ASSIGNMENT SPA506:- PUBLIC SECTOR MANAGEMENT

INFORMATION (FAKE NEWS)

Information played an important role in the public sector management for a better public
governance internally or externally. However, fakes news which related to misleading
information and falsities has become a widespread phenomenon for the past few decades.
This rising occurrence of fake news is largely linked to the information age and globalization
which has facilitated the development of electronic news sources.

Generally, inaccurate information can be divided into three types which is: -

i. Misinformation
- When false information is shared but no harm is meant
ii. Disinformation
- When false information is knowingly shared to cause harm.
iii. Misinformation
- When genuine information is shared to cause harm often by moving what
was designed to stay private into the public sphere.

And over the recent year, “Disinformation” has become a major concern and posed a
numerous challenges as it disturbs the public service delivery system.

Some of the examples :-

Misleading information of the side effect of vaccination during the Covid-19.

The impact of such news would create a confusion among the public while at the sometime
create a distrust towards the ability of the government. In worst cases it’s may jeopardize
the country security, wellbeing & unity
In my own personal experience as working in private sector industries, a glimpse of fake
news tends to hurt the development of the business and undermine the trust of a foreign
investor to invest hence impedes the country economy growth.

Apart from “disinformation”, misinformation” is

another aspect of news that we need to pay
attention too.

Thou at first it may mean no harm, but if the

data were use as part of a research, it may affect
the decision making process of a policy design/
program itself.

This is best explain through the article by Adnan

Hezri “Rearranging Government Agencies
Toward a sustainable Shift”. Although the
economy and environment are interdependent,
the planning itself was formulated within SILOS
(which is a part of a company/organization that
does not communicate with, understand or work
well with other parts), this had leads to a
fragmentation of regulation and implementation
where decision making is fraught with
information paucity and uncertainty.

Nevertheless, although the Malaysia government had enforced numerous rules and
regulation to stop the spread of the fake news. It’s still not enough to contain it because of
the way that of our bureaucracy and individual integrity being played out. This shall bring us
to the next issues, that shall be explain by my team member Hatim/Azzah.