Will The Real News Please Stand Up
Where do most of us get our news from? Chances are you and I
go to Facebook. Although when we get our news from Facebook it is most likely tailored
to us from behind the scenes. Facebook has created entertainment news, news
that is click bait. Homepage hits have dropped drastically like the article
states Thompson 2014. In the last twelve months, traffic from home pages has
dropped significantly across many websites while social media's share of clicks
has more than doubled, according to a 2013 review of the BuzzFeed Partner
Network, a conglomeration of popular sites including BuzzFeed, the New York
Times, and Thought Catalog. Audiences get new stories from all sorts of
outlets, the local news on tv, news app on our smartphones, newspapers, and tabloids.
While the news we get on television is mostly accurate, you can bet some of the
news on the internet has some false information inserted into it.
But chances are that we see these headlines that interest us
while we shop, and they are located where we check out. That’s right
supermarket tabloids, they are tabloids that are focused on celebrity gossip,
crime stories, and astrology. Many of the facts in these tabloids are called
into question but they still entertain us much like social media does. What we
read in the internet is always correct, right? Not everything that is displayed
on your screen is the truth, but we sure do like it. Say for instance Facebook
has a lot of evergreen stories. March2017 “The word evergreen is most often
used by editors to describe certain kinds of stories that are always of
interest to readers. Evergreen content is content that is always relevant—much
like the way evergreen trees retain their leaves all year around.” Facebook does this a lot with pages that start
with “You won’t believe what so and so wore to the red carpet”. But since they
just show us a glimpse of some legs and a red-carpet people become curious. Well
in my eyes I would be curious too, hmm who are they talking about and what are
they wearing.
The news feed on our Facebook is not what it seems like. The
new feed is directed more towards entertainment news. News that pulls the
audience into never ending likes, liked pages that advertise pop ups and gather
information that steers us to other web pages, it’s a never-ending cycle that
swallows into the deep abyss of Facebook. On my Facebook account I actually
follow the local news stations. Since
most of the time I do not have time to sit around at home and watch tv, but I do
have my phone with me always, it is easier for me to get my news that way. The
other way I get news is through community pages like, Las Cruces Community
Watch. Its news that gets out first sometime even faster and more accurate than
the local news. But as the article
states social media tends to steer you into other not so important news.
Citations:
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/02/the-facebook-effect-on-the-news/283746/ Derek Thompson Feb 2014
Evergreen stories March 2017 -google.com
Lorenzo, I personally find very difficult what to beleive or not to believe on social media! Fake news is kinda like an epedemic and it affects us all. The huge impact social media has on us all present day is very concerning. Good blog!
ReplyDeleteThat's quite a generalization about what people share or don't share on their "news" feed. It isn't necessarily entertainment that we see on Facebook; if you recall from previous readings/videos, you know that your own searches determine what you are most likely to see. The issue pointed out in the article is about the reliability of the so-called news we see there.
ReplyDeleteLet's face it; Facebook is ok for news but it doesn't replace real news sources and it is littered with fake news, debunked nonsense and conspiracy theories. The fact that you have to fact check pretty much everything on there makes it a suspect source for information.
Again, the key always seems to be critical thinking on the part of the reader.