The Goal of the BBC is to Inform, educate and entertain. The aim of Public Service Broadcasters is to provide people with reliable, accurate information that is not biased, that is neutral, in so far as is possible. Recently with the Far Right getting into positions of power, to control the Radio Television Suisse, the BBC and many other broadcasters and media outlets the need for theory of knowledge, history and Media Studies has become essential.
I would like to throw philosophy into the mix, along with ethics but I think that the three topics in the title will suffice. In theory of knowledge you learn to know what you know, but also to understand what you do not know. You learn about the limits of what you have learned in order to better handle the information that you do understand. It has been years since I studied Theory of Knowledge so I’ll jump on to the next topic. History.
In history you question information. You ask “Who wrote it”, “When did they write it”, “why did they write it?”, “how did they gain from this information”, “Who had to gain from this information” and more. The point is that history is not just the study of the past. It is the study of veracity. It is learning to contextualise the information we get, within the context of that information. To put it plainly, did the loser, or the winner, write this information. In the age of “Social Media” and endless streams of information every point if view has an outlet. Information doesn’t have to be demonstrable for people to believe it, as long as it lines up with their agenda.
The idea that we don’t need to, or shouldn’t study history is wrong for the simple reason that we learn historical facts but we also learn how to identify reliable information from opinion. We also learn to see three or four points of view, before digesting the information and coming to our own conclusions.
The final topic is media studies. When I studied this topic it was a subject that was relevant to media professionals because at the time if you worked in radio, publishing, television of others you need a good grasp of the social context and history of the media, to work effectively.
Today we are in an age where everyone is an author, a publisher, a presenter, and more. We are in an age where everyone has the same reach as everyone else. The gatekeepers are emotion, algorithms, sensationalism and more.
Remember, when people read from newspapers headlines gave the who, what, where. how, why, and when answers in the headline, and people would read the article if it was relevant. Remember that back then we bought the entire paper, daily, or simply picked it up in a pub and read. Clickbait headlines don’t give us any information, and yet future generations are growing up with clickbait titles, rather than informative ones.
Last week Twitter spoke of “legacy” verified accounts, as if they were something to be scorned and avoided. Verified accounts were to ensure that people knew who was authoritative and who was an amateur. Remember Andrew Keen wrote about how the World Wide Web would change our lives, before social media even came on the scene. Musk is an amateur. He thinks he is a media professional but he is just a wealthy amateur with funds. That’s why he’s targeting the memosphere, rather than the broader World Wide Web.
As Instagram went from being a photo sharing app between friends, to a glossy magazine for influencers, as facebook went from being a discussion forum for uni friends, to a place to play zynga games, and when twitter went from being a glorified chatroom to a Right Wing amalgamator so the age of Social Media ended.
Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have become tools to spread disinformation and opinions, rather than social networks. Twitter and Facebook were once tight knit communities of friends talking with friends of friends.
I was triggered to write this blog post because of this article: https://archive.is/hEwOj.
But their concerns were largely drowned out by Twitter and Substack accounts with collective followings in the millions, who cheered the finding. With a better understanding of the Manufacturing of Consent such articles and such groups would have less of a voice on social media. When Andrew Keen wrote his book he worried about bloggers, but as today proves, the problem is not with opinionated individuals, but opinionated corporations and people with the funds to buy websites like Myspace when Keen was writing, and Twitter, as I write this blog post. The danger isn’t individuals. The danger is wealthy corporations and wealthy individuals with specific agendas.
By studying Theory of Knowledge, History and Media Studies people would be equipped with the tools to use social media safely. They see the smoke and mirrors. They are less vulnerable to manipulation.
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