Why is the new political economy of the media particularly vulnerable to disinformation? - Arvind Kumar

Introduction:

The new political economy of the media has altered the traditional communications system and has caused serious disruptions in liberal democracies. The new political economy of media is open to all, readily accessible, monopolistic in nature and is market driven.

 The decline of legacy media is a direct consequence of the rise of digital media platforms. Unlike legacy media, the digital space does not depend on physical resources such as infrastructure and complex distribution networks which drastically reduces the cost of production of information. Since 2003, over 16,200 newspaper jobs and nearly 38,000 magazine jobs were lost in the U.S [1](Pew, 2014). Yet, both digital and traditional media share an interdependent relationship. A Pew Research Centre study on the evolution of media in Baltimore found that news that was published on new media platforms did not contain original reporting and 95% of the stories came from mostly newspapers [2](Diel, 2017). The ease of access, low cost production and speed of distribution in digital media has given its users a new social identity and a platform where it is easier to network, produce and consume information.

 Legacy media has structural constraints such as accessibility, stronger gatekeeping, limited sources and professional journalists who fact check the information which has made it comparatively difficult for actors to produce and distribute systematic disinformation through traditional media. One of the reasons why the new media is vulnerable to the disinformation is because of the challenges posed by the diminishing levels of trust in democratic institutions of press and politics, weakening of centre parties and lack of diverse political representation [3](Bennett and Livingston, 2018). New communication network has polarised the society into clearly identifiable  sections, each competing to push their ideas and agenda. In the era of information overload messages are targeted to reach specific consumers. Algorithms and complex codes collect and analyse user data and direct information that matches their preferences, thereby increasing polarisation of information.

“Fake News” and Disinformation:

 The term “fake news” has been used widely over the last five years but has been poorly defined because of the complex nature of disinformation. Ethan Zuckerman in his article ‘Stop Saying Fake News, It’s Not Helping” argues that the term “fake news” is vague and ambiguous that spans everything from false balance (actual news that doesn’t deserve our attention), propaganda (weaponized speech designed to support one party over another) and disinformatzya [1] (information designed to sow doubt and increase mistrust in institutions) (Zuckerman, 2017).

Disinformation can be categorised into three types: Dis-information, Mis-information and Mal-information [1](Wardle and Hossein, 2017). Disinformation is information that is false and deliberately manufactured to cause harm to an individual, social group, organization or a country. These messages include content that is delivered with a false context, imposter content, manipulated content and fabricated content. Misinformation refers to those messages that are false but do not intend to cause harm. These may be in the form of false connections or misleading information. Malinformation is based on reality and is used with an intent to harm an individual, organisations (including governments) or a country. Leaks, harassment and hate speech are types of malinformation.

Disinformation Pandemic in India:

The Indian media’s coverage of the Coronavirus pandemic is a striking example of an information disorder in the age of new media. The issue stemmed from a Muslim religious gathering known as Tablighi Jamaat at Delhi’s Nizammudin area where several attendees including foreign nationals tested positive for COVID-19. Several broadcast media channels and social media groups floated conspiracy theories targeting Muslims for hatching a so-called Islamic conspiracy for spreading coronavirus across India. The Nationalist Media, as certain news organisations like Republic TV, Times Now, Zee News, Sudarshan and Aaj Tak, like to label themselves were in the forefront of running targeted and malicious campaigns. [1]“Save the country from corona jihad,” demanded the Sudarshan headline with the anchor raising a clenched fist, “act strongly against corona jihad”. “In the name of religion, they have put our lives at risk,” warned Zee News. The Tuesday evening anchor then accused the Jamaat of taking India into the third stage of the coronavirus infection. “Yes Markaz (mosque) spiked the numbers”, “Ban Taliban Tablighi, chorus grows,” announced Times Now Wednesday evening. Arnab Goswami on Republic TV said it was a “deliberate” attempt to undermine “my country” [2](ThePrint, 2020).

