5 Journalism

Role of Journalism in Democracy

You might have heard of journalism, or the media, referred to as the Fourth Estate. There are a couple of different background stories about where this term came from. My personal favorite is that we have the three branches of government, and we think of the media as being not a branch of government, but equally important to those three. So it’s kind of like the fourth piece to the puzzle. And we think of it as being equally relevant to the government because it is so important for citizenship.

Current pressing issues. The first I’m sure that many people are familiar with and that is disinformation and misinformation.  really interesting article about media literacy. So again, anytime you look at one of these things that we find online, I think it’s important to take a peek at the date. So this is four years ago. But one of their main findings that I think is really interesting is that people who receive a little bit of training and media literacy often have worse media literacy than people who did not. And I know, that’s very counterintuitive, but I’ve seen it actually, in real life, outside of academia. And I’ve also seen it with some of my students where they learn a little bit of research and how research works. And they sort of use that information toward confirmation bias. So they might learn a little bit about some of the downfalls of empirical research. And then they’ll use that information to tear apart research articles that provide information that they disagree with, and not using it towards actual media literacy. So I think that that’s an interesting article that goes to show how poorly we’re doing with media literacy. And also that interesting side effect.

For information about traditional journalism, please view the following video by Aida Ramusovic.

Current Issues: New Technology

Deep fakes. The basic idea of it is that this is something to be concerned about. But it’s not something that we should be panicking about. It’s just something that we need to educate ourselves. And just the idea, and we’ve talked about deep fakes before, is that people can make videos that seem very real, even though they are not like that’s a really poor, deep fake, but there’s better ones out there for sure. So that is definitely a current issue, just to be aware of.

For information on journalism and new media, please view the following video by Yanti Sastrawan.

Guest #1 Yanti Sastrawan: 

Current Issues: Safety 

Write about Belarus dictator landing that plane to get the journalist

References

Ayyub, R. (June 29, 2021). The Indian government continues to harass journalists. I’m facing prison over a tweet. The Washington Post.

Editorial Board (June 10, 2021). Myanmar has imprisoned 50 journalists-including two Americans. They should all be freed. The Washington Post.

Miller, M. E. (June 29, 2021). Google takes downmaps made by Thai right-wingers targeting free speech activists. The Washington Post.

Miller, M. E. (July 7, 2021). A Dutch journalist exposed the mob and defied death threats. Now he’s been shot in the head. The Washington Post.

Nicas, J., & Browning, K. (September 10, 2021). Judge orders Apple to ease restrictions on app developers. The New York Times.

Savage, C. (May 24, 2021). White House seems to affirm Biden’s vow to bar seizure of reporters’ phone data. The New York Times.

Savage, C. (June 12, 2021). Garland confronts long-building crisis over leak inquires and journalism. The New York Times.

Savage, C. & Benner, K. (June 4, 2021). U.S. waged secret legal battle to obtain emails of 4 Times reporters. The New York Times.

Sullivan, M. (January 17, 2021). Three ways the media can vanquish the Big Lie that will linger even after Trump is gone. The Washington Post.

Zakrzewski, C. Rulings in Facebook, Apple antitrust cases show how tough it is to define a monopoly in the age of Big Tech. The Washington Post.