How influence and persuasion on social media is a democratic conundrum
We are all friends and family, neighbours even, in this global social village. We’re travelling this bright, shiny thoroughfare of connection and commerce, in harmonious discourse or even conflicting dissertation. But are people are being led down a cyber garden path? Do the seeds being sewn along the Information Highway bloom malodorously of discord, disruption, and disinformation? The World Health Organization (WHO) has called the disinformation surrounding COVID-19 an infodemic that undermines global efforts to control the virus. Is this an indication of how prevalent negative or fallacious persuasion on social media can have disruptive domestic and global consequences. With whom does responsibility lie for ethical communication on social media, and does potential regulation have implications for free and democratic expression?
Literature Review
Infodemic with Misinformation and Disinformation in Pandemic COVID-19 situation: A
Global Case Study, Ratul Datta, Prof. Dr. Tapati Basu D. Litt (2020)
This is a case study examining the WHO’s contention of a secondary pandemic, an infodemic, and combines secondary research examination of statistical data and text analysis. The authors examine how media related to the COVID-19 Corona virus has been disseminated and consumed, examines real and fake news related to COVID-19, and considers what roles and responsibilities are held by mass media, government, and corporate social media.
“… misinformation in the ‘casualty’ category relies heavily on visual content, such as video clips, since the goal is to evoke a physical reaction, often fear or disgust. On the other hand, tweets on the so-called cures and misleading statistics use a lot of text because the aim is to mislead by offering specifics” (Datta & Litt, 2020).
They conclude that while social media platforms are a valuable agency of information dissemination, the means to combating disinformation campaigns is through global partnerships dedicated to public education, including ‘honest conversations’ among governments which must be held to account by mass media journalists.
Misinformation, Social Media, and the Price of Political Persuasion, Allyson Waller & Scott R. Stroud, Ph.D. (2020).
This case study examines the role of social media platforms to disseminate information and misinformation via paid political advertising. The authors analyze the content of media texts to formulate secondary research that theorizes on the democratic impacts of regulating political advertising on social media platforms.
How various social media platforms were utilized to promote specific political candidates or social causes, and the reactive decisions to self-regulate by Twitter and Facebook, are the topics researched by authors Waller and Stroud. They determine the question of paid political advertising goes beyond simply Twitter and Facebook self-regulation and needs to delve further into the potential consequences on free expression in a democratic culture, even if the messages are untrue or skewed or connected to monetary interests. “The challenge remains: who will decide what constitutes unacceptably false and misleading ads, whose monetary influence or interests are unallowable, and what constitutes allowable and effective partisan attempts at persuasion?” (Waller & Stroud, 2020). 5
Pandemic in the Time of Trump: Digital Media Logic and Deadly Politics, David L.
Altheide (2020).
This paper examines the attention-based politics of US President Donald Trump and the impact of how he used misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic. Altheide uses primary text analysis to examine and define Trump’s COVID-19 communications against secondary communications text theory. “The repetitive tweets, with a common form—vulgar and combative language, usually against journalists—converted Donald Trump into a digital meme and enabled the President to dwell on his distorted accomplishments and TV ratings, to downplay health risks, and initially define the lethal virus as a benign hoax” (Altheide, 2020).
Altheide concludes Trump’s politics of fear and the public’s belief in authoritative communications demand attention as the consequences of belief in this case were lethal and immediate for many Americans.
Becoming Digital : Toward a Post-Internet Society: Vol. 1st ed. Vincent Mosco. (2017).
Canadian communications theologist Vincent Mosco undertakes a critical examination of the new digital landscape in this book. He combines the theories of political economy and cultural studies to frame what he calls the Next Internet’s composition of three pillars, Cloud Computing, Big Data Analysis, and the Internet of Things, criticizing the convergence of the three as the catalyst for the “decline of a democratic, decentralized and open source Internet.” Mosco advocates for a public utility Internet guided by universality, equality and open communication. “We now have the technical capacity to achieve these goals. It remains to be seen whether we can build the social movements essential to bringing about a more democratic and egalitarian post-Internet world” (Mosco, 2017).
We’ve outgrown the Information Highway. The current state of Internet communication is very much a Wild West of converging influential interests vying for consumer approval. My sources investigate degrees of misinformation and consider varying specifiers. Why and how misinformation spread has an impact on behaviours and beliefs is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon examined in varying depth among my cited sources, but all conclude there is a pandemic of misinformation related to the structure of social media communication, its lack of regulation, and an absence of integrity on social media platforms among corporate influencers. The means and benefits of Internet communication, the role of mass media, and the accountability of both corporate entities and government needs to be consolidated into a collective invested in considering how to approach a new Internet democracy. 7
References
Altheide, D.L. (2020), Pandemic in the Time of Trump: Digital Media Logic and Deadly
Politics. Symbolic Interaction, 43: 514-540. doi:10.1002/symb.501
Datta, R. & Litt, T.B.D. (2020) Infodemic with Misinformation and Disinformation in Pandemic COVID-19 situation: A Global Case Study. Vol-6 Issue-4 2020 IJARIIE-ISSN(O)-23954396 https://www.academia.edu/download/64230335/Published%20Paper-13.pdf.
Mosco, Vincent (2017). Becoming Digital: Toward a Post-Internet Society, Vol. 1st ed. Emerald
Publishing Limited. https://library.macewan.ca/full-record/nlebk/1572696
Waller, A. & Stroud, S. (2020). Misinformation, Social Media, and the Price of Political
Persuasion. Media Ethics Initiative, Center for Media Engagement, University of Texas at
Austin. https://mediaengagement.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/70-Twitter-Ad-Policy-
Case-Study.pdf