 Messages including old videos, fake images, recirculation of old videos, images with false contexts and fake messages framing Muslims were shared on social media and especially on WhatsApp calling people to boycott Muslim owned businesses and shops. An old video of a man blowing air into a paper bag was circulated on WhatsApp with a message reading, "Many Muslims who own restaurants like the Empire, Imperial, paramount, Beijing bites, Hyderabadi Biryani House, Bawarchi biryani, etc employ Muslim cooks who are brainwashed by ppl who attended d Tablighi congregation in Delhi. "They spit in d food that v order to infect us with covid19. A lot of them also work for online food delivery agencies like Swiggy, dunzo, etc. pls stop ordering food from d above-mentioned restaurants & online delivery from any restaurants at least for another couple of months". Following an investigation and thorough fact check of the content the Singapore Food Agency confirmed that the video was from 2019. Similarly, media organisations in different countries confirmed the same. The information in this case was clearly false and was intended to cause harm to a community ([1]The Logical Indian, 2020).

The BBC Reality Check team’s analysis of the effects of false information on minorities and the business sector in India reported that misinformation targeting Muslims rose in the first week of April 2020 when the Tablighi Jamaat news broke.[2]

Often, false messages are circulated without the intention of causing harm. In the new media environment journalism is high paced where news organisations are competing to break the news first. The fast pace at which information is produced harms the quality and the verifiability  of news content. Users on the other hand quickly share and amplify the reach of the content. The social media space is populated with ‘bots’ and faceless accounts that give additional visibility to issues. Even ‘liking’ or reacting to a post online can increase its reach algorithmically. Research indicates that very few users actively share misinformation [1](Guess, Nagler and Tucker, 2019). However, the reaction of a handful of ‘organic users’ can significantly boost visibility, everyday human behaviour accounts for large volumes of disinformation being circulated (Vosoughi, Roy and Aral, 2018).

A research which investigated the differential diffusion of verified true and false news stories circulating on Twitter from 2006-2017 found that false information diffused faster, father and deeper than true information. False news often emerges as a novel piece of information which makes the information more shareable. False news tends to evoke stronger emotions compared to truth [2](Vosoughi, Roy and Aral, 2018).

Across Asia and especially in India misinformation on cures for coronavirus widely circulated on Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp. Many elected leaders touted remedies for Coronavirus including drinking cow urine (India), wearing eucalyptus neckless (Indonesia) and using petroleum as disinfectants (Philippines) [1](The Times, 2020). In India cows are considered to be sacred and cow urine is believed to have medicinal properties. Misleading attributions such as the above example led to real effects. The Reality Check team of BBC analysed 1,477 fact checks from five Indian news verification websites and found that false information about Coronavirus dominated the news space (58%). These were largely related to rumours about lockdown, conspiracy theories and about the origin of the virus (BBC, 2020).

Fake News Business:

We have moved from an age of information scarcity to an age of information abundance. The nature of new media has allowed individuals, states and large corporates to take advantage of the large volume of information and its penetrating ability to influence political, social and economic outcomes. The presence of such vast amounts of information makes it difficult for users to filter them. As the production and distribution of information grows, the signal to noise ration lowers and it line between factual and false information becomes opaque [1](Gottlieb and Dyer, 2018). False information is disguised to appear as credible and true. The Global Disinformation Index, an organisation that rates the trustworthiness of over 70,000 news websites reported that European fake news sites earn $ 75 million a year [2](Financial Times, 2020). The fake websites earn large sums through advertising revenue. Digital Shadows, an online security firm in its report highlighted services aimed at creating “spoof” media websites, fake reviews and automated bots to promote or diminish a commercial product or service’s value. The availability of “tool-kits” to monitor the activity of bots are available for as less as $7 which has removed barriers to access. The website or content creator earns pennies per click.

 Tech Giants such as Google, Facebook and Twitter have signed up to the European Union code of conduct in 2018 which required the platforms to improve scrutiny on advertisement placements to reduce ad revenues for fake websites. However, it is difficult for tech giants to hold a particular actor responsible. The argument is that if the tech giants take action against one, they would have to maintain a non-partisan approach and crack down on all disinformation pages.

 There are nearly 350 million active Facebook users in India, which makes it the largest consumer market for Facebook. BJP is the top spender on social media campaigns and advertisements. The ruling party has since used the online space for political discourse. Partisan pages operating on multiple platforms started gaining traction and attracted a large number of followers.

 A Wall Street Journal report [1]published on 14th August alleges that Facebook and its India policy head Ankhi Das had been partial to the ruling BJP government. The report claimed, “Ms Das has provided the BJP with favourable treatment on election-related issues”. Das opposed the idea of removing provocative posts by Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, warning that this could hurt the company’s “commercial interests” in India. Das had also not revealed that Facebook had deleted fake news pages connected to the saffron party, according to the report (Wall Street Journal, 2020).

