Paper-
[1] Examining the Alternative Media Ecosystem through the Production of Alternative Narratives of Mass Shooting Events on Twitter – Kate Starbird
Summary-
This paper constructs a network graph of the various mainstream, alternative, left and right favouring, government controlled media sources using Twitter data. Certain insights and observations regarding conspiracy theories are extracted from the network graph.
Reflection –
- Thanks to users being able to self report stories, via various different platforms and mediums, it is very difficult to keep track of credible sources and genuine news content. This paper got me wondering if there was a way to actually curb misinformation and fake news online. During a discussion in class, when lateral fact checking was mentioned, I was inspired to think of it as a very ambitious project to design an automated online fact checker to tackle misinformation in online sources. But after reading this paper, I am sceptical regarding the feasibility and accuracy of such a system.
However, one approach that I believe can be employed to curb misinformation and fake news conspiracy theories is using manipulations of weights and bias adjustments to overcome the Selective Exposure and Selective Judgement employed by human readers.
- Further, one way to perhaps (not eliminate altogether, but) reduce the spread of alternative news is that actual stories with solid backing foundations and research proofs should also use click bait titles to grab the attention of readers via invoking Selective Exposure as well as Selective Judgement in them.
- As mentioned, users being able to self report stories, via various different platforms and mediums, makes it very difficult to keep track of credible sources and genuine news content. However, going back to a previous reflection, reputation and karma of users can probably be taken into account before/while displaying the stories posted by them.
This way, the users can be made aware of the context that the writer is posting in and adjust their self bias (take it with a pinch of salt)
- Further, as discussed in class, geolocation, timestamp and verbosity of a certain tweet can also be made use of to more accurately help distinguish genuine reporting of events and fake alternative news spreading misinformation.
