Living in a society where use of social media is increasingly popular, news and controversy are bound to spread like wild fire. This makes it extremely important for us to be aware of the ways in which media can be and is manipulated.
I'm sure you've all heard this before - how media objectifies women and convinces them to strive for an impossible "perfection", how we are persuaded into buying certain products and services, etc. This is nothing new. And while those issues are important, media manipulation is so much more than just the portrayal of women and consumerism.
I think that the scariest thing of all is not knowing what's going on in the world around us. What is the truth? Who controls the truth? Think about a news station you watch, or newspaper you read. What kind of stories are covered, and which ones aren't? Our knowledge of world events and issues are limited by our source of information. If the source chooses to skew facts or present biased information, then our knowledge is also distorted and restricted. The "truth" is created for us, and a lot of the time we have no choice but to simply accept it - usually we have no evidence to disprove what the media tells us.
But let's be honest - not everyone watches the news, or reads the newspaper, especially not the younger generation. But chances are, if you are reading this right now, you do use social media - Twitter, Facebook, etc. - and to me, that is the most dangerous of all. As I already said, information just spreads like wild fire with the use of social media, and with the government's recent targeting of various social media outlets, we have to be extra cautious of the information being provided to us.
Lately, the US military has been monitoring and analyzing the activities of Twitter users and other social media services. They have been trying to gather information on social connections and how messages are spread. While they claim that they seek to develop tools to counter misinformation and deception campaigns with “truthful information”, leaked papers from NSA suggest that US and British intelligence agencies intend to use social media for propaganda and deception.
Researchers from a study called "Who Will Retweet This? Automatically Identifying and Engaging Strangers on Twitter to Spread Information“, said: "Since everyone is potentially an influencer on social media and is capable of spreading information, our work aims to identify and engage the right people at the right time on social media to help propagate information when needed.”
Other researchers from a study at Georgia Tech said: “Breaking news stories and world events – for example, the Arab Spring – are heavily represented in social media, making them susceptible topics for influence attempts via deception.”
Authors from yet another study backed by military funding said: “As another example, when anti-government messages are spread in social media, government would want to spread counter messages to balance that effort and hence identify people who are more likely to spread such counter messages based on their opinions.”
The government is continuously coming up with new ways to manipulate our feelings and opinions on various subjects. I find this to be very frightening, especially because I too am a big user of social media. There's nothing more scary than being manipulated without even knowing it. But hopefully, by being aware of this manipulation, we will be a little less susceptible to it. I'm not saying you should drop all social media right this second, but you should always be cautious of what you read! Even with this blog. Who am I? What is my intention?
- A.W.
I'm sure you've all heard this before - how media objectifies women and convinces them to strive for an impossible "perfection", how we are persuaded into buying certain products and services, etc. This is nothing new. And while those issues are important, media manipulation is so much more than just the portrayal of women and consumerism.
I think that the scariest thing of all is not knowing what's going on in the world around us. What is the truth? Who controls the truth? Think about a news station you watch, or newspaper you read. What kind of stories are covered, and which ones aren't? Our knowledge of world events and issues are limited by our source of information. If the source chooses to skew facts or present biased information, then our knowledge is also distorted and restricted. The "truth" is created for us, and a lot of the time we have no choice but to simply accept it - usually we have no evidence to disprove what the media tells us.
But let's be honest - not everyone watches the news, or reads the newspaper, especially not the younger generation. But chances are, if you are reading this right now, you do use social media - Twitter, Facebook, etc. - and to me, that is the most dangerous of all. As I already said, information just spreads like wild fire with the use of social media, and with the government's recent targeting of various social media outlets, we have to be extra cautious of the information being provided to us.
Lately, the US military has been monitoring and analyzing the activities of Twitter users and other social media services. They have been trying to gather information on social connections and how messages are spread. While they claim that they seek to develop tools to counter misinformation and deception campaigns with “truthful information”, leaked papers from NSA suggest that US and British intelligence agencies intend to use social media for propaganda and deception.
Researchers from a study called "Who Will Retweet This? Automatically Identifying and Engaging Strangers on Twitter to Spread Information“, said: "Since everyone is potentially an influencer on social media and is capable of spreading information, our work aims to identify and engage the right people at the right time on social media to help propagate information when needed.”
Other researchers from a study at Georgia Tech said: “Breaking news stories and world events – for example, the Arab Spring – are heavily represented in social media, making them susceptible topics for influence attempts via deception.”
Authors from yet another study backed by military funding said: “As another example, when anti-government messages are spread in social media, government would want to spread counter messages to balance that effort and hence identify people who are more likely to spread such counter messages based on their opinions.”
The government is continuously coming up with new ways to manipulate our feelings and opinions on various subjects. I find this to be very frightening, especially because I too am a big user of social media. There's nothing more scary than being manipulated without even knowing it. But hopefully, by being aware of this manipulation, we will be a little less susceptible to it. I'm not saying you should drop all social media right this second, but you should always be cautious of what you read! Even with this blog. Who am I? What is my intention?
- A.W.