Facts and science don’t matter in the new media ecosystem
What follows is the abstract of my paper just published by Comunicación y Hombre, of the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria.
The emergence of search engines and social media networks in the past two decades created a new media ecosystem. It allowed the instantaneous creation, distribution, manipulation, and sharing of content to a global audience by anyone with a smartphone and internet access.
This ecosystem was ripe for exploitation by actors with aims of profit or propaganda to disrupt society and threaten democratic processes. Their disinformation sowed distrust and undermined the credibility of the press.
The dispersed, decentralized nature of this communication has made it hard to police. However, new countermeasures are emerging based on international collaboration on systems for rating trustworthiness of publications and journalists. The technology platforms are collaborating on some of these efforts, but are resisting efforts to have regulators interfere with their business model.
Here is the link to access the article in English.
How the press is struggling against ‘toxic’ disinformation