Misleading media essay

Misleading media is often mode of channeling information that is deceitful with a bad intention. In most cases , misleading information is usually in form of political propaganda, fake news and rumors. Fake news describes unverified information whether true or not but is perceived as news. This is usually propaganda or rumors about something; be political, religious or even anything about famous and prominent people (Schifferes et al. In the present world, fake news has become common although it is a new thing but nowadays it is facilitated by increase in modes of communication such as the social media. The questionnaire required the participants to fill in their gender and their ethnicity. The gender was important so that data on which gender is susceptible to misleading media information.

Age groups were also set from under 18 to the age of above 36 years. The age group had a range of 5 years. The people of ages between 18-36 years mainly comprises of the youthful group and are well known for their dependence on media to share information through posts, messaging and feedback and comments on various posts by other peers. The survey questions were presented as both open ended and closed ended questions so as to allow for unlimited personal opinion of the participants. The closed ended survey questions with multiple choices were necessary in providing specific information that did not need much of the participants’ opinion so as to assist in statistical analysis. Therefore, the open-ended questions were necessary in providing general information was not very specific so as to give broader view information required supporting the numerical data that would be collected.

Results Among the participants surveyed using the questionnaires, 55 were males and 45 were females. This is a relative balance between the two genders and indication that social media is equally utilized by both genders. The frequency of watching or reading news was important in determining how fast information reaches the intended audience. At least 24 participants watched or read news once every 2-3 days. The major concern of this research was to find out which media was more influential and contained most misleading information and posed a danger to the society. All participants agreed that the misleading news had a dangerous effect in the society but in different capacities. 40 participants agreed that misleading news had a slightly dangerous effect to the society, 32 agreed that the dangerous effect of misleading media was significant while other held that it depends with the kind of media and the issue at hand.

Another correlation found was that 66% of people above 36 years of age and that are part of a majority ethnicity preferred fox news channel as there source of information rather than other news channels. While 93% of those aged 18-23 of all ethnicities preferred watching any news channel except fox news. Another correlation found was that 91% of those who selected sexism as there meaning of discrimination were women, and 87% of people who selected oppression towards a minority as there meaning of discrimination, happened to be minorities. Finally, another major correlation found was that 82% of those who selected fox news as there source of news also said that fake news spreads through bias sources rather than 85% of participants that selected, NY times, MSNBC and other news channels found that fake news spreads because of lack of government intervention and strict laws against these channels preventing the spread of fake news.

Discussion Based on the 100 surveys there were several things that could be noted from the research. One of the major problems facing the present world is matters of racism and discrimination. The misleading media has been the major cause of disunity and unfairness that is evident in the present generation, technology has been good and has eased communication but people have gone to an extent of using the communications channels for wrong purpose such as hate speech and undermining other people. The media should be the watch dog of the society, therefore, and undignified portrayal of the society on the media paints a negative image to other people thus lowering the dignity and respect for a people (Thompson, 2016). Finally the research shows that the control of social media should be a governmental responsibility to ensure whatever is shared on social media does not cause any disunity, is not discriminative and does not cause any kind of division (Dominelli, 2017).