Blog: Next New

To think of a new "type" of new media that does not yet exist, one should look at the current situations to know which solutions to look for. To name one specific issue within today’s society, it would be fake news. Fake news is commonly going viral as there are many articles created solely to mislead people into believing something that isn’t always necessarily true. These days, click-through rates are valued more than the content of something and this, unfortunately, often results in the spread of false propaganda in which individuals are more likely to spread. With the rise of technology, real and fake news now spread at faster rates and can be shared onto different platforms. 

To overcome this growing issue, I have pondered upon a new media device that I believe will change the way our society works as well as new media. This device is a software that scans all online information and grades it by authenticity and reliability. For example, if one were to scroll through their Facebook feed, before clicking on a shared article, there would be a color scale next to the article representing how truthful a source is. As viewers see the graded scale include colors such as red to represent unreliability to green as trustworthiness, users may now spread information that is accurate instead of propaganda that influences the way a society views politics.

Though this has been tried before using AI, it has not been perfected as there are many flaws within the algorithms. As creators of spam content keep evolving, they are constantly learning to find the loopholes within these algorithms and mend the truth. The problem is, as there is are millions of different opinions, everyone has a different perspective of a story and the truth becomes blurred. To battle this, the device can scan the articles and test for not only engagement of source but also which platform the source was published on and what other platforms linked this article as a reliable source. Additionally, this software can compare the title of the article to the content within the post and show how relevant the body of the post is to the title, ultimately demolishing clickbait articles. In order for the device to differentiate between real and fake information, the developers need to program this scanning device carefully. After feeding examples to the software, the device should have the ability to distinguish the authenticity. From this, the device grades the article by percentage and viewers are able to know whether or not the article is worth reading.