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Media (Communications)
YouTube Video about the First Amendment  by Jeffrey Rosen of the National Constitution Center in conversation with Walter Isaacson of the Aspen Institute.
Pictured: Today's Media Alternatives

​Media (the singular form of which is medium) is the collective communication outlets or tools that are used to store and deliver information or data. It is either associated with communication media, or the specialized mass media communication businesses such as: print media and the press, photography, advertising, cinema, broadcasting (radio and television) and publishing.


Evolution:

The term "media" in its modern application relating to communication channels is traced back to its first use as such by Canadian communications theorist Marshall McLuhan, who stated in Counterblast (1954): "The media are not toys; they should not be in the hands of Mother Goose and Peter Pan executives. They can be entrusted only to new artists, because they are art forms."

By the mid-1960s, the term had spread to general use in North America and the United Kingdom. ("Mass media", in contrast, was, according to H.L. Mencken, used as early as 1923 in the United States.)


Electronic media

Main article: Electronic media

In the last century, a revolution in telecommunications has greatly altered communication by providing new media for long distance communication. The first transatlantic two-way radio broadcast occurred in 1906 and led to common communication via analogue and digital media:
The difference between analog and digital photography is that digital photography is easier to edit and have a lot of choices after taking photos, but analog photography is more simple and you have to accept the photo if you don’t like it. In digital photography you can edit the photo even before taking it, unlike analog which had limited settings.

Modern communication media now allow for intense long-distance exchanges between larger numbers of people (many-to-many communication via e-mail, Internet forums, and teleportation).

On the other hand, many traditional broadcast media and mass media favor one-to-many communication (television, cinema, radio, newspaper, magazines, and also social media).

Electronic media usage is growing, although concern has arisen that it distracts youth from face-to-face contact with friends and family. Research on the social engagement effect is mixed. One study by Wellman finding that “33% of Internet users said that the Internet had improved their connections to friends ‘a lot’, and 23% said it had increased the quality of their communication with family members by a similar amount.

Young people in particular took advantage of the social side of the Internet. Nearly half (49%) of the 18- to 29-year-olds said that the Internet had improved their connections to friends a lot. On the other hand, 19% of employed Internet users said that the Internet had increased the amount of time they spent working in home” (Lee, Leung, Lo, Xiong, & Wu p. 377 & 378).

Electronic media now comes in the forms tablets, laptops, desktops, cell phones, mp3 players, DVDs, game systems, radios, and television. Technology has spiked to record highs within the last decade, thus changing the dynamic of communication. The meaning of electronic media, as it is known in various spheres, has changed with the passage of time.

The term media has achieved a broader meaning nowadays as compared to that given it a decade ago. Earlier, there was multimedia, once only a piece of software (application software) used to play audio (sound) and video (visual object with or without sound). Following this, it was CD (Compact Disc) and DVD (Digital Versatile Disc), then camera of 3G (Third Generation) applications in the field.

In modern terms, the media includes all the software which are used in PC (Computer) or Laptop or Mobile Phone installed for normal or better performance of the system; today, however, hard discs (used to increase the installation capacity of data) of computer is an example of electronic media. This type of hard disc is becoming increasingly smaller in size.

The latest inclusion in the field is magnetic media (magnetic stripe) whose application is common, in the fastest growing Information Technology field.

Modern day IT media is commonly used in the banking sector and by the Income Tax Department for the purpose of providing the easiest and fastest possible services to the consumers. In this magnetic strip, account information linking to all the data relating to a particular consumer is stored. The main features of these types of media are prepared unrecorded (blank form), and data is normally stored at a later stage as per the requirement of its user or consumer.


Social impacts:

Media technology has made communicating increasingly easier as time has passed throughout history. Today, children are encouraged to use media tools in school and are expected to have a general understanding of the various technologies available.

The internet is arguably one of the most effective tools in media for communication tools such as e-mail, Skype, Facebook etc., have brought people closer together and created new online communities.

However, some may argue that certain types of media can hinder face-to-face communication and therefore can result in complications like identity fraud.

In a large consumer-driven society, electronic media (such as television) and print media (such as newspapers) are important for distributing advertisement media.

More technologically advanced societies have access to goods and services through newer media than less technologically advanced societies. In addition to this “advertising” role, media is nowadays a tool to share knowledge all around the world.

The internet is a sustainable solution to overcome the “gap” between developed and developing countries as both will get a chance to learn from each other.

