed 19 Sept. 2017.

2. Barthel, Michael, et al. “Many Americans Believe Fake News Is Sowing Confusion.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center's Journalism Project, 15 Dec. 2016, www.journalism.org/2016/12/15/many-americans-believe-fake-news-is-sowing-confusion/ . Accessed 19 Sept. 2017.

3. Burgoyne, Alexander P. and David Z. Hambrick. “Flagging Fake News or Bad Sources Won’t Work.” Slate, 12 Jan. 2017, http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2017/01/educating_people_about_sources_won_t_stop_fake_news.html . Accessed 19 Sept. 2017.

4. Chen, Adrian. “The Fake-News Fallacy.” The New Yorker, 28 Aug. 2017, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/04/the-fake-news-fallacy. Accessed 19 Sept. 2017.

5. King, Alexandra. “Celebs, social media stars raise $1 million for Somalia.” CNN, Cable News Network, 18 Mar. 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/03/18/us/social-media-somalia/index.html. Accessed 19 Sept. 2017.

6. McCoy, Terrence. “Inside a Long Beach Web Operation that Makes up Stories about Trump and Clinton: What They Do for Clicks and Cash.” The Los Angeles Times, 22 Nov. 2016, http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-fake-news-20161122-story.html . Accessed 19 Sept. 2017.

7. Reilly, Mollie. “California Lawmakers Want to Teach Students How to Spot Fake News.” Huffington Post, 12 Jan. 2017, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fake-news-bills-california_us_5877b837e4b06df924cb375d . Accessed 19 Sept. 2017.

8. Rosenberg, Alyssa. “Opinion | Should you trust that news story you’re reading? Here’s how to check.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 1 Dec. 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2016/12/01/should-you-trust-that-news-story-youre-reading-heres-how-to-check/?utm_term=.e35357a4cdca. Accessed 19 Sept. 2017.