Tag: Social media

News media face distrust by association

A new study suggests that the news media’s tanking levels of public trust may made worse merely by association with social media.

The study, released this month by the Reuters Institute at Oxford University, has exposed gaps between trust in news via conventional delivery and the same thing consumed via social media.

It doesn’t matter whether people use social media or not: Levels of trust is lower if they simply associate news with the platforms.

The gap varies between platforms and between countries but the overall finding is that levels of trust in news on social media, search engines, and messaging apps is consistently lower than audience trust in information in the news media more generally.

And our media is becoming more and more associated with social media. Continue reading “News media face distrust by association” →

A one-eyed, one-horned, flyin’ purple person eater

New Zealand’s media must stop pandering to over-sensitivity about gender identification.

I am becoming annoyed by ongoing reports that “a person” has been the subject of this or that, with no indication that it is man, woman, boy or girl.

The only plausible reason for the nomenclature is that “person” avoids the possibility of giving offence to someone who may no longer identify with their sex at birth.

How likely is that?

I am not a statistician but if less than five percent of the population identify as LGBT+ (according to Statistics New Zealand estimates), that means there is at least a 95 per cent chance the ‘person’ in the story would not be offended by reference to their birth gender. Continue reading “A one-eyed, one-horned, flyin’ purple person eater” →

Carefully chosen front page obscenity

On Saturday, the opening sentence of the lead story in the Dominion Post Weekend contained an obscenity referring to female genitals. Not an abbreviation, not an acronym, but the full word spelt out.

I was shocked. And that was exactly the reaction editor Anna Fifield hoped to achieve with her courageous decision to demonstrate the full impact that an avalanche of online abuse is having on New Zealand women.

If I was shocked, imagine how female MPs and councillors feel when they open their email inbox or social media accounts and are confronted by obscenities, personal abuse and threats. Continue reading “Carefully chosen front page obscenity” →

Big Billy-Goat Gruff gives trolls a good kicking

Trolls beware: They’re coming to get you…if you live in Australia.

On Sunday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the latest measure to make social media platforms behave reasonably. He said legislation would be introduced to the Australian Parliament requiring platforms like Facebook to have robust complaints procedures and requiring them to ‘unmask’ anonymous accounts which disseminate offensive and defamatory content. If the companies do not comply, the federal court will be given the power to require disclosure.

The move will effectively overturn an earlier High Court ruling relating to posts on mainstream news media Facebook pages. It found the news publishers responsible for comments made by users on their pages. The federal announcement will ensure that social media companies themselves will be held accountable for harmful comments on their platforms. Continue reading “Big Billy-Goat Gruff gives trolls a good kicking” →