Therefore, the internet can be a way to re-establish balance, by for instance enhance publication of newspaper, academic journal from developing countries.

Consequently, media is a modern form of communication aiming at spreading knowledge within the whole world, regardless any form of discrimination.

Media, through media and communications psychology, has helped to connect diverse people from far and near geographical location. It has also helped in the aspect of on-line or internet businesses and other activities that have an on-line version.

​All media intended to affect human behavior is initiated through communication and the intended behavior is couched in psychology. Therefore, understanding media and communications psychology is fundamental in understanding the social and individual effects of media. The expanding field of media and communications psychology combines these established disciplines in a new way.

Timing change based on innovation and efficiency may not have a direct is correlation with technology. The information revolution is based on modern advancements. During the 19th century, the information "boom" rapidly advanced because of postal systems, increase in newspaper accessibility, as well as schools "modernizing". These advancements were made due to the increase of people becoming literate and educated.

The methodology of communication although has changed and dispersed in numerous directions based on the source of its socio-cultural impact.

Biases in the media that affects religious or ethnic minorities takes the form of racism in the media.

See also:​






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Media in The United States including Freedom of Speech
YouTube Video: The many times Donald Trump has attacked the media
by The Guardian​ (8/16/2018)
Pictured below: Media and Politics in the Age of Trump ​Published by the History Departments at The Ohio State University and Miami University

Media of the United States consist of several different types of media:
  • television,
  • radio,
  • cinema,
  • newspapers,
  • magazines,
  • and Internet-based Web sites.

Many of the media are controlled by large for-profit corporations who reap revenue from advertising, subscriptions, and sale of copyrighted material. American media conglomerates tend to be leading global players, generating large revenues as well as large opposition in many parts of the world.

With the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, further deregulation and convergence are under way, leading to mega-mergers, further concentration of media ownership, and the emergence of multinational media conglomerates.

These mergers enable tighter control of information. Currently, five corporations control roughly 90% of the media. Critics allege that localism, local news and other content at the community level, media spending and coverage of news, and diversity of ownership and views have suffered as a result of these processes of media concentration.

Theories to explain the success of such companies include reliance on certain policies of the American federal government or a tendency to natural monopolies in the industry. See Media bias in the United States.

The organisation Reporters Without Borders compiles and publishes an annual ranking of countries based upon the organisation's assessment of their press freedom records. In 2013–14 United States was ranked 46th out of 180 countries, a drop of thirteen points from the preceding year.

Click on any of the following for more  about Media of the United States:









Media Conglomerates, including Media Cross-Ownership in the United States
YouTube Video: Sinclair Broadcast Group: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
Pictured below: “What happened to radio, happened to television, and then it happened to cable. If we are not diligent, then it will happen to the Internet [creating] a media plantation for the 21st Century dominated by the same corporate and ideological forces that have controlled the media for the last 50 years.” by Bill Moyers

A media conglomerate, media group, or media institution is a company that owns numerous companies involved in mass media enterprises, such as television, radio, publishing, motion pictures, theme parks, or the Internet. According to the magazine The Nation, "Media conglomerates strive for policies that facilitate their control of the markets around the world."

Terminology:

A conglomerate is a large company composed of a number of smaller companies (subsidiaries) engaged in generally unrelated businesses.

Starting in 2007, it has been questioned if media companies actually are related. Some media conglomerates use their access in multiple areas to share various kinds of content such as: news, video and music, between users.

The media sector's tendency to consolidate has caused formerly diversified companies to appear less diverse in comparison with similar companies. Therefore, the term media group may also be applied, however, it has not yet replaced the more traditional term.
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Media cross-ownership in the United States

Media cross-ownership is the ownership of multiple media businesses by a person or corporation. These businesses can include broadcast and cable television, film, radio, newspaper, magazine, book publishing, music, video games, and various online entities.

Much of the debate over concentration of media ownership in the United States has for many years focused specifically on the ownership of broadcast stations, cable stations, newspapers and websites.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Media Cross-ownership in the United States:







Media Proprietors
YouTube Video: Ted Turner: Take Care of the Planet 
Pictured below: Clockwise, from Upper Left: Rupert Murdoch (Fox); Brian L.Roberts (Comcast); Les Moonves (CBS); and Walt Disney

A media proprietor, media mogul or media tycoon refers to a successful entrepreneur or businessperson who controls, through personal ownership or via a dominant position in any media related company or enterprise, media consumed by a large number of individuals.

