Journalism and the arrival of the Internet
The communication industry as a whole is in a time of growth, but a transformation is being given in the different business models, as well as changes in public consumption habits. They seem new agents in the market and a multimedia convergence is taking place, in addition to changes in the productive processes of information and changes in professions of journalists and communicators.
On the other hand, digital technologies are consolidating: the growth of broadband and communications through mobile devices are modifying the distribution channels of content and forms of consumption.
There is also an increase in advertising investment and a growth in digital media: we are living a period of coexistence between new and traditional media such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
With the arrival of the Internet, the conception of the media as institutions that create and distribute content is broken, since anyone can communicate, issue and receive information. This causes traditional communicative industries to lose the exclusive about social supports, that is, the ways of transmitting information publicly to the whole society.
Social networks bring together millions of people who are consumers and information communicators at the same time. Which produces that newspapers, radio, television chains, etc. lose total control of the information distribution process.
This decentralization produces an informative variety and freedom, but also a loss of information quality. The editors exercised the function of Gatekeeper, deciding what content they appeared in the newspaper and which did not. Now that does not exist and anyone can publish what is like.
In the current media context there is a problem that is based on the difficulty of differentiating which sources of information are reliable, due to the large number of communicators and contradictory messages that circulate online.
This entails the appearance of fake News, a type of bulos whose objective is the misinformation that spreads very fast especially through social networks and press portals. False news is raised to spread at high speed, thus reaching a greater number of population than the verified and, in most cases, not knowing how to differentiate it from a true.
The I study on the impact of fake news in Spain states that in 2022 more false news will be consumed than real, only 14% of Spaniards know how to differentiate them and 4% admit to creating such information. It is true that the phenomenon of misinformation has existed for more than a century, however, with the arrival of the Internet it has increased a lot and it is not known how to be able to eradicate or control it.
False news are based on altered photos and documents, manufactured data and material taken from context to create a distorted or alternative vision of reality. The most frequent issues are obtained from the population they want to deceive. Misinformation begins by finding pre -existing cracks to foster them and take them to the limit.
The valuation of the quality of the information issued is governed by: the professionalism and journalistic ethics, the hiring of the information, the verification of sources, to stick to the data, etc.
The work of journalists is to question everything. The questions help communicators achieve the truth. However, it is easier to confirm the opinions of a population sector than to strive to follow journalistic ethics, trying to support and investigate the subject.
If you publish information that does not leave in a good position a person of political or economic importance at the national or world level (bodies of power in general), the other media and classmates will be dedicated to looking for any detail that denote that the newsIt is false, discrediting it, and to sink the journalist who has brought him to light.
Manipulation techniques have always been used. Among the traditional ones predominate: alter the main issue or point out another different problem, thus diverting the focus of attention;and raise little stable doubts about the character or intentions of the journalists who published the news.
In addition, with the arrival of these new means of dissemination, digital procedures have emerged such as: the use of socialbots that are passed through humans to misrepresent the debate;digital harassment, disproportionate emission of insults and threats to intimidate informants;and application chains such as WhatsApp or Telegram that serve to spread messages so that it is not known what the origin is, so any information can be published.
The large number of news offered by Facebook, Twitter or YouTube produces that the isolated contents, since the unpredictable information. That amount is so huge that it reaches a point where it goes almost unnoticed and is not relevant.
The arrival of the Internet has not deteriorated journalism only because of the fact that anyone can publish information and is something that cannot be controlled, but has provided multiple advantages. Now you can carry out research in a easier and faster way, so the search for truth has become something more affordable, although it is also easier for a bulos to be published if there is no reliable source. In addition, the media can spread news to a greater number of people and update them with the novelties that arise at any time.
Leave feedback