Google, Facebook and Drudge: What the new titans of media mean for America
Google, Facebook and Drudge: What the new titans of media
mean for America
BY JEFF MCCALL, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 11/30/17 01:50 PM
EST
Just a few decades ago, citizens who wanted to stay on
top of the daily news had a narrow range of options. They could read a
newspaper, watch an evening network newscast, or maybe just have a conversation
with a trusted neighbor or co-worker. Today, the digital world today has
created a Wild West of information resources. One could question, however,
whether we're really more informed compared to pre-digital news consumers.
Much depends on the quality of the gatekeepers who
determine what news topics get traction in the public mindset. Those media
agenda setters used to be grizzled, professional journalists who understood
news and public dialogue. Sure, power was centralized in the hands and heads of
powerful news editors of the big television networks, wire service and major
dailies. But, at least, they were journalists who had some conception of their
civic duties as public surrogates and had the noses to sniff out news of
substance.
Today, the gatekeeping role of establishing the national
news conversation falls increasingly on social media sites, search engines and
news aggregator web sites. The backgrounds and motivations of the technical
whiz kids should give the nation pause to consider the broader implications of
this newfound influence.
A handful of elite websites — the top four, respectively,
Google, Facebook, Twitter and the Drudge Report — are transforming the public
sphere. They wield tremendous power as the leading “referrers” of news content
on the web. News narratives in the broader sphere now rely heavily on the
traction that evolves from these titans of industry as more and more Americans
say they rely on social media for getting their “news” of the day.
There's some cause for concern about this dynamic.
According to Pew Research Center, 45 percent of Americans indicate they now get
some of their news from Facebook. That means these news consumers are
increasingly influenced by digital behemoths whose methods for news referrals
are mysterious and for which there is little accountability. One must wonder if
news consumers are better informed on matters of substance or if their heads
are filling up with mush.
As they become increasingly influential gatekeepers, we
should question whether these digital powers can be trusted to exercise their
role in a balanced manner. Trust in the “news media” has been dropping for 15
years, coinciding with the growth of the digital world. That relationship is
worth pondering.
President Trump criticized Facebook this fall, tweeting,
“Facebook was always anti-Trump.” Facebook chairman Mark Zuckerberg punched
back by saying, “Both sides are upset about ideas and content they don’t like.”
Yet, despite Zuckerberg's claim, Facebook has generally
been suspected of pushing left-leaning content. Several former Facebook workers
said in a published interview in 2016 that they suppressed news of conservative
political leaders. Evidence suggests that Facebook and Twitter both suppressed
dissemination of WikiLeaks’ 2016 DNC documents. Twitter blocked a campaign ad
earlier this fall by Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) before later
backing down. And a study conducted by Robert Epstein of the American Institute
for Behavioral Research found that Google searches on the 2016 presidential
election routinely ranked pro-Clinton articles ahead of pro-Trump articles.
Digital executives explain that search results and
referrals are generated by computer algorithms that are not designed to promote
any particular political cause. That might well be true, but the algorithms are
designed by people and managed by people. At the least, the public needs to be
told more by these tech giants about how their content systems work.
Where the left is able to rely on tech giants, the right
has just one place to look for news: the Drudge Report, which gets about thirty
million visitors each day. That's a fraction of the more than one billion who
visit Facebook, but it's still been enough to draw the ire of the mainstream
media. A Washington Post story published in November accused Drudge of
"regularly" linking to "Russian propaganda," by which it
meant sites such as Russia Today and InfoWars. (Drudge ironically received no
thanks for the hundreds or perhaps thousands of times the site has linked to
stories from the Washington Post.)
Outside of Drudge, can anything be done to stem the tide
of potentially "fake news" bombarding Americans on social media every
day?
One effort to that end is an initiative from the Markkula
Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University called “The Trust Project.”
Its objective is to create a system by which news articles circulated online
will have icons attached that consumers can click to find out the background of
the news source. Clicking on the icon will provide readers with “Trust
Indicators” to help consumers assess the professional standards of those news
organizations.
The bad news? Search engines and social media platforms
will be partnering in the effort. It's a noble undertaking, to be sure, but
having the digital power brokers referee the process could be like having
baseball players call their own balls and strikes.
The news world has changed one set of gatekeepers (legacy
media) for another set (digital search engines and social media). Whatever else
can be said of that change, it's safe to say times were simpler when consumers
only relied on Walter Cronkite.
Jeffrey McCall (@Prof_McCall) is a professor of
communication at DePauw University.
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