News media broadcast information to the public using outlets such as newspaper, social media, internet, radio, magazines and Television. The news media outlets are likely to engage in propagation, sociocentrism and sophistic objectivity due to various reasons. This essay highlights why the news media outlets are likely to be involved in the highlighted aspects offers other sources of information and critics a peer alternative news sources.
The news sources outlets fabricate information as an approach of discouraging arguments through the strategic distraction created by the posts. For instance, the Chinese government has been hiring over 2 million people who create pseudo accounts and comments positively about the government (King, Pan, & Roberts, 2017). The government motive is to avoid arguing with sceptical people and discussing controversial issues.
Additionally, social media has played a major role in enhancing crime and specifically wars. Conversely, it has also been used to track criminals. The jihadist strategy in Iraq, Syria and others have been made popular in the world by the use of social media specifically twitter (Klausen, 2015). The young generation is using Twitter for self-fabrication purposes as the access is not controlled.
Social media has encouraged conflicts that have claimed several lives. For instance, the genocide that happened in Rwanda was caused by a radio station that spread propaganda encouraging violence against Tutsi marginalized community (Yanagizawa-Drott, 2014). The radio station was responsible for participating in killings both from the civilians and the militia groups. Estimately, 10% of the killings can be attributed to the radio station.
Alternative sources can be used in securing less biased information apart from news media outlets. Suggestively, information from publications made in parliament is reliable as it incorporates the opinion from both the government and opposition.
News from Television is an alternative source that my peers factored. The Television news incorporates live coverage. However, it is subject to biases because the journalist might decide to cover only the areas of their interest.
- King, G., Pan, J., & Roberts, M. E. (2017). How the Chinese government fabricates social media posts for strategic distraction, not engaged argument. The American Political Science Review, 111(3), 484-501.
- Klausen, J. (2015). Tweeting the Jihad: Social media networks of Western foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 38(1), 1-22.
- Yanagizawa-Drott, D. (2014). Propaganda and conflict: Evidence from the Rwandan genocide. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 129(4), 1947-1994.