As a journalist and a media academic, I have always assumed that I’m a fairly savvy media consumer. I know when something is genuine, and when what I’m looking at misinformation, disinformation and propaganda.
Election 2019 may well prove a watershed event in more ways than one. This will likely be the first time in the country’s electoral history that more voters are following the campaign online than via conventional media – television, newspapers and radio.
This week New Zealand’s largest newspaper, the NZ Herald, launched digital subscriptions for its online content, making history at the same time. Its paywall is the first for a general newspaper in New Zealand.
We’re only days into the federal election campaign and already the first instances of “fake news” have surfaced online.
The British press is regarded by the rest of the world as notoriously raucous. If you need an example of how raucous, the way British newspapers have reported Brexit is only one recent, if much-discussed, example. Headlines such as “Who will speak for England?”, “Enemies of the people” or “Draw a red line on immigration or else” stirred up controversy and put the media’s role in political and democratic debate into sharp focus.
Although the term itself is not new, fake news presents a growing threat for societies across the world. Only a small amount of fake news is needed to disrupt a conversation, and at extremes it can have an impact on democratic processes, including elections.
These days, anybody with an internet connection can be a publisher. That doesn’t make everybody a journalist. This distinction has become more important than ever in light of two recent events.
Thirty-nine journalists have been detained in Venezuela this year, far more than in any other Latin American country, according to the Caracas-based Institute for Press and Society. In this repressive environment, journalists are finding ways to avoid censorship and still cover the country’s crisis.
The American press seems fixated on Fox News and its owners, the Murdoch family.
As a media scholar trying to understand today’s rapidly changing media landscape, I view the Mueller investigation coverage as a direct symptom of a political-infotainment-media complex that has blurred the lines between tabloid soap operas and respectable journalism.