Question

You are a manager/supervisor in a company or organization in your desired future industry. At a recent staff meeting the decision maker within your company/organization (Vice President, Captain, Director, etc) stated that he/she is aware of the negative publicity the company/organization has received due to an issue covered in the media. The decision maker wants to implement some type of action to address the issue and asks you to prepare a report that includes an analysis of the situation, recommendations to address/resolve/prevent the issue, and a visual aid.  

In order for you to complete this assignment you will need to conduct some research about the issue (causes, prevalence, statistics, liability/costs) and methods to address/remedy/prevent the issue. Your research should include: at least FOUR scholarly/trade journal articles (use library electronic databases) and at least THREE Internet sources.

Answer 1

ASSUMED for REPORT:

Company Nature :Social Media Company

Issue: Fake News reported

REPORT:

CAUSES:

The fake news genre’ (Egelhofer & Lecheler, 2019), referring to the intentional spread of false information, masked as traditional news, to advance political goals or generate ad revenues.

‘‘Fake news’’ has also been deployed by States as a weapon in information and ideological warfare - SAGE Journal.

Amol Rajan, writing for The Independent and the BBC, said: “The truth is hard, expensive and boring. Whereas lies are easy, cheap and thrilling.”So fake news are al;so created for creating sensation.

PREVELANCE

Per SAGE Journal - For all the current hype around the term, ‘‘fake news’’ is by no means a new phenomenon. It is as old as the hills. The press, particularly the partisan press, has always peddled biased opinions and on occasion, stories that lack factual grounding.. Misappropriation or misinformation can also serve as strategies to stimulate public debate. The famous example of ‘‘Bye, Bye, Belgium’’ is arguably a case in point.6 In December 2006, RTBF, the French-language public service broadcaster in Belgium, interrupted regular television programming with a breaking news report about the splitting-up of Belgium as a federal state.

In 2010, a similar, high-profile hoax was broadcast in Georgia. The progovernment Imedi TV station broadcast a fabricated report about a Russian invasion of Georgia.

The British press have a particularly bad reputation for this, regularly printing huge, unsubstantiated headlines, followed by a tiny apology for the lie a few days later,As Amol Rajan, writing for The Independent and the BBC, said: “The truth is hard, expensive and boring. Whereas lies are easy, cheap and thrilling.”

hamdling fake news was a major preoccupation for the United Nations (UN) in the early days of the organisation with the onset of the Cold War. The problem was framed in terms of the threat posed to friendly relations between peoples and States by the systematic diffusion of deliberately false or distorted reports.

SOMESTATISTICS:

Increase In The Number of (Debunked) Misinformation January to April 2020 60 60 53 50 40 40 Number of Debunked Misinformation 31 30 20 15 15 10 10 10 3 January 20 January 27 March 9 March 23 March 30 April 6 March 16 Week beginning February 3 February 10 February 17 March 2 Sources: Study on Misinformation (Released on April 18, 2020) iS.

Where Exposure To Fake News Is Highest % who say they were exposed to completely made-up news in the past week 49% 43% 35% I. 31% 30% 29% 25% Turkey O Mexico Brazil United States South Korea Spain Australia Canada 11 19% Japan 17% France 16% United Kingdom 15% Germany 9% * Selected countries n=74,000 respondents in 37 markets (Jan/Feb 2018) @StatistaCharts Source: Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2018 FAKE Forbes statista

LIABILITY/COSTS:

The onus to come clear is clearly on the media organization to either come out clean or etsablish the basis of reporting.Damage to reputation can then be claimed or any loss suffered by a person because of fake news will have to be made good.THes ecould be huge and cannot be underestimated.

REMEDY:

On March 7, 2017, the Information Society Project at Yale Law School and the Floyd Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression hosted a workshop intended to explore the ongoing efforts to define fake news and discuss the viability and desirability of possible solutions.

Suggestions as per above paper asre :

1. Content consumers must be better educated, so that they are better able to distinguish credible sources and stories from their counterparts.
2. Content creators and content distributors need to adapt their professional norms to new technologies of distribution, better explain these norms to the public, and protect them from erosion. They should also engage in practices that increase the likelihood of producing trustworthy, high-quality information.
3. Content distributors—particularly digital content distributors—should engage in practices that minimize the spread of fake news and promote the dissemination of trustworthy, high-quality information
4. Accreditation systems: There might be some form of accreditation system for content creators and/or content distributors.
5. Technological design: Design might be harnessed to both promote more credible content and/or to present content in a way that fosters consumer skepticism and critical analysis
6. Market incentives can be modified, either through legal or social mechanisms