Journalism, the pressures of verification and notions of post-truth in civil society
Open accessAbstract
‘Post-truth’ was not a new concept when it was selected as the international word of the year (2016) by Oxford Dictionaries. In the context of communications research, scholars were discussing journalism in the ‘post-factual’ age some thirty years ago (Ettema 1987). In the digital era, journalistic practice itself has changed; stories are generated by a multiplicity of actors in a participative and interactive way. This paper contemplates the nature of journalists’ information practices in the 21st century and relates these to the roles of information and social media in civil society. The methodology draws on the findings of pilot research studies investigating journalists’ information practices in the digital realm (Martin 2014; 2015) and investigates the pressures of verification. The author posits that that we are ostensibly living in a ‘post-truth’ society largely due to the impact of changes in the news milieu in the digital age. With so many diverse voices in the mix, it is increasingly difficult for citizens to separate fact from fiction; journalists thus have a role as verifiers. It is crucial for information consumers (citizenry) to have the requisite skills and knowledge to critically evaluate media content and deal with information and communication overload.
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Algorithmic content filtering can create echo chambers that trap users by only exposing them to opinions and beliefs they are already in agreement with.
“This is compounded by the rise of algorithmic content filtering, such as that populating Facebook users' feeds or seen in the news dissemination system 'WhatsUp' [6], that can create echo chambers which trap users by only exposing them to opinions and beliefs they are already in agreement with [19,23].”
From Falling for Fake News: Investigating the Consumption of News via Social Media (2018) · cites this paper as [19]
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- Authors
- Martin, N.
- Affiliations
- University of Technology Sydney (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Martin, Nora
- ORCID
- Martin, Nora
- Venue
- Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal
- Published
- 2017-07-21
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 41-56
- ISSN
- 1837-5391 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2738465742
- Cited by
- 32
- References
- 33
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 3
- FWCI
- 6.36
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Locations
- Cosmopolitan Civil Societies An Interdisciplinary Journal (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal (University of Technology Sydney) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- UTS ePRESS (University of Technology Sydney) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Communication › Media Studies and Communication
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Social Sciences › Communication › Journalism and Media Studies
- Keywords
- post-truth, journalism, verification, digital journalism, social media, civil society, fact-checking, media literacy, information overload
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