Those with significant control, ownership, and influence of a large company in the mass media may also be called a tycoon, baron, or business magnate. Social media creators and founders can also be considered media moguls, as such channels deliver media to a large consumer base.

History:

In the United States, newspaper proprietors first became prominent in the 19th century with the development of mass circulation newspapers.

In the 20th century, proprietorship expanded to include ownership of radio and television networks, as well as film studios, publishing houses, and more recently internet and other forms of multimedia companies.

Reflecting this, the term "press baron" was replaced by "media baron", and the term "media mogul" (or "Hollywood mogul" when applied to people specifically working in the motion picture industry, having actually spawned a similarly named computer game) was popularized in colloquial English.

In modern relevance, social media sites need to be taken into account such as Facebook in relation to Mark Zuckerberg who is an extremely important media proprietor. Media and technology play a significant role in mass media production.

Click on any of the following blue hperlinks for more about the following List of Notable Media Proprietors:









Media Bias including Media Bias in the United States
YouTube Video about Media Bias in the United States
Pictured below: Partisanship, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election by Berkman Klein Center (Harvard University)

Media bias is the bias or perceived bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of events and stories that are reported and how they are covered. The term "media bias" implies a pervasive or widespread bias contravening the standards of journalism, rather than the perspective of an individual journalist or article.

The direction and degree of media bias in various countries is widely disputed.

Practical limitations to media neutrality include the inability of journalists to report all available stories and facts, and the requirement that selected facts be linked into a coherent narrative.

Government influence, including overt and covert censorship, biases the media in some countries, for example China, North Korea and Myanmar. Market forces that result in a biased presentation include the ownership of the news source, concentration of media ownership, the selection of staff, the preferences of an intended audience, and pressure from advertisers.

There are a number of national and international watchdog groups that report on bias in the media.

Types of Media Bias Follow:

The most commonly discussed forms of bias occur when the (allegedly partisan) media support or attack a particular political party, candidate, or ideology.

D'Alessio and Allen list three forms of media bias as the most widely studied:
  • Coverage bias (also known as visibility bias), when actors or issues are more or less visible in the news.
  • Gatekeeping bias (also known as selectivity or selection bias), when stories are selected or deselected, sometimes on ideological grounds (see spike). It is sometimes also referred to as agenda bias, when the focus is on political actors and whether they are covered based on their preferred policy issues.
  • Statement bias (also known as tonality bias or presentation bias), when media coverage is slanted towards or against particular actors or issues.

Other common forms of political and non-political media bias include:
  • Advertising bias, when stories are selected or slanted to please advertisers.
  • Concision bias, a tendency to report views that can be summarized succinctly, crowding out more unconventional views that take time to explain.
  • Corporate bias, when stories are selected or slanted to please corporate owners of media.
  • Mainstream bias, a tendency to report what everyone else is reporting, and to avoid stories that will offend anyone.
  • Sensationalism, bias in favor of the exceptional over the ordinary, giving the impression that rare events, such as airplane crashes, are more common than common events, such as automobile crashes.
  • Structural bias, when an actor or issue receives more or less favorable coverage as a result of newsworthiness and media routines, not as the result of ideological decisions (e.g., incumbency bonus).
  • False balance, when an issue is presented as even sided, despite disproportionate amounts of evidence.

Other forms of bias include reporting that favors or attacks a particular race, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, ethnic group, or even person.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Media Bias: ___________________________________________________________________________

Media Bias in the United States:
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Media bias in the United States occurs when the US media systematically skews reporting in a way that crosses standards of professional journalism. Claims of media bias in the United States include claims of conservative bias, corporate bias, liberal bias, and mainstream bias.

A variety of watchdog groups combat this by fact-checking both biased reporting and unfounded claims of bias. A variety of scholarly disciplines study media bias.  Many news outlets make no pretense of being unbiased, and give their readers or listeners the news they want, leading to what has been called post truth politics.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Media Bias in the United States:







Cable Providers  (including a List) and Satellite Providers in the United States,  as regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
YouTube Video: The FCC votes to end Net Neutrality by CBS News
Pictured: List of how many homes each cable network is in as of February 2015

Click here for a List of Broadband Providers in the United States

Cable television first became available in the United States in 1948, with subscription services following in 1949. Data by SNL Kagan shows that as of 2006 about 58.4% of all American homes subscribe to basic cable television services. Most cable viewers in the U.S. reside in the suburbs and tend to be middle class; cable television is less common in low income, urban, and rural areas.

