Culf 3331-32

Robert Rocha

7/9/17

CULF 3331-32

Paper 1

Intro:

        With the rise of social media in the average person’s life to the race within media platforms to be first to break a story, “fake news” is more prominent than ever before. “Fake news” can be defined as “any article or video containing untrue information disguised as a credible news source” (GCF Learn Free.org). As traditional media platforms, such as print media, radio, and television become obsolete in the digital age of releasing news, “fake news” has been spread at exponential rates. With American media becoming a race to see who releases a story first or who gets the most clicks, fake news v. real news has become an epidemic we as Americans now face. With the second guessing of American media and its intentions we as country get the media we deserve.      

How fake news started:

In 2017, 81 percent of the population in the United States had a social networking profile, representing a three percent growth compared to the previous year according to statista.com. It is also shown that the number of worldwide social media users reached 2.34 billion and is expected to grow to some 2.95 billion by 2020. Social media has become a source of receiving today’s news at rates traditional media can’t match. With the ease of sharing news on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter the ease of spreading information as well as reaching a mass audience has become unmatched. However, due to the simplicity of spreading information in today’s day in age the ability to spread false, motivated, and fake news has created a dilemma within American media. With Americans relying on social media to receive its news versus traditional media the ability to spread propaganda and give the reader what it wants to hear has caused a rift between traditional and digital media.