Conclusion:

The internet has given space to creators for collaboration, gaining support from like-minded peers and communication. The space is now populated with subcultures promoting conspiracies, trolls, memes, anti-immigration activist, antivaxxers, all of them involved in a participatory culture of pushing their agenda. Mainstream media’s dependence on sensationalism and search for novelty and a general shift of focus to profit making  made it vulnerable as carriers of disinformation. The term “alt-right” put forward by Richard Spencer in 2008 was used to describe right wing news and propaganda which rebranded nationalism and supremacy to attract the mainstream media’s attention. The online communities are turning into conspiracy driven news sources with large following. The often sensational claims made by such groups are picked up by mainstream media Mainstream media began giving space to stories and ideas that were seen as unacceptable before.  The new media space has given rise to a hyper-partisan media environment where “decontextualised truths, repeated falsehoods and leaps of logic to create fundamentally misleading view[s] of the world”[1] are propagated (Benkler 2017). Human activity, algorithms and codes further amplify these voices. The amplification of visibility allows pieces of information to appear on ‘trending’ sections of social media from where circulation reaches mainstream media. Users are motivated to share pieces of information owing to their ideological commitments in what is now being seen as a ideological and cultural war between the right wing and the left wing. For information manipulators, it does not matter if the mainstream media fact checks them or simply covers the false information produced as long as they cover it and give the piece of information visibility. The new media’s unmonitored economic model and weak regulation along with distrust in traditional media are largely responsible for the information disorder. These factors have led to consumption pattern where users are less likely to access verified news and follow information along partisan lines.

Bibliography:

Benkler, Y. (2017). Study: Breitbart-led right-wing media ecosystem altered broader media agenda. Retrieved 12 January 2021, from https://www.cjr.org/analysis/breitbart-media-trump-harvard-study.php

Chattopadhyay, A. (2020). Fact Check: Viral WhatsApp Claiming Muslim Owned Restaurants Spitting In Food To Spread Novel Coronavirus Are Old. Retrieved 7 January 2021, from https://thelogicalindian.com/fact-check/muslim-spit-restaurant-covid-19-coronavirus-20457

Diel, S. (2017). New Media, Legacy Media and Misperceptions Regarding Sourcing.

Fake news websites still profit from Google advertising. (2020). Retrieved 8 January 2021, from https://www.ft.com/content/5f8a405c-c132-4d9b-a86f-c52884535f3e

Gottlieb, M. and Dyer, S. (2020), Information and Disinformation: Social Media in the COVID‐19 Crisis. Acad Emerg Med, 27: 640-641. https://doi.org/10.1111/acem.14036

Guess, Nagler and Tucker, 2019. Less than you think: Prevalence and predictors of fake news dissemination on Facebook, from  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330282199_Less_than_you_think_Prevalence_and_predictors_of_fake_news_dissemination_on_Facebook

Jurkowitz, M. (2014). The Losses in Legacy. Retrieved 7 January 2021, from https://www.journalism.org/2014/03/26/the-losses-in-legacy/

Menon, S. (2020). Coronavirus: The human cost of fake news in India. Retrieved 12 January 2021, from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-53165436

Philip, S. (2020). How Tablighi Jamaat emerged as the 'largest known' Covid-19 source in South Asia. Retrieved 7 January 2021, from https://theprint.in/india/how-tablighi-jamaat-unknowingly-emerges-as-largest-known-covid-19-source-in-south-asia/391918/

Prunell, N., & Horowitz, J. (2020). Facebook’s Hate-Speech Rules Collide With Indian Politics. Retrieved 12 January 2021, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-hate-speech-india-politics-muslim-hindu-modi-zuckerberg-11597423346

Sharma, A., & Gupta, C. (2020). Audit of bigotry: How Indian media vilified Tablighi Jamaat over coronavirus outbreak. Retrieved 12 January 2021, from https://www.newslaundry.com/2020/04/27/audit-of-bigotry-how-indian-media-vilified-tablighi-jamaat-over-coronavirus-outbreak

S. Vosoughi, D. Roy, S. Aral. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science. Vol 359, Iss 6380. Mar 09 2018.