According to reports released by the Federal Communications Commission (see below), traditional cable television subscriptions in the US peaked around the year 2000, at 68.5 million total subscriptions. Since then, cable subscriptions have been in slow decline, dropping to 54.4 million subscribers by December 2013. Some telephone service providers have started offering television, reaching to 11.3 million video subscribers as of December 2013.

Click here for more about Cable Television ___________________________________________________________________________

Satellite television in the United States

Currently, there are two primary satellite television providers of subscription based service available to United States consumers: DirecTV and Dish Network, which have 21 and 14 million subscribers respectively.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Satellite Television in the United States: ___________________________________________________________________________

​The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government created by statute (47 U.S.C. § 151 and 47 U.S.C. § 154) to regulate interstate communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable.

The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the media, public safety and homeland security, and modernizing itself.

The FCC was formed by the Communications Act of 1934 to replace the radio regulation functions of the Federal Radio Commission. The FCC took over wire communication regulation from the Interstate Commerce Commission. The FCC's mandated jurisdiction covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the Territories of the United States.

The FCC also provides varied degrees of cooperation, oversight, and leadership for similar communications bodies in other countries of North America. The FCC is funded entirely by regulatory fees. It has an estimated fiscal-2016 budget of US $388 million. It has 1,688 federal employees, made up of 50% males and 50% females as of December, 2017.
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​Mission and strategy:

The FCC's mission, specified in Section One of the Communications Act of 1934 and amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (amendment to 47 U.S.C. §151) is to "make available so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, rapid, efficient, Nationwide, and world-wide wire and radio communication services with adequate facilities at reasonable charges."

The Act furthermore provides that the FCC was created "for the purpose of the national defense" and "for the purpose of promoting safety of life and property through the use of wire and radio communications."

Consistent with the objectives of the Act as well as the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), the FCC has identified six goals in its 2006–2011 Strategic Plan. These are:

Broadband:

"All Americans should have affordable access to robust and reliable broadband products and services. Regulatory policies must promote technological neutrality, competition, investment, and innovation to ensure that broadband service providers have sufficient incentives to develop and offer such products and services."

Competition:

"Competition in the provision of communication services, both domestically and overseas, supports the Nation's economy. The competitive framework for communications services should foster innovation and offer consumers reliable, meaningful choice in affordable services."

Spectrum:

"Efficient and effective use of non-federal spectrum domestically and internationally promotes the growth and rapid development of innovative and efficient communication technologies and services."

Media:

"The Nation's media regulations must promote competition and diversity and facilitate the transition to digital modes of delivery."

Public Safety and Homeland Security:

"Communications during emergencies and crisis must be available for public safety, health, defense, and emergency personnel, as well as all consumers in need. The Nation's critical communications infrastructure must be reliable, interoperable, redundant, and rapidly restorable."

Modernize the FCC:

​"The Commission shall strive to be highly productive, adaptive, and innovative organization that maximizes the benefits to stakeholders, staff, and management from effective systems, processes, resources, and organizational culture." (2008).

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Federal Communications Commission (FCC):







Mainstream Media
YouTube Video: Jake Tapper takes on Giuliani's 'alternate reality'
Mainstream media (MSM) is a term and abbreviation used to refer collectively to the various large mass news media that influence a large number of people, and both reflect and shape prevailing currents of thought. The term is used to contrast with alternative media which may contain content with more dissenting thought at variance with the prevailing views of mainstream sources.

The term is often used for large news conglomerates, including newspapers and broadcast media, that underwent successive mergers in many countries. The concentration of media ownership has raised concerns of a homogenization of viewpoints presented to news consumers.

Consequently, the term mainstream mediahas been widely used in conversation and the blogosphere, sometimes in oppositional, pejorative, or dismissive senses, in discussion of the mass media and media bias.

According to philosopher Noam Chomsky, media organizations with an elite audience such as CBS News and The New York Times are successful corporations with the assets necessary to set the tone for other smaller news organizations which lack comparable resources by creating conversations that cascade down to smaller news organizations using the Associated Press and other means of aggregation. An elite mainstream sets the agenda and smaller organizations parrot it.

