How technology disrupted the truth?
In the article titled “How technology disrupted the truth” in The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jul/12/how-technology-disrupted-the-truth), Katherine Viner illustrates what an important role information cascade plays in changing the practice of journalism. The author highlights how the time of social media has shifted the focus of journalism from content to clicks and shares. Online journalism rakes revenue from ads and to maximize revenue, the main goal of an online-based news portal would be to receive a maximum number of readers for their articles. We know that this goal can be worked out by analyzing how information cascade works and how it can be employed in this case, based on our class discussions.
This is why we are at a time where clickbait articles, fake news, and misleading facts are at their peak. News portals want to attract as many potential ‘clickers’ to click on their article. Users click on, read, and share a lot of articles that they find interesting or articles that align with their worldview. Online news portal takes this trait to their advantage by tailoring their content to meet the expectations of the majority view to increasing the probability of an article being read and shared, hence, creating a cascade of inaccurate, misleading information. Of course, appealing titles and ways of writing is a good way of promoting one’s work, only if it does not deviate from the responsibility of informing truth. But, quality content and misleading contents are so widely shared and consumed at the same rate that we have come to a situation where it is pretty difficult to differentiate between the both at a glance. And this is what the author is talking about, where information cascade is changing the face of online journalism.