Skip to main content

The Internet: The Factual Candy Store (Post 6)


















The standard of truth held dear by news media organizations and American culture has been diminished and often disregarded because of the rise of the internet. That is not to say that we were ever entirely truthful. While our version of democracy has always required a certain degree of transparency and communication, we have never shied away from propaganda and smear campaigns and rose-colored depictions of our own society (except when it was inconvenient). However, the internet has given way to a whole new form of communication and unprecedented access to information. People are free to choose whose writing they read and whose version of truth they listen to because there is an overwhelming variety of options and no time to listen to all of them.

And this is bad. It opens new markets. Because we want to hear what we already believe, we seem to have reached the consensus that there is no longer a need for local papers and truthful news, and instead, there needs to be news that's catered towards certain demo/psychographics. All of the images included in this post are screenshots of real websites taken on December 14th. Some of them are utterly ridiculous, and others are ones that some of us might read regularly. All of them are guilty of some level of falsehood. At our school, Fox News is often mocked for its desperate attempts to defend the buffoon we call a president, but CNN is essentially just the inverse.

Because get pick and choose which version of truth be believe in, our view of reality will always be skewed in one direction. Even if we're cognizant of the lopsidedness of our information, we're reluctant to change it because examining an opposite view will be uncomfortable. In some cases, reality has been warped so drastically by various different people at once, and the truth can no longer be distinguished. In other cases, the facts will be presented correctly, but the reaction to them and the way that they are portrayed will change the way they are perceived by an individual.

Our generation has to figure out what to do with this. What's better? Engaging people who would otherwise ignore the news with news by making it entertaining and appealing to them or letting those people fall by the wayside and portraying the most mundane, unbiased account of reality in order to remain truthful?

The internet is great in terms of spreading information, but it's bad at weeding out the falsities and making sure we get access to unbiased information that will help us make informed decisions about our future. If nothing else, I hope you enjoyed the hilarity of some of these news sites.

Comments

  1. shay meyerDecember 15, 2019 at 10:00 PM

    With these things in mind regarding the current state of media, one must wonder what sort of impact it's going to have on the kids in generation Z, who are almost completely reliant on the internet as their sole source of information about the rest of the world. Each individual in Gen Z is growing up surrounded by 'factual' information that they want to be seeing, and that only validates the beliefs they already have. Although the argument could obviously be made that previous generations have had the same experience (one could choose to watch Fox News over CNN because it presents news in alignment with one's beliefs) the internet feeds one this information much less to their knowledge than has what previously been possible on TV and in the newspaper. Nowadays, if you like one political opinion post on your Instagram explore page, four others will pop up just like it the next day. I've felt this myself, and know personally how it feels to be surrounded with more and more news that further validates the beliefs I already hold. Will this personalization of information and skewing of fact that occurs constantly on Gen Z's sole source of news potentially screw this generation up? Will each individual be overly assured of the validity of their beliefs, and be increasingly intolerant to information that contradicts these beliefs? I wish I knew the answer.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Si Perfume - Giorgio Armani (Post 2)

Perfume campaigns are notoriously vague, and they often portray sexualized famous people trying to convince the commoners (us) that we will be beautiful once we smell good. This campaign, "Si by Giorgio Armani," takes a different approach. Its main message is that women should take control of their lives and just say, "SÌ." By using their perfume as a symbol of power rather than sex, they are riding the wave of feminism in popular culture and telling their viewers that women will finally have the autonomy and control we deserve the moment we walk through a cloud of their smell-fluid. Shockingly, I think this is absolute bullshit. First, the character in the commercial is very far removed from reality. The idea of freedom she embodies involves sky-diving, wearing couture in a shopping market, and stealing a man's jacket. Few sane people who would buy this perfume, i.e. their target demographic, have the money to go sky-diving, sport couture simply because the
2 comments
Read more

An Ode to Barbara (Post 8)

One of the people interviewed in the PBS Frontline episode "Merchants of Cool" was 13-year-old Barbara, who epitomized the impact of media on youths and youth culture. Barbara, who had grown up watching Brittany Spears and the other over-sexualized Midriffs of the world, was intent on becoming a model and looking like the women she had seen on TV. And it broke my heart. It was horrifying that a child, a 13-year-old girl, was so moved by the image of femininity forced on her by advertising that she flew to the International Model and Talent Association's annual convention and walked on a stage to be judged by adults who wanted to use her in advertising campaigns that would further perpetuate the stereotypes she fell prey to and line their pockets with money. She beamed when she was told that she could pass for a 16 or 17-year-old, and she was told that she was a "good girl," when she said that her main goal was "success." She wore skimpy, sexualiz
1 comment
Read more

"Loyalty beyond reason is where the profits lie." (Post 3)

Many of the ideas presented in  The Persuaders , a documentary on the advertising industry by Frontline PBS, both shocked me and rang alarmingly true. The line that struck me most was, "Loyalty beyond reason is where the profits lie." As sickening as this concept is, I think we can all accept that there's truth to it. Humans feel the need to be accepted, and when they're not receiving the validation they want from the people around them, they turn to something with which they can affiliate. This is where advertising is successful. Cults require social sacrifice and the worship of an immediately visible leader. Brands are simply more convenient. They require monetary sacrifice of a certain, specified amount, and you don't ever have to see the faces of the people whose pockets you're lining. And all the while, your affiliation with that brand gets you the social acceptance you have always longed for. When an individual becomes affiliated with a brand to t
1 comment
Read more