Issues in media studies 1.O

Critical issues in media studies

Mis/Dis Information- 

One of the most common issues of online media, is the influx of fake news, streaming in from various sources. ‘Fake news’ in itself is an umbrella term and can be broken down into three main types— Misinformation, Disinformation and Malinformation.

All three types revolve around two particular aspects– falseness and intent to harm. While misinformation is mostly based on falseness, disinformation is a blend of both and malinformation is fully directed toward harm even if the news isn't fake. These news may or may not be intentional, but the element of chaos is undoubtedly present. 

 

Types of Misinformation and Disinformation:

1. Fabricated Content: Completely false content;

2. Manipulated Content: Genuine information or imagery that has been distorted, e.g. a

sensational headline or populist ‘click bait’;

3. Imposter Content: Impersonation of genuine sources, e.g. using the branding of an established

agency;

4. Misleading Content: Misleading information, e.g. comment presented as fact;

5. False Context: Factually accurate content combined with false contextual information, e.g. when

the headline of an article does not reflect the content;

6. Satire and Parody: Humorous but false stores passed off as true. There is no intention to harm

but readers may be fooled;

7. False Connections: When headlines, visuals or captions do not support the content;

8. Sponsored Content: Advertising or PR disguised as editorial content;

9. Propaganda: Content used to manage attitudes, values and knowledge;

10. Error: A mistake made by established new agencies in their reporting. 

The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has also given birth to new forms of misinformation and disinformation. We call this Synthetic Media to indicate the artificial production, manipulation and modification of data and multimedia by automated means, especially AI algorithms, to mislead or change original meaning. There are fears that synthetic media could supercharge fake news, spread misinformation and distrust of reality and automate creative jobs.

“Deep Fakes” are one type of synthetic media where a person in an existing image or video is replaced with someone else's likeness. While the act of faking content is not new, deep fakes use powerful techniques from machine learning and AI to manipulate or generate visual and audio content with a high potential to deceive. Deep Fakes have garnered widespread attention for their use in revenge porn, fake news, hoaxes and financial fraud. Industry and governments are concerned to detect and limit their use. Some countries already have a national response or national institutions are working on it. 

Plagiarism- 

The century-old Society for Professional Journalists has a simple statement on plagiarism in its Code of Ethics: “Never plagiarise. Always attribute.”

The Golden Rule: Plagiarism is traditionally defined as taking someone else’s work and presenting it as your own. In journalism, it is considered one of the primary sins of the profession. Many journalists have lost their jobs or faced legal action for lifting others’ writing or other production.

On what Carr deems ‘class,’ that is, giving appropriate credit to the originator of a piece, The New York Times has struggled, according to its own public editor. In a piece titled “Giving Credit: A Work in Progress at The Times”, Public Editor Margaret Sullivan delineates cases when The New York Times used other people’s work as a springboard for its own. Sullivan wrote:

The Times takes pride in its original reporting, and excels at it. What it doesn’t always excel at is giving full credit to the work of other news organisations.

The most common excuse for plagiarism is that in working with research or background material, the journalist got confused as to what was his own and what came from someone else. Sometimes journalists say they intended to add attribution or a link, but they forgot to do so in the editing process.

To the extent these excuses are honest, there are effective ways to prevent this problem. Journalists should keep background information in a file, or electronically in a different colour, so it’s obvious what came from somewhere else.

There are also anti-plagiarism programs that can search the Web for similar wording; finished stories can be run through such a program to determine what wording may not be original.

In the digital era–and with the general popularity of cut-and-paste research–questions have been raised about whether there are different degrees of plagiarism. Is all plagiarism the same? Can plagiarism sometimes be a minor infraction? Is "patch writing" resulting from cutting and pasting as serious as lifting hundreds of words? Can rewriting the work of others be considered “creative work” in itself?

Some believe that, for example, in compiling a quick listicle (“10 Things To Know About Mauritania”), it’s not a major sin to take some basic information from another source without substantially rewriting it. (Wikipedia, for instance, says its material can be reused or redistributed by anyone without charge. But suppose a journalist imports wording for a listicle from a copyrighted publication?

Others, including most large news organisations, believe any plagiarism is too much. They do not carve out exceptions for listicles or Wikipedia; they believe that any unattributed copying of others’ phrasing is a fundamental violation of journalistic ethics.

Some digital news organisations, in an attempt to make attribution an essential part of their workflow, require staff members to use hyperlinks to their digital sources, even competitors. One issue that arises here, however, is whether it’s enough to simply provide a hyperlink to show that information came from another source (e.g., “China’s rising population”) or if it’s also essential to name the original source in the text itself (e.g., “China’s rising population, according to U.N. figures”).

Each news organisation must make its own determination about how it will handle instances of plagiarism–bearing in mind that whatever its own standards, there still may be legal exposure if its staff is viewed as stealing content from others.

References

United Nations. (n.d.). Using Social Media In Community Based Protection: A Guide.

https://www.apa.org/topics/journalism-facts/misinformation-disinformation

Plagiarism and attribution - ONA Ethics. (2017, April 27). ONA Ethics. 

https://ethics.journalists.org/topics/plagiarism-and-attribution/