On 26th April, the last Friday of the month, the Discussion Group had its monthly meeting.
It was a good and interesting discussion worth posting for U3A Javea members The discussion leader, usually the one who suggested the topic, sent the group members some relevant links for reading before the meeting.
Increasingly, people around the world are getting their news through social media. Social media apps such as Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Telegram and many others have “newsfeeds” which are increasingly taking readership from “legacy” global news organizations such as BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, New York Times and others.
What makes the “Wild West” of social media such a fertile ground for news consumption? And how much can you trust what you read on social media newsfeeds?
Many members pointed out that social media in general, and also social media news feeds are consumed more by younger users than older ones – but while some members in the U3A group did not use social media at all, others said they use it daily.
An important suggestion was that everybody should question published stories and articles, but usually, it doesn’t happen that way and many stick to their own biases which are supported by the social media we prefer. We even don’t raise a question about why having different opinions parties, groups of people or even opposing countries behave that way, or what their interests, arguments or concerns are. Maybe they are worth listening to and hearing? Such information often is not in main news outlets but on social media
Social media is everywhere even without us noticing it, a lot of it is for commercial purposes, and our data is a source of profit.
Mainstream media may often have its own agenda, which increases people’s distrust and further increases their intention to rely more on social media. Besides, social media news feeds serve a critical function in quickly evolving war zones or disaster areas, where amateur journalism is the only way to get the news out to the world.
The discussion leader made a very interesting comment well worth applying when reading any news – real information of actual news today is usually in the first few sentences and the rest of the article, very often if not always, is based on “experts” quotations and opinions, an author or journalist assumptions, impressions and conclusions. News feeds intentionally make people emotional, headlines are quite often designed that way.
While some members welcomed reading opinion pieces, others viewed these expert opinions as inferior to just being given the straight news.
At the end of the discussion the group agreed that social media news feeds were a combination of news, opinion, rumour and gossip, and care should be taken to assess the trustworthiness of each article we read.
