Truth in MODERN TIMES

By Phong HUYNH

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (SCPDA) —  In November 2017, Facebook, Twitter and Google implemented “trust indicators” in their interfaces—icons that offer details about the veracity and reliability of the information presented on each platform. In late December 2017, Facebook also announced the addition of new information-auditing algorithms to its software in response to criticisms it had allegedly become a hub for fake news. These efforts reflected the public concerns regarding the growing presence of fabrications, biased statements and convoluted truths on modern information platforms—a potent system of the dangers presented by a post-truth society.

The phrase “post-truth society” has grown popular as a way to describe the current information era. However, an analysis of what “truth” means needs to be considered before a “post-truth society” can be understood. Even at the most basic level, truth is a multifaceted abstraction: an intricate, often convoluted concept with sought-after real world applications. Last year, the public’s anxieties regarding the truth manifested in pop culture, media, literature and a slew of other platforms. In Craig Gillespie’s critically acclaimed film, “I, Tonya,” main character Tonya Harding decisively states, “There’s no such thing as truth. Everyone has their own truth.” Time magazine’s March 2017 cover story was titled “Is Truth Dead?” In the midst of public insecurity, what can be categorized as “truth” varies among the public.

In light of the subjective nature of truth, a more reliable definition of the term may be derived from journalists, the so-called gate-keepers of truth. Objectivity and accuracy, pillars of journalism, are often associated with truth.

“Truth is what the evidence tells us—it is what we have agreed upon over history, facts and data,” said Tia Mitchell, a local government reporter of Dekalb County, Georgia for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Truth is valuable because it’s hard to govern, particularly in government and politics, when people cannot even agree on the facts to move forward.”

This definition of truth offers more clarity to the term “post-truth society.” The Oxford English Dictionary defines “post-truth” as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” The term was chosen as Oxford Dictionaries 2016 Word of the Year because of the growing prominence of fake news. In a post-truth society, facts that conflict with people’s beliefs or intuitions are ignored in favor of inaccurate, biased information which  suits a particular agenda.

“The context of an event and the ability of the person to take that into consideration affects their viewpoint,” said senior Subhash Patcha. “In relation to the Parkland shooting, I feel people are blinded by their emphatic support of guns and the [U.S.] Second Amendment that they would do and say anything to make their viewpoint clearer and correct; then we have have theories like the conspiracy actors and things that don’t make sense.”

The modern post-truth society has been molded in part by the inception of the digital age, in which technology has made news more accessible to the masses. A 2017 survey conducted by Pew Research Center found that two-thirds of American adults get their news from social media sites, with Facebook and Twitter being the most widely used. The abundance of information available on digital platforms is not infallible, however. According to a 2017 survey conducted by Zignal Labs, 86 percent of Americans do not fact-check the information they consume. While digital devices and social media may be practical in their ability to provide quick, easy access to information, this trait also seems to be conducive to the dissemination of false information.

“I wrote a story… about this fake news article going around about an unidentified Jacksonville strip club that people shared tens of hundreds of times,” said Ms. Mitchell. “In writing my article, I realized that [the fake news article] was designed to be salacious, which made people share it. There are other websites that write misinformation for other reasons, whether it is to influence politics, support candidates or initiatives.”

Despite attempts by digital platforms to combat disinformation, the ability to evaluate and share news is mainly reserved for the people. Stanton College Preparatory School students are among digital media users who may inadvertently or otherwise circulate untruths or believe such untruths. Although unethical media sources are responsible to the spread of fake news, consumers who do not evaluate the news they share also contribute to the problem.

“Consumers should question everything they read and ask themselves whether sources are trustworthy,” said WJCT News Director Jessica Palombo. “It’s becoming increasingly difficult for readers to discern what’s real and fake because the imposters are using real news sites’ exact code and reporters’ social media identities to mimic them [reliable news sources].”

Young people could be especially prone to misinformation due to their proximity to technology and digital media. In a 2017 research report by Common Sense Media, 36 percent of children ages 10 to 18 preferred social media sites compared to friends, family and teachers and traditional media, and only 44 percent of children felt they could discern real news from fake news. The constant stream of information accessible to teenagers offers benefits to education, but could also serve to misinform people depending on an individual’s intentions.

