Abstract
Journalistic objectivity, fake news and public opinion management: A medium theory perspective
Miklos Sukosd
Department of Media, Cognition and Communication
University of Copenhagen
Abstract
In this intervention, I attempt to compare some patterns of “objective news coverage” with two of its recent challengers, “fake news” (in US/Western online media) and “public opinion management” (in China) from the angle of evidence creation and temporality. The formal notion of objectivity in news journalism first means accuracy, i.e., that the professional journalist conveys the exact information that was shared by news sources in the immediate past. In this sense, the media reporting of the Bush administration’s statement that Iraq produced weapons of mass destruction (a claim that later turned out to be untrue), may be considered technically objective. Other principles are non-partiality and the famous 5 W-s of information gathering and verification: Who were the key actors in an event? What happened? When did it happen? Where did it happen? Why did that happen? (A sixth question, “how did it happen” is sometimes added to the list.) Investigative journalists ask the same questions about information that has not been publicly available, or has been purposefully hidden.
As for fake news, their news value is not constituted by these principles and related institutionalized methods of information gathering. Instead, the communicability (interesting, outstanding, surprising features) of fake news becomes a key value that ensures their virality in the online environment. Instead of professional journalists producing evidence according to institutional procedures, the online users who share fake news on a massive scale, become key actors. Verification is missing, virality rulez. This characterizes partisan fake news in the US as well as strategic misinformation by Russia. One witnesses a mediated immediacy, millions of subsequent populist moments of communicative action, network power in the online environment that contributes to the age of populism in the Western world.
Finally, online public opinion management is a key term that originated from the information managers of the Chinese internet. It refers to a managed information regime with many successive layers of soft and hard censorship. The Chinese government has established the “Great Firewall” to create a sovereign, heavily controlled internet (a kind of intranet) that is partially separated from the global internet. In the Chinese internet, global online services (like Google or Facebook) are banned and replaced by domestic services, and many foreign websites with “sensitive content” cannot be accessed. On the one hand, the content (agendas) of the Chinese online services are heavily filtered (many keywords are censored). On the other hand, the big data flows of keywords are supplied to government’s information managers. The massive flows of online public opinion are effectively visualized and monitored in real time. Online public opinion is controlled by information managers by the large-scale, flexible filtering of selected keywords. This takes place in the actual time during which the relevant communicative processes occur (e.g., recently they censor many critical keywords related to the President Xi Jinping).
To interpret the coming of age of online fake news and public opinion management), one may call for a combined use of institutional analysis and medium theory. Medium theory (H. Innis, W. Ong, M. McLuhan, E. Eisenstein, J. Meyrowitz) suggest that different means of expression/perception and related media regimes (orality, writing culture, printing culture, mass communication and television, digital online culture) provide for (create opportunity structures for) different technologies, forms and types of social communication, modes of sensory experiences, cognitive processes, consciousness, cultural forms, and social structure. However, to avoid technological determinism, medium theory should be used together with content- and institutional approaches that also take into consideration power relations of media.
Miklos Sukosd
Department of Media, Cognition and Communication
University of Copenhagen
Abstract
In this intervention, I attempt to compare some patterns of “objective news coverage” with two of its recent challengers, “fake news” (in US/Western online media) and “public opinion management” (in China) from the angle of evidence creation and temporality. The formal notion of objectivity in news journalism first means accuracy, i.e., that the professional journalist conveys the exact information that was shared by news sources in the immediate past. In this sense, the media reporting of the Bush administration’s statement that Iraq produced weapons of mass destruction (a claim that later turned out to be untrue), may be considered technically objective. Other principles are non-partiality and the famous 5 W-s of information gathering and verification: Who were the key actors in an event? What happened? When did it happen? Where did it happen? Why did that happen? (A sixth question, “how did it happen” is sometimes added to the list.) Investigative journalists ask the same questions about information that has not been publicly available, or has been purposefully hidden.
As for fake news, their news value is not constituted by these principles and related institutionalized methods of information gathering. Instead, the communicability (interesting, outstanding, surprising features) of fake news becomes a key value that ensures their virality in the online environment. Instead of professional journalists producing evidence according to institutional procedures, the online users who share fake news on a massive scale, become key actors. Verification is missing, virality rulez. This characterizes partisan fake news in the US as well as strategic misinformation by Russia. One witnesses a mediated immediacy, millions of subsequent populist moments of communicative action, network power in the online environment that contributes to the age of populism in the Western world.
Finally, online public opinion management is a key term that originated from the information managers of the Chinese internet. It refers to a managed information regime with many successive layers of soft and hard censorship. The Chinese government has established the “Great Firewall” to create a sovereign, heavily controlled internet (a kind of intranet) that is partially separated from the global internet. In the Chinese internet, global online services (like Google or Facebook) are banned and replaced by domestic services, and many foreign websites with “sensitive content” cannot be accessed. On the one hand, the content (agendas) of the Chinese online services are heavily filtered (many keywords are censored). On the other hand, the big data flows of keywords are supplied to government’s information managers. The massive flows of online public opinion are effectively visualized and monitored in real time. Online public opinion is controlled by information managers by the large-scale, flexible filtering of selected keywords. This takes place in the actual time during which the relevant communicative processes occur (e.g., recently they censor many critical keywords related to the President Xi Jinping).
To interpret the coming of age of online fake news and public opinion management), one may call for a combined use of institutional analysis and medium theory. Medium theory (H. Innis, W. Ong, M. McLuhan, E. Eisenstein, J. Meyrowitz) suggest that different means of expression/perception and related media regimes (orality, writing culture, printing culture, mass communication and television, digital online culture) provide for (create opportunity structures for) different technologies, forms and types of social communication, modes of sensory experiences, cognitive processes, consciousness, cultural forms, and social structure. However, to avoid technological determinism, medium theory should be used together with content- and institutional approaches that also take into consideration power relations of media.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publication date | 16 Mar 2018 |
| Publication status | Published - 16 Mar 2018 |
| Event | "Evidence & Temporality" - Westminster College, Cambridge, Cambridge , United Kingdom Duration: 16 Mar 2018 → 17 Mar 2018 http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27695 |
Workshop
| Workshop | "Evidence & Temporality" |
|---|---|
| Location | Westminster College, Cambridge |
| Country/Territory | United Kingdom |
| City | Cambridge |
| Period | 16/03/2018 → 17/03/2018 |
| Internet address |