Strategically Communicating

Government’s, social groups, and conspiracy theorist are using social platforms to frame agenda-setting narratives, which can be extremely dangerous in a democratic society. In this week’s readings, we examine how fake news has serious implications on these political agenda-setting narratives. Social media is shaping the way Americans communicate locally and nationally. As the Internet is further embedded into our everyday lives, how do we ensure people aren’t unknowingly reading fake news, propaganda, click-bait headlines, or being fed mainstream bias opinions?

The article Combating Fake News: An Agenda for Research and Action examines methods to combat fake news. It emphasized education on media literacy, making the “truth” louder, and building a shared infrastructure for social media research to ensure we reestablish credibility for media distribution. In the highs school classrooms in Italy – they are conducting experiments to help kids identify fake news and verify source references. It will be interesting moving forward to see how the American classrooms respond to the crisis of fake news. Some of the other options included government regulations of free speech, which could ignite a wildfire of controversy.

In summary, we learned the dangers of fake news, how we can combat it, and the importance media literacy. Given the current climate of fake news in society, it is imperative that we, as strategic communicators, continue to attempt to stop the divide fake news is creating in our democratic society.