“When things are typed in either Twitter or in messages, you cannot hear the person’s voice or the inflections in their tone,” said Stanton Student Government Association Vice President Abby Farah. “[As a consequence] you kind of have to take what the person says. If a person is saying a joke, you might not be able to pick up on it or if someone means to say one thing, you might read it as another thing based on ambiguous language.“

Politicians and famous figures have used perceived disinformation to create an atmosphere of skepticism and distrust. President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and year in office has changed the general perception of truth and how it is interpreted. According to a Washington Post database that fact-checks President Trump’s statements, the president made 2,140 public misleading claims within the first 365 days of his presidency. The president and his cabinet have popularized the use of the terms “fake news” and “alternative facts.” This sensationalization has created a sense of skepticism among the general public regarding the dependability of the media.

“If we don’t know what we can and can’t believe with falsified news, then how can we trust our president or what any other politician says?” said senior C.J. James. “If we can’t trust our own president and the media, then who do we trust to get our news from?”

Understanding the psychology behind information processing may be a useful tactic for those seeking to counter ignorance and deception. The standard model for how the human brain processes lies was first introduced by Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert in 1991. The model proposes a two-step system, in which the mind briefly accepts the new information as true for the purpose of comprehension, then decides whether to accept or reject it. When the brain is bombarded with information, it cannot identify what is really true because of the amount of energy and time this requires, known as a cognitive load. Once the brain reaches its cognitive load, certain pieces of information are either instinctively absorbed or rejected.

“I’m just a high school student—I don’t have government fact-checks I can pull up,” said junior Janey Wolff. “But if I see something I don’t immediately accept, I try to find other big name sources that report the same thing. If I can’t corroborate it anywhere, then I usually disregard it.”

While there is no definite way to distinguish real news from fake, the teachings of media literacy may offer a plausible and effective solution to identifying and evaluating the news.

Media literacy, defined by the Center for Media Literacy as “the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media in a variety of forms,” is a concept that has recently gained traction. For example, in Connecticut and Washington, media literacy has been incorporated into school curriculums across a variety of subject areas. Studying media literacy involves the analysis of movies, propaganda, bias and advertisements to determine their message and purpose. Its incorporation into education systems with bipartisan support seems to be a response to the growth of fake news due to both the capacities of the internet and the 2016 presidential election.

“Media literacy encourages the asking of questions: Who authored the message? Who is the intended audience? What are techniques used to make the message believable? And the most important question—what is omitted?” said Mr. Frank W. Baker, a media literacy consultant and the founder of Media Literacy Clearinghouse, a website dedicated to media literacy. “Media literacy is a lens through which you see your world.”

At Stanton, students are often required to cite and verify their sources for assignments such as research essays, instilling in them an awareness of unreliable information. In this way, some students have developed skills to assess the veracity of the information they receive.

“[When I do my research,] I take statistics into mind and the sources where they got that from, how biased those sources are, if there are any opinions in it, if it actually happened and what people are saying about that,” said junior Taylor Stair. “There are a lot of things to take into consideration when you’re making an opinion and formulating your own beliefs.”

However, many students still fall victim to disinformation through bad approaches to analyzing information. Taking a headline at face value may be enough to sway one’s opinion.

“For a majority of teens, they’ll see headlines and get upset or outraged about certain things,” said junior Brevan Heaton. “When they learn the whole story, I’d like to hope they would react differently.”

One of the main principles of the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics states that journalists must “test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error.” As a professional journalist, they have a duty to report truthfully, and master skills to identify real or fake news in their job. This firm belief in upholding and investigating the truth may be useful to students who believe they are living in a post-truth society.

“For students, investigative journalism is a far more narrow type of journalism than is often used today,” said Claire Goforth, Editor-in-Chief of Folio Weekly. “Investigative journalism involves digging into things, analyzing stuff on your own and reaching conclusion based on facts and data and things you can observe in the world [to recognize] trends and stuff that’s not revealed yet.”

The complete, unsullied truth can be difficult to obtain as the American socio-political landscape undergoes rapid change. Additionally, while technology has allowed for easy access to a nearly infinite amount of information, sound analytical skills are necessary to make effective use of this information. Potential methods of combating ignorance have resulted in initiatives like media literacy, though the primary concern remains to extinguish disinformation itself.

This story appeared in Volume 34, Issue 3 of the Devil's Advocate, published in March 2017. Read the full issue here.