Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Social Medias Quality of Giving News and Information

I believe that social media has decreased the quality of news and information because a lot of what you see or hear from social medias can be false or non accurate information. People can now make up their own news or non important news and post it every where like on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I find some people post videos about news on Youtube that doesn’t even relate to what the title of the video states or what the information is about. Also, it has been edited to what the poster believes or what they want the viewers to believe. Moreover, a lot of these websites can post information but have no source/proof on where they got or heard there information.(They can misrepresent themselves and there is no one to answer to.)

A good example of this is with 911, a lot of theorist made posts of inaccurate information, that the government was responsible for the falling of the twin towers. They post videos over the net and articles trying to persuade viewers to believe in their information, which can cause people to doubt what is real and what is false. Also another good example is Wikipedia, since anyone can post/edit information and possibility give inaccurate or false information. You also never know where these people are getting there information from.

Therefore, what I’m trying to get to is that of course social media is good at giving us information but a lot of the information and news can be fake/made up which deceases the quality of information we're getting. Since it causes you to double check what you hear and see and have doubts in what’s true or false. It also makes it very difficult to distinguish the difference between the truth and false information.


2 comments:

  1. Great post, you hit on a few key points that are essential when arguing the cons of social media with regards to information relay. Your bit about editing and YouTube videos fits in well with the discussion about sound bites and short or edited posts on my blog. I also enjoy that you mention that individuals must double check information. A lot of research has been done in this area and it appears that we really are a TV nation. What I mean by this is that when watching TV, we very commonly watch something, absorb it, but rarely question it. It appears that individuals are likely to do the same when interpreting information from social media/the internet. Although social media and the internet allow us to actually go searching for what we want, we are still more likely to absorb what we find rather than questioning it.

    Anyways, I like your ideas and can definitely see where you are going with them.

    Dale

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  2. Hey Josh, I agree with your thought about how the quality of information has decreased. But I don`t agree with your point about 911 lol. In a way I believe the U.S government was behind it all. Watch the conspiracy theory on 911 and let me know what you think.

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