How to avoid manipulative use of media?
Have you ever realized that you have been manipulated?
For years, a great deal of information pollution and manipulation strategies has been increasing inevitably through the media due to development in technology. Media platforms are used by almost all people apparently. Therefore, information pollution is at a level that cannot be imagined because of manipulative use of media. Even though there exist a lot of fallacies about knowledge and news on media, there are a lot of ways such as being aware of media manipulation techniques, being an active consumer of media, questioning what is being presenting and some tools to prevent these manipulations and reach the truth.
- First of all, being active consumers of media and trying to reach the same information from different sources to be sure and confirm is one of the main ways to access the truth about events. While doing this, sometimes even different sources may serve up the same wrong information. To avoid this situation and reach the truth, some tools like websites and programs can be used such as ‘en.teyit.org’ which searches the report whether it is right or not. These websites and programs usually are made for querying about new information that suddenly appears every day. Their working method is usually to compare lots of news from different sites and take official announcements. They sometimes cannot keep up to the viral news and a bit of time may pass to know what is true after the news is released. Even though these sites and programs sometimes cannot catch the viral news; they are one of the most reliable ways to reach the truth.
- Secondly, being aware of manipulation techniques can also help us realize what is going on in the media. Knowing techniques can prevent to be manipulated and it can help us reach the right information. Addition to being aware of manipulation techniques, questioning what is being presented is a need to learn the truth. Most of the time, questioning time, place, reasonableness, and being contradictory lead us to reach necessary information.
- One way to question photos is to search photos by using ‘Google Image Search Service’ and thus, we can learn the time and place about viral news. After this research, evaluating results and trying to find contradictory lead us to find the degree of accuracy about news or information.
To put it in a nutshell, information pollution has risen, and this pollution keeps rising day by day. Even though massive solutions cannot be taken, individual preventions and solutions such as learning media manipulation techniques, being an active consumer by questioning what is presented to you and using some certain tools may help us avoid getting manipulated and misinformation.
