‘We media’ and democracy- Tom Ellis

 

The majority of the news stories I collected over the summer for my ‘we media’ I collected over the internet. They predominantly came up on my newsfeed on Facebook and I read them because I thought the headline sounded interesting and was intrigued to learn more. On the other hand some of the other sources I used to collect the news stories from were official news channel websites such as the BBC and the daily mail. Moving onto the point of reliability of these sources: one of the stories that came up on my newsfeed was linked in with the current Syrian refugee crisis, this was off of the official BBC news website however I was linked to it via my Facebook newsfeed. I do believe this source to be reliable as not only were all the other major news websites and newspapers reporting on the same subject but the BBC is an unbiased network as it is paid for by peoples taxes , meaning they have to appeal to all audiences. Therefore on this basis I believe the BBC news story to be reliable as it has got to be true as all other companies were reporting on the same subject at the same time and the BBC has to appeal to all audiences so will not change or distort the story to appeal to certain audiences. As I mentioned earlier I found the story via Facebook I believe this to be slightly worrying as I know that news story that appear on my newsfeed are meant to appeal to me and the type of people I am friends with this means I may not be getting the full story or just getting stories based on my friends interests which I don’t believe to be fair. When I found the Syrian refugee story I read through the entire article on the BBC news website as it intrigued me and I am interested in what is going on in the world around me.

 

Onto my second point: as I mentioned previously a small number of my news stories I did not find about via Facebook I went onto the internet and browsed through all the major news channels. I got this story off of the Daily Mails website which is subsequently known to be quite a right wing newspaper therefore I believe it to be quite an unreliable source of news and current affairs as the stories will be made to fit a certain group and appeal to the upper classes. Due to this I believe it may lead to some distortion within these news stories which may in turn lead to them not being one hundred percent true. The story I read about on this website was one about NASA receiving photographs of Pluto’s surface. The surface looks to be arctic in nature and I personally found this quite interesting. This story was relatively simple and easy to find I accessed the Daily Mails website via google and just scanned around looking for a story that caught my eye, one opposing reason to my previous point that leads me to believe this story may be more reliable is the fact that I did not find it on my Facebook Newsfeed and will therefore not reflect the interests and political views of my friends on Facebook. The fact that I went onto the internet and found this story independently leads me to believe it to be more reliable than my previous news story as it was a story that caught my eye and I found quite interesting myself. This means that the story had no other influences leading me to it such as Facebook or my groups of friends on Facebook. Although again considering both sides of the argument I think it is a 50/50 mix between reliability due to me discovering the story myself but unreliable as it is from what is known to be quite a right wing newspaper.

 

The next news story I discovered and recorded for my ‘we media’ coursework over the summer was on the sun newspapers website. Again I accessed this story via the internet not through Facebook I did it under my own accord and again scanned around the website until I found a recent story that caught my interests. When considering the reliability of these sources I again believe this story to be rather similar to my previous one. The story was about a schoolgirl who had been expelled from her school, she had been a bullying victim and her bully had been allowed to stay on at school. The similarity between the reliability of this source and my previous source is that the sun appeals to quite a left wing audience and is predominantly meant to appeal to the working classes. I believe if I was looking down my Facebook newsfeed a story similar to this may have come up by a similar newspaper as my friends on Facebook are quite evenly split between working class and the upper classes  which I believe will be reflected by the content on my newsfeed. Although in this case I did find the story independently, I believe this story appealed to me as I am in school and I can relate to the story. The reliability of this source I believe is a fifty fifty split as I did find it independently meaning it will be a true reflection of my personal interests and beliefs, However on the other hand it may also not be as the newspaper is made to predominantly appeal to a left wing audience therefore leading me to believe it may be rather biased in its story orientation and selection process. Although my political views are quite wide and I like to think of myself as rather unbiased and have proved this through the mention of this story and my previous story, as they were at completely opposite ends of the political views. I also tend to believe that Facebook definitely is not a reliable source for news stories due to the programming of the software and the fact that it shows thing it thinks you will be interested in based on your friends and likes.