Fanning The Flames

  It feels as though every time I view any sort of social media or news apps or channels that the news is flooded with death, economic decline, corruption, political conflict, and many other negative and oftentimes saddening events. And in a time of pandemic that has impacted billions of individuals and has brought devastating effects to our country, consuming negative news can be especially triggering and harmful to mental health. Furthermore, the term, “negativity bias” has been increasingly common as negative events are reported on more frequently. Ultimately, I can assume that many other individuals also feel as though negative news oftentimes appear to be majority of what news outlets choose to focus on in terms of deciding what events are “newsworthy.” Therefore, I decided to take a look at increasing occurrence of negative news reporting and possible reasons as to why media outlets often choose to report on such negative, saddening, emotional evoking events. The article at...

 After our last module I thought it would be interesting and relevant to take a look at the role social media plays in politics and political trends. For this specific post I will take a look at Facebook, as there has been much conversation and controversy that last few years about Facebook involvement in politics. Facebook was created to connect millions of people worldwide as a major goal by Zuckerberg. Ultimately, Facebook has done exactly that. Facebook (and other social media platforms) have brought attention to certain global and social issues that many would not be aware of otherwise. Therefore, there are positive aspects of social media, but Facebook has the potential, and has led to political polarization and impacting political landscape, especially in the 2016 election. Through the "algorithmic solution" set up to only show individuals certain post based on what they like but also what the company wants to promote, and censorship and removal of videos and articles ...

  After reviewing the materials for this week's modules, particularly the Associated Press article from Steve Peoples in September 2020, I have decided to mention a theme that is relative to that particular article. "Loaded" words, also known as emotional language, emotive language, emotionally charged words, loaded language, and other terms is an important idea to discuss further, especially in relation to news and journalism. When looking at biases in media is important to understand what loaded words are, and how to spot them in news. According to the The Free Dictionary, a loaded word as one “that carries additional emotional weight or significance—whether positive or negative—beyond its literal meaning.” Loaded language is generally used in journalism as a means to elicit a particular emotional response among the intended audience. The emotional response can be anger, sadness, anxiety, and other emotional feeling and responses. In addition to motivating a specific re...

  One aspect that my blog focuses on is political polarization and distrust in our government. One reason that political polarization and distrust have become so prominent, especially in younger generations, is the sources of which individuals view their news. Social media platforms being used as means to viewing news is increasing and has steadily increased since popularity of social media has boomed. Consuming news through social media (as a main source of news) can be problematic for many reasons. Unfortunately, much of the news that is circulated through social media is oftentimes extremely biased and is not reliable or factual in many instances. This contributes to spreading of misinformation to individuals who view social media as their main sources of news. According to a study done by Pew Research, many social media companies have been criticized regularly for not putting more effort into stopping spread of misinformation on their sites in a time where so many look to socia...

To add onto my previous post I have attached an article from Forbes that focuses on maintaining critical thinking skills, a skill that is imperative to have in a time where information is available endlessly online. And unfortunately depending the possible agendas behind those sources, the information may not be reliable or factual. When viewing news, especially on social media, it is important to use fact checkers to verify. The Forbes article mentions some such as; Snopes, Poltifact, FactCheck.org, Washington Post fact Checker and others. I have attached the article that goes into further detail of how to avoid fake news and think critically in a time where social media is so prominent.  Forbes Article on Critical Thinking https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewarnold/2018/02/27/how-to-maintain-critical-thinking-in-the-modern-world-of-new-media/?sh=6af8b00350e5

When studying politics, it is imperative to be able to think critically when viewing media sources. Although some sources are more biased than others, biases are everywhere in the media. Therefore, it is incredibly important to think critically when reading media sources that discuss politics and current events. Some questions to critically access a news article providing certain information would be,  1.     Is this a valid/ reliable source? 2.     How biased (generally) is this source? 3.     What agenda might this source be attempting to achieve by publishing this information?  In addition to questions above there are many other ways to spot biases in media to better improve critical thinking skills when processing information relating politics and current events, but for this post I have decided to focus on these 3 major ones to keep this introductory post sweet and simple!