Alternative Terms:

The advent of the Internet allowed the expression of a more diverse or alternative viewpoint which may contrast to mainstream media, to the point where the term mainstream media is seen in pejorative terms.

Lamestream media is a common pejorative alternative. Sarah Palin referred to "lamestream media," notably around 2009 during her participation in the Tea Party Express, in the context of what she perceived as media misrepresentation of the Tea Party movement.

Another term, originating on anonymous message boards, for the Mainstream Media is the acronym "MSM". The term is widely used by many on 4chan and Reddit, often as shorthand for the phrase "Mainstream Media".

United States:
Main article: Media cross-ownership in the United States

In the United States, movie production is known to have been dominated by major studios since the early 20th Century; before that, there was a period in which Edison's Trust monopolized the industry.

In the early twenty-first century the music and television industries was subject to media consolidation, with Sony Music Entertainment's parent company merging their music division with Bertelsmann AG's BMG to form Sony BMG and Tribune's The WB and CBS Corp.'s UPN merging to form The CW.

In the case of Sony BMG there existed a "Big Five", later "Big Four", of major record companies, while The CW's creation was an attempt to consolidate ratings and stand up to the "Big Four" of American network (terrestrial) television (although the CW was actually partially owned by one of the Big Four in CBS).

In television, the vast majority of broadcast and basic cable networks, over a hundred in all, are controlled by eight corporations: 
  1. News Corporation (the Fox family of channels), 
  2. The Walt Disney Company (which includes the ABC, ESPN and Disney brands), 
  3. National Amusements (which includes CBS Corporation and Viacom), 
  4. Comcast (which includes the NBC brands), 
  5. Time Warner, 
  6. Discovery Communications, 
  7. E. W. Scripps Company, 
  8. Cablevision, or some combination thereof.

​There may also be some large-scale owners in an industry that are not the causes of monopoly or oligopoly. Clear Channel Communications, especially since the Telecommunications Act of 1996, acquired many radio stations across the United States, and came to own more than 1,200 stations.

However, the radio broadcasting industry in the United States and elsewhere can be regarded as oligopolistic regardless of the existence of such a player. Because radio stations are local in reach, each licensed a specific part of spectrum by the FCC in a specific local area, any local market is served by a limited number of stations.

In most countries, this system of licensing makes many markets local oligopolies. The similar market structure exists for television broadcasting, cable systems and newspaper industries, all of which are characterized by the existence of large-scale owners. Concentration of ownership is often found in these industries.

In the United States, data on ownership and market share of media companies is not held in the public domain.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Mainstream Media:




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Outline of Journalism including an Index of Journalism Articles
YouTube Video: How The 21st Century Changed Journalism
Click here for an Index of Journalism Articles

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to journalism:
Journalism – investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Outline of Journalism:







Journalism, including Journalism Ethics and Standards
YouTube Video: Ethics 101: What is Journalism And Who Is A Journalist?​
YouTube Video: The 5 Core Values of Journalism

Journalism refers to the production and distribution of reports on recent events. The word journalism applies to the occupation, using methods of gathering information and utilizing literary techniques. Various forms of journalistic mediums include: print, television, radio, Internet and in the past: newsreels.

Concepts of the appropriate role for journalism vary between countries. In some nations, the news media is controlled by government intervention, and is not a fully independent body.

​In others, the news media is independent of the government but instead operates as private industry motivated by profit.

In addition to the varying nature of how media organizations are run and funded, countries may have differing implementations of laws handling the freedom of speech and libel cases.

The advent of the Internet and smartphones has brought significant changes to the media landscape in recent years. This has created a shift in the consumption of print media channels, as people increasingly consume news through e-readers, smartphones, and other personal electronic devices, as opposed to the more traditional formats of newspapers, magazines, or television news channels.

News organizations are challenged to fully monetize their digital wing, as well as improvise on the context in which they publish in print. Newspapers have seen print revenues sink at a faster pace than the rate of growth for digital revenues.

Production:

​Journalistic conventions vary by country. In the United States, journalism is produced by media organizations or by individuals. Bloggers are often, but not always, journalists.

The Federal Trade Commission requires that bloggers who write about products received as promotional gifts to disclose that they received the products for free. This is intended to eliminate conflicts of interest and protect consumers.