Sherwell, P. (2020). Cow urine, petrol and mint: how some countries advise fighting the coronavirus. Retrieved 8 January 2021, from https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cow-urine-

Wardle and Hossein, (2017). Information Disorder: Towards an interdisciplinary framework for research and policy making. Retrieved 7th January 2021, from https://rm.coe.int/information-disorder-toward-an-interdisciplinary-framework-for-researc/168076277c

Zuckerman, E. (2017). Stop saying "fake news". It's not helping. - ... My heart’s in Accra. Retrieved 7 January 2021, from https://ethanzuckerman.com/2017/01/30/stop-saying-fake-news-its-not-helping/

petrol-and-mint-how-some-countries-advise-fighting-the-coronavirus-clm7q9nq2

[1] Benkler, Y. (2017). Study: Breitbart-led right-wing media ecosystem altered broader media agenda. Retrieved 12 January 2021, from https://www.cjr.org/analysis/breitbart-media-trump-harvard-study.php

[1] Prunell, N., & Horowitz, J. (2020). Facebook’s Hate-Speech Rules Collide With Indian Politics. Retrieved 12 January 2021, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-hate-speech-india-politics-muslim-hindu-modi-zuckerberg-11597423346

[1] Gottlieb, M. and Dyer, S. (2020), Information and Disinformation: Social Media in the COVID‐19 Crisis. Acad Emerg Med, 27: 640-641. https://doi.org/10.1111/acem.14036

[2] Fake news websites still profit from Google advertising. (2020). Retrieved 8 January 2021, from https://www.ft.com/content/5f8a405c-c132-4d9b-a86f-c52884535f3e

[1] Sherwell, P. (2020). Cow urine, petrol and mint: how some countries advise fighting the coronavirus. Retrieved 8 January 2021, from https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cow-urine-petrol-and-mint-how-some-countries-advise-fighting-the-coronavirus-clm7q9nq2

[1] Guess, Nagler and Tucker, 2019. Less than you think: Prevalence and predictors of fake news dissemination on Facebook, from  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330282199_Less_than_you_think_Prevalence_and_predictors_of_fake_news_dissemination_on_Facebook

[2] S. Vosoughi, D. Roy, S. Aral. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science. Vol 359, Iss 6380. Mar 09 2018.

[1] Chattopadhyay, A. (2020). Fact Check: Viral WhatsApp Claiming Muslim Owned Restaurants Spitting In Food To Spread Novel Coronavirus Are Old. Retrieved 7 January 2021, from https://thelogicalindian.com/fact-check/muslim-spit-restaurant-covid-19-coronavirus-20457

[2] Menon, S. (2020). Coronavirus: The human cost of fake news in India. Retrieved 12 January 2021, from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-53165436

[1] Sharma, A., & Gupta, C. (2020). Audit of bigotry: How Indian media vilified Tablighi Jamaat over coronavirus outbreak. Retrieved 12 January 2021, from https://www.newslaundry.com/2020/04/27/audit-of-bigotry-how-indian-media-vilified-tablighi-jamaat-over-coronavirus-outbreak

[2] Philip, S. (2020). How Tablighi Jamaat emerged as the 'largest known' Covid-19 source in South Asia. Retrieved 7 January 2021, from https://theprint.in/india/how-tablighi-jamaat-unknowingly-emerges-as-largest-known-covid-19-source-in-south-asia/391918/

[1] Wardle and Hossein, (2017). Information Disorder: Towards an interdisciplinary framework for research and policy making. Retrieved 7th January 2021, from https://rm.coe.int/information-disorder-toward-an-interdisciplinary-framework-for-researc/168076277c

[1] Zuckerman, E. (2017). Stop saying "fake news". It's not helping. - ... My heart’s in Accra. Retrieved 7 January 2021, from https://ethanzuckerman.com/2017/01/30/stop-saying-fake-news-its-not-helping/

[1] Jurkowitz, M. (2014). The Losses in Legacy. Retrieved 7 January 2021, from https://www.journalism.org/2014/03/26/the-losses-in-legacy/

[2] Diel, S. (2017). New Media, Legacy Media and Misperceptions Regarding Sourcing.

[3]  Bennett, W. L., & Livingston, S. (2018). The disinformation order: Disruptive communication and the decline of democratic institutions. European Journal of Communication, 33(2), 122–139. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323118760317