In recent years, there has been an observable increase in misinformation and decrease in media trust.
Research shows that there is a direct connection between rising rates of misinformation and an increase in general lack of media trust. Stubenvoll, Heiss, and Matthes studied and concluded that there are two prongs to how an individual comes to perceive misinformation:
The individual believes that misinformation comes from the biases and intentions of journalists and media conglomerates trying to influence their audience for political or economic reasons.
The individual has been exposed to repeated incidences of intended or unintended misinformation and their trust in media declines.
These researchers also conclude that any heightened awareness of misinformation coming from journalists or other sources will lower trust in all media and that this media trust impacts many other institutions, most of all political institutions, democracy, and elections.
One of the most common complications to effective communication of news and dissemination of political information: the emergence of social media.
Meta and Facebook (Essentially) Run the World
From the beginning of the 21st century until now, social media platforms have become global phenomena that impact nearly every corner of the globe.
Meta (formerly Facebook) owns and operates some of the most prolific social media platforms across the globe:
Facebook
WhatsApp
Instagram
Facebook Messenger
According to Hootsuite’s 2022 report on social media platform usage, Meta owns and operates four of the top seven most-used social platforms, with Facebook being number one.
Although usage rates of Facebook proper recently in North America are spiralling downwards as the population ages, Meta continues its global dominance in other areas:
Instagram remains super popular for Millennials and Generation Z around the world
Facebook is much more popular in the Global South
WhatsApp is a communication monolith outside of the USA and Canada
There are also several major political events that Facebook and other social media platforms had heavy hands in throughout the 21st century – for good and for bad.
So, what does all of this mean? What are the complications behind a single company owning four of the top seven most used platforms across the globe?
As an American company, Meta is a frequent example of American cultural imperialism, defined below by Wiley Online Library:
“The term cultural imperialism refers most broadly to the exercise of domination in cultural relationships in which the values, practices, and meanings of a powerful foreign culture are imposed upon one or more native cultures.”
More specifically to the nature of the social media platforms themselves, a single company having this much power and this kind of track record for misinformation, disinformation, data rights, privacy, and community guidelines is concerning to many as this influences the formation and dissemination of information.
TikTok’s Rapid Rise
A more recent development in the world of social media and media communication is the emergence of TikTok.
Although it is incredibly similar to other popular platforms like Instagram and Facebook (essentially another platform focused on user-generated content), TikTok has dominated the media landscape lately from advertising to 'influencership' to even the music industry. According to Hootsuite, TikTok has over 1 billion active users every month and has been downloaded worldwide over 3 billion times.
TikTok and its algorithm-driven, never-ending For You Page promotes the rapid virality of posts and spread of information. If anyone can create content on any topic and hack the TikTok algorithm enough to get the video a lot of views – rumours, misinformation, or even disinformation can spread incredibly quickly and convince a lot of people to see this as the truth.
The viewpoints and perspectives of (especially) younger generations, namely Generation Z, are severely impacted by the media that they consume and participate in. Now more than ever, this is:
More dramatic and prolific
More complicated and vast
As Ashkenazi, et al. (2020) demonstrate in their study on vaccine hesitancy and measles outbreaks, the rapid rise of digital media (social media networks) replacing much more simple and passive traditional media (newspapers, radio, television) has worsened vaccine hesitancy. This digital media prevalence also makes the messaging and communication battle against vaccine misinformation much more complicated and difficult since the dissemination of information is no longer one-way – it’s multi-directional due to reliance on user-generated content (UGC).
Communication as a Democratic Cornerstone
In the end, the anecdotes told above about the prevalence of social media platforms and how they drive user-generated content, rapid spread of information, information overload, and other consequences, all impact a key cornerstone of societies: communication.
Not only does productive and efficient communication matter for democracies (especially during elections) – truthful communication is important amongst cultural and social spheres as well. Political partisanship and misinformation has divided our families and our communities today more than ever, notably since 2016 with the USA election of Trump and the slew of misinformation and disinformation throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
In their overview of the Canadian Trucker protests of 2022, Meyers, Dishart, and Morgan outline how the use of pseudo-legal interpretations of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, accompanied by white supremacist talking points, influenced the rapid spread and formation of these extreme right-wing libertarian protestors. These journalists point out the websites and blogs that were crafted using “hyperbolic language” and “propaganda” to “blur the line between misinformation, disinformation and legal advocacy.”
By redirecting and taking core legal information out of context, a libertarian spin of sorts was executed and this pseudo-legal information was disseminated online: resulting in a convoy and occupation of sorts of the Canadian capital city. This libertarian, white supremacist segment of the Canadian voter block continue their efforts today through “F*** Trudeau” campaigns (among others) – which will certainly impact that next Federal election and drive support for far right politicians.
With a three party plus government format in Canada, the harsh divide between right and left is more complex than in the USA, but it remains just as vulnerable to far right ideologies (ex. the recent emergence of The People’s Party of Canada and election of Pierre Poilievre as the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada).
Poor or intentionally incorrect communication of things like vaccines, pandemic guidelines, all the way to interpretation of political Charters, has impacted and will continue to impact political partisanship, polarization, and perspectives moving forward.
Research
Ashkenazi, S., Livni, G., Klein, A., Kremer, N., Havlin, A., & Berkowitz, O. (2020). The relationship between parental source of information and knowledge about measles / measles vaccine and vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine, 38(46), 7292–7298. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2020.09.044
Meyers, J.B., E. Dishart, & R. Morgan. (2022). The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/canadas-legal-disinformation-pandemic-is-exposed-by-the-freedom-convoy-176522
Stubenvoll, M., Heiss, R., & Matthes, J. (2021). Media Trust Under Threat: Antecedents and Consequences of Misinformation Perceptions on Social Media. International Journal of Communication (Online), 2765.
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