In the US, a credible news organization is an incorporated entity; has an editorial board; and exhibits separate editorial and advertising departments. Credible news organizations, or their employees, often belong to and abide by the ethics of professional organizations such as the American Society of News Editors, the Society of Professional Journalists, Investigative Reporters, or the Online News Association.

Many news organizations also have their own codes of ethics that guide journalists' professional publications. For instance, The New York Times code of standards and ethics is considered particularly rigorous.
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When writing stories, objectivity and bias are issues of concern to journalists. Some stories are intended to represent the author's own opinion; others are more neutral or feature balanced points-of-view. In a print newspaper, information is organized into sections and the distinction between opinionated and neutral stories is often clear. Online, many of these distinctions break down.

Readers should pay careful attention to headings and other design elements to ensure that they understand the journalist's intent. Opinion pieces are generally written by regular columnists or appear in a section titled "Op-ed", while feature stories, breaking news, and hard news stories are usually not opinionated.

According to Robert McChesney, healthy journalism in a democratic country must provide an opinion of people in power and who wish to be in power, must include a range of opinions and must regard the informational needs of all people.

Many debates center on whether journalists are "supposed" to be "objective" and "neutral"; arguments include the fact that journalists produce news out of and as part of a particular social context, and that they are guided by professional codes of ethics and do their best to represent all legitimate points of view.

Forms of Journalism​
Main article: Journalism genres

There are several forms of journalism with diverse audiences. Thus, journalism is said to serve the role of a "fourth estate", acting as a watchdog on the workings of the government.

A single publication (such as a newspaper) contains many forms of journalism, each of which may be presented in different formats. Each section of a newspaper, magazine, or website may cater to a different audience.

Some forms include:
​Social Media:

The rise of social media has drastically changed the nature of journalistic reporting, giving rise to so-called citizen journalists. In a 2014 study of journalists in the United States, 40% of participants claimed they rely on social media as a source, with over 20% depending on microblogs to collect facts. 

From this, the conclusion can be drawn that breaking news nowadays often stems from user-generated content, including videos and pictures posted online in social media. However, though 69.2% of the surveyed journalists agreed that social media allowed them to connect to their audience, only 30% thought it had a positive influence on news credibility.

Consequently, this has resulted in arguments to reconsider journalism as a process distributed among many authors, including the socially mediating public, rather than as individual products and articles written by dedicated journalists.

Because of these changes, the credibility ratings of news outlets has reached an all-time low. A 2014 study revealed that only 22% of Americans reported a "great deal" or "quite a lot of confidence" in either television news or newspapers.

​Fake News:

"Fake news" is deliberately untruthful information which can often spread quickly on social media or by means of fake news websites. It is often published to intentionally mislead readers to ultimately benefit a cause, organization or an individual. A glaring example was the proliferation of fake news in social media during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Conspiracy theories, hoaxes, and lies have been circulated under the guise of news reports to benefit specific candidates. One example is a fabricated report of Hillary Clinton's email which was published by a non-existent newspaper called The Denver Guardian.

Many critics blamed Facebook for the spread of these materials. Its news feed algorithm in particular was identified by Vox as the platform where the social media giant exercise billions of editorial decisions every day. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, has acknowledged the company's role in this problem: in a testimony before a combined Senate Judiciary and Commerce committee hearing on April 20, 2018, he said:
  • It's clear now that we didn't do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well. That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy.

Readers can often evaluate credibility of news by examining the credibility of the underlying news organization.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Journalism: ___________________________________________________________________________


Journalism ethics and standards:

Journalism ethics and standards comprise principles of ethics and of good practice as applicable to the specific challenges faced by journalists. This subset of media ethics is widely known to journalists as their professional "code of ethics" or the "canons of journalism". The basic codes and canons commonly appear in statements drafted by both professional journalism associations and individual print, broadcast, and online news organizations.

While various existing codes have some differences, most share common elements including the principles of truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness, and public accountability, as these apply to the acquisition of newsworthy information and its subsequent dissemination to the public.

Like many broader ethical systems, journalism ethics include the principle of "limitation of harm". This often involves the withholding of certain details from reports such as the names of minor children, crime victims' names or information not materially related to particular news reports release of which might, for example, harm someone's reputation.

Some journalistic codes of ethics, notably the European ones, also include a concern with discriminatory references in news based on race, religion, sexual orientation, and physical or mental disabilities. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe approved in 1993 Resolution 1003 on the Ethics of Journalism, