Media/Society

Blog Post No. 1_ Ang, Louise Victoria T. March 10, 2022

References:Croteau, D. & Hoynes, W. (2019). Media/Society: Technology, Industries, Contents, and Users (6th ed.). Sage Publications, Inc.Imelda, D., Mendoza, G. A., Ballar, K. J., & Yap, J. (2021). The Link Between Fake News Susceptibility and Political Polarization of the Youth in the Philippines. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3964492Kuo, R. & Marwick, A. (2021, August 12). Critical disinformation studies: History, power, and politics. Misinformation Review. Ong, J. C. & Cabañes, J. V. A., (2018). "Architects of Networked Disinformation: Behind the Scenes of Troll Accounts and Fake News Production in the Philippines". Architects of Networked Disinformation: Behind the Scenes of Troll Accounts and Fake News Production in the Philippines. 74. https://doi.org/10.7275/2cq4-5396Shoemaker, P. J., & Reese, S. D. (2014). Mediating the message in the 21st century: A media sociology perspective. Routledge.

Blog Post No. 2_ Ang, Louise Victoria T. April 14, 2022

SEARCH: WWW

Search Engines, Regulations and Accountability

“People become very honest when they’re in front of a search engine.”

Do you agree?

While reading through the materials about media ownership, I was reminded of a K-drama I watched in the past. The show was called Search: WWW (2019) and it revolved around the competition between two web portals namely, Unicon and Barro. As a web portal, they don’t only provide the search engine service but they also display the real-time search trends. Real-time search trends show what people are looking up at the moment and they play a huge role in determining which social issues are talked about. The protagonist, Bae Ta Mi who works as a director at Unicon is faced with the responsibility of regulating the display of these real-time search trends as political and private parties attempt to take control and fabricate them for their own interests. In an argument with her boss, Song Ga Kyung, who altered the trend list to support a presidential candidate she says, “The search words are not yours, it belongs to the people. You violated our people’s right to know.”

In this drama, these two web portals handle the majority of internet searches and are not regulated by the government. Therefore they are left to their own devices to set their own code of ethics. As agreed upon by Unicon and Barro, the Code of Ethics for Web Portals is as follows:

Article One. A web portal must be very progressive and creative. Nothing can violate the user’s right to know and their freedom of expression.

Article two. A web portal should not manipulate or conceal information. It must protect its users from all kinds of pressures, violations, restrictions, and discriminations that try to harm their rights.

Article Three. A web portal must not be swayed by one’s private interest. It should remain independent from internal and external influences such as politics, economics, and society. It must not intervene in anything that might harm its impartiality.

Article Four. A web portal must manage, supervise, and be responsible for everything that happens on the site. It should never stay quiet about them or try to avoid them.

Article Five. A web portal’s power to influence com from its users, and influence them at the same time. It must never aim to gain unjustifiable benefits, and it must not wield any improper influence.

According to Shoemaker and Reese (2014), the ultimate power within the organization lies in ownership. When privately owned, the owner’s interest is followed even if it is considered a risky decision. On the other hand, large corporations are constrained to engage in behaviors that are deemed profitable. In addition to this, organizations also work within political constraints such as the government’s laws and policies (Croteau & Hoynes, 2019).

Similar to the situation portrayed in Search: WWW, Google handles two-thirds of the internet search queries worldwide. It is also important to note that Google is also an advertising platform and a major distributor of media through search and Google news. With major control over the market, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Google is driving our internet economy (Gelfer, 2010). Unlike traditional media companies, tech companies are not as regulated. As such there have been debates on whether or not there should be some form of government regulation over organizations like Google (The New York Times, 2010). However, this also raises the question of how the government can ensure fairness in its regulation and that it will not manipulate the system once organizations disclose their algorithm (Mayer, 2010).

Unlike how the conflict was resolved in Search: WWW, the primary goal of earning profit makes it difficult to have organizations agree on a common code of ethics. Hence, until now there is still ambiguity about how we can demand accountability from tech organizations that impact our media environment.

Now that you know that there’s a lot more going on behind the search engine, will you be as honest in front of it as you were before?

References:
Croteau, D. & Hoynes, W. (2019). Media/Society: Technology, Industries, Contents, and Users (6th ed.). Sage Publications, Inc.

‌Gelfer, J. (2010, July 19). Do Search Engines Need Government Regulation? |IePlexus |.https://www.ieplexus.com/industry-news/10359-do-search-engines-need-government-regulation/

‌Meyer, M. (2010). Do Not Neutralise the Web’s Endless Search. @FinancialTimes. https://www.ft.com/content/0458b1a4-8f78-11df-8df0-00144feab49a

Shoemaker, P. J., & Reese, S. D. (2014). Mediating the message in the 21st century: A media sociology perspective. Routledge.

The New York Times. (2010). Opinion | The Google Algorithm (Published 2010). The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/15/opinion/15thu3.html?_r=3

Blog Post No. 3_ Ang, Louise Victoria T. May 9, 2022

Helplessness & Hope: A Sem Ender Reflection

Studying the sociology of media while simultaneously watching the world around me succumb to the effects of disinformation is incredibly frustrating. Here I am reading countless pieces of literature on how the media impacts our lives. Including how dominant ideology is maintained, how economic constraints put a value on what is newsworthy, and how information can be weaponized to slowly strip away our democracy — but still knowledge of theory can only do so much.

As termed by Croteau & Hoynes (2019), because of new media technology we are now in the participatory age where we are no longer passive audiences but are now active users. This allows us to choose what media we are exposed to, interpret existing media content, and create our own. This shift should have empowered us to take control of the information circulating in our society but somehow I feel like together with our new roles as users, we became complicit in spreading disinformation. However, this is not to put the blame on the citizens. According to Cushion (2019), we have also entered the age of post-truth politics wherein objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion compared to appeals to personal belief and emotion. Consequently, this makes the public more susceptible to the sophisticated fake news and disinformation spun by the government. Furthermore, a study on the behind the scenes of troll accounts and fake news production in the Philippines by Ong and Cabanes (2018) has stated that:

“The problem of disinformation production goes deeper than any one caricatured hero or celebrity villain; it is systemic, deeply rooted, and entwined in the cultural fabric of Philippine society.”

With this, we can see how the problem of disinformation is more systematic rather than individual. Learning about this made me feel so helpless. My mind was plagued with questions like: Are all our learnings for nothing? Is our life truly at the mercy of these architects of disinformation? How sure am I that the information I am consuming is the truth?

What gave me hope despite all this is the knowledge that I am not in this fight alone. Being in this class allowed me to see other individuals who are aware of the impacts of disinformation and who are, in their own way, trying to change this rotten system. We still have a long way to go in applying what we know in theory to our society but as long as there are people who are tirelessly working for a more informed society will be there with them — hopefully, the next generation reaps what we sow.

References:

Croteau, D. & Hoynes, W. (2019). Media/Society: Technology, Industries, Contents, and Users (6th ed.). Sage Publications, Inc.

Cushion, S. (2019). The Political Impact of Media. In Curran, J and Hesmondhalgh, D. (eds). Media and Society. 6th edition. Bloomsbury Academic.

Ong, J. C., & Cabanes, J. V. A. (2018). Architects of networked disinformation: Behind the scenes of troll accounts and fake news production in the Philippines. Architects of networked disinformation: Behind the scenes of troll accounts and fake news production in the Philippines.

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