Daniel L.

Ramos III (S15A)

Purposive Communication

Media: A Friend or a Foe?

An Essay Exploring Misinformation in Media and Political Polarization

Mass media has been a transformative force in society. Not too long ago, people shared

information locally usually through personal means. After time, emerging technologies change

the way and the scale of which we communicate. These technologies include the printing press,

radio, television, and the internet. The internet is the most prevalent and diverse form of mass

media. Because of its scale, the internet makes information accessible to major parts of the

global population in an instant rate. However, while information is rapidly increasing, education

towards media is lagging. The 2020 Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, tackles the

negative consequences of the internet, specifically social networking sites or SNS (Orlowski,

2020). One such concern is the proliferation of fake news. Its spread is a major talking point in

social media especially in political circles. A Twitter user by the handle @banissuh_xx (2021)

said,

Sobrang time consuming mag educate ng relatives about their sharing of

BBM stuff on social media na walang credible sources. But it must be
done. No to fake news and Tiktok and YT as sources of political info.

(It’s very time consuming to educate relatives about their sharing of BBM
stuff on social media without credible sources. But it must be done. No to
fake news and Tiktok and [YouTube] as sources of political info.)

“It's okay if you support BBM over Leni but make sure na what you share naman sana on

fb/tiktok [sic] is true and not fake news. You could not even defend him with civility,” another

Twitter user @joshtenchaves (2021) added. On the other side of the political spectrum, we have

@kkaseyykass (2021) who stated, “they're making fun of tiktok and youtube as bbm supporters
source without realizing the unseen footages, unseen interviews, ppl who experienced ML,

recorded unbiased news report [sic]”.

Clearly, the internet has caused massive polarization among political discourse.

Misinformation and disinformation add to this turmoil. Tuckers et al. (2021) explored the intricate

interplay among social media, misinformation, and political divide. Common approaches to this

issue (like the ones I’ve mentioned) tackle on “protecting” the consumers from the media.

According to them, we shouldn’t look at media for reliable information. However, this approach

undermines the importance of media. As mentioned, media makes information accessible and

thus, should be considered as a tool to deliver reliable information. Media is not the culprit. The

people are.

Therefore, the more effective solution would be to educate consumers of media about

discerning good information from bad information. This strategy places the power to the SNS

users rather than the perpetuators of misinformation. Thus, this approach is more reliable since

we cannot, with certainty, regulate the massive flow of information. Educating a community,

however, is much easier. Additionally, people ought to learn how to create media as to

contribute to the democratic process of information-sharing and public discourse. Related to

this, the Department of Education made reforms in the curriculum that added Media and

Information Literacy as a core subject in senior high school (Department of Education, n.d.).

They specifically emphasized the importance of being “responsible users and competent

producers of media and information”. However, as evidenced by the common consensus in

social media, it still fails to instill this idea. People still fail to see media especially mainstream

media as a valuable tool. Instead, they denounce it as a societal ill. Moreover, the pedagogy

towards media studies has always been detached by the contemporary realities. To engage the

current generation, one must relate media and information literacy concepts to their lived

experiences.
 Thus, I propose a more contemporary approach—spearheading a social media

campaign, educating the masses about media and information literacy. The campaign should be

done across different platforms for maximum visibility. Specifically, we need YouTube for long-

form content, TikTok for short-form content, Twitter for public interactions and Facebook for

publicity. The multimedia production should also be attractive to our stakeholders, the youth. I

also suggest allowing code-switching between Filipino and English. Doing so would reflect the

sociolect of the current generation more than speaking in plain Filipino or plain English. By

reflecting their sociolect, we build rapport and earn their trust. Hopefully, this plan would attract

the masses to media and information; thus, making them more optimistic about the significant

power of media.

References
[@banissuh_xx]. (2021, October 12). Sobrang time consuming mag educate ng relatives about
their sharing of BBM stuff on social media na walang credible sources. [Tweet].
https://twitter.com/banissuh_xx/status/1447748587102740482
[@johntenchaves]. (2021, October 10). It's okay if you support BBM over Leni make sure na
what you share naman sana on fb/tiktok is [Tweet].
https://twitter.com/joshtenchavez/status/1447153021268291584
[@kkaseyykass]. (2021, October 12). they're making fun of tiktok and youtube as bbm
supporters source without realizing the unseen footages, unseen interviews, ppl who
experienced. [Tweet]. https://twitter.com/kkaseyykass/status/1447877127508955137
Department of Education. (n.d.). Retrieved from DepEd:
https://www.deped.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/SHS-Core_Media-and-
Information-Literacy-CG.pdf
Orlowski, J. (Director). (2020). The Social Dilemma [Motion Picture].
Tucker, Joshua & Guess, Andrew & Barbera, Pablo & Vaccari, Cristian & Siegel, Alexandra &
Sanovich, Sergey & Stukal, Denis & Nyhan, Brendan. (2018). Social Media, Political
Polarization, and Political Disinformation: A Review of the Scientific Literature. SSRN
Electronic Journal. 10.2139/ssrn.3144139.