Social Media- The New Watchdog

I’m pretty sure that your daily appetite of digital spice will get compromised here. The welcome seems a bit harsh? But looks like it’s the new norm now. The title seems pretty straight forward. Let’s try seeing the unseen now shall we?

Journalism: Not So Native Now

There are three dimensions to traditional journalism. Rather than going by the definitions, let’s look at their modern day interpretations instead:

• Production, which is nothing but a white collar negotiation at the editorial level to make the news well, tasty.
• Distribution to n number of social media platforms, which gain currency by adding advertisements and sponsors.
• The inescapable consumption.

But sadly, the Chinese whisper of the information across these three stages gives rise to an unwanted fourth dimension which is ‘Autonomy and Prestige’.

This differential to maximize the profit by creating revenue opportunities is nothing but a commercial intervention which is done by disseminating misinformation, disinformation and fake news, tailor cut to gain advantage over a polarized society.

Let’s exemplify this by looking at the life cycle of a ‘tasty’ article:

• The writer’s conscience gets satisfied when the publishing house buys it.
• The publishing house gets satisfied due to the rant the article brings and hence monetizes the increased traffic on the page.
• With the sharing plugins being available, the social media also gets a fair share of advantage. Let’s not forget the extra ads here as well and the data being stolen when you keep debating with the bots.
• Well it doesn’t end here. The trolls and meme lords become merrier too because of the freely available content and the social media platform being apparently the new legitimate source of news today.

The Media-Social Media Overlap

The platforms which could have been curated to art, original content and promotional purposes have now jumped into the news circus. This has made the hallmark of journalism polluted. Well what’s the cause of this?

In the good old days one had to have a major related to media to even step in that career domain, unlike the social media admins today who are just college graduates (or not).

Not that journalists don’t use social media but the vice versa isn’t always the sweetest savory. A generic misogynistic page bio looks like this: “I teach women how to behave, I teach men how to be manly”. It’s this bigotry and the open hurling of abuses which brings such pages thousands of followers overnight.

Why does the trap succeed?

Social platforms seem to have taken the unnecessary task of dividing the world into good and evil. Because of this, we humans are seeking to punish the offenders. Even when a topic comes up in your group chat, a feedback element surrounds you, until the conclusion is: “Hey, we approve of this, we feel good.”

People shift their opinions to attune them with the current and trendy social norm, which is a compromise on one’s own character. The herd mentality or a ‘group membership’ if I may say, being given more priority over individuality is cancerous to a holistic society where one should live in.

Let’s exemplify this by analyzing the business end of this outrage. Everybody ranging from a kirana store to a Fortune 100 player has faced social fury. In 2019, a protein powder making company in the UK marketed its product where the posters questioned: “Are you beach body ready this summer?”

When accused by the social media on body shaming, their response was another miss: “We extend our sympathies to the fatties in the country”.

It’s Poker, Where We’re All In

There’s a fine line between claiming to be morally correct and being nasty. Ethics being at the very backstage, the sequence of news, outrage on that news, then the outrage being the news is viscous. Tags overloaded with communal hate and personal attacks is a clear indicator that it’s the internet, holding the humanity’s lowest. Such petty acts force even a creative artist to make content like reacting to hate comments, platform biases, basically anything which is devoid of any value.

The ask is to stop ourselves from dignifying stupidity with a response. Let’s have a look at our DMs. Oops! looks like we just did that.