Media as we know it is changing each and every day. As we all know, major news networks are losing viewership, as social media ramps up its growth in popularity.
The internet’s ability to provide quick, widespread access to video and news stories is able to reach most people quicker. On top of that, people using social media for news have a more intimate connection to current events.
This generation doesn’t want to hear somebody tell them about things after the fact, they want to see it, hear it and feel the high riding emotions for themselves as it unfolds. Stories leaked by real people, immediately as events take place convey a more genuine human response than a newscast can provide.
Social media provides a medium for condolences and expressions of unity, that stimulate people’s desire for emotional gratification. This is the key factor in appealing to millennial audiences.
This emerging form of news is prone to drawbacks stemming from this emotional involvement. People are much more easily swayed, and often don’t check the credibility of their sources amid the emotion.
Confirmation bias is another key problem with news sourced from social media or sketchy online sources. People naturally tend to gravitate to ideas that validate what they believe. Online communities often become homogenous, with only like minded ideas being spread.
Fringe ideas are often given unwarranted legitimacy through the use of these online communities. The more popular these ideas become online, the more visible they are to the general public, which inevitably allows it to influence their beliefs.
Social media has great importance in exposing the severity of events as they occur. We have two glaring examples before us today: The Las Vegas shooting, and the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
In the case of Las Vegas, footage of the shooting was leaked as it occurred, displaying the panicked state. Most importantly, the sounds of the rifle, modified with a bump stock could be heard around the world. It serves as a horrifying reminder of the damage that this weapon can wreak.
Puerto Rico’s desperate situation following the hurricane was quickly showed to the population. A quicker, more urgent response was necessary, and that need was conveyed first by social media.
However, both situations reveal a darker side of using this media as your only means of information.
It is almost impossible to be on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter without seeing some crackpot false flag theory behind the Las Vegas shooting. It is healthy and natural to question the motivations and evidence surrounding the attack, as much more explanation is needed for people to come to terms with this event.
It is the exact opposite of healthy to spread theories that the U.S. government would massacre its own people for the sake of “disarming” the nation, as factual statements. This rhetoric does nothing to help the widening divide in our nation. It creates an even greater air of paranoia, fear and extremity that will slow our progress toward solving the problems of mental illness, violent culture and lack of gun control in the U.S.
Puerto Rico’s case is different, in the sense that social media enjoys making any situation, whether foreign or domestic, about one thing only: Donald Trump. After every press conference, or action taken by the president, a slew of memes and supposed activists begin to flood social media, outraged and crying for change.
Our focus should be solely on helping Puerto Rico recover from the damages dealt by Hurricane Maria. By obsessing over Trump’s actions, social media is only drawing attention away from the actual problem. On social media, anti-Trump rhetoric has become the easiest alternative for an “activist” too lazy to actually search for a solution, or contribute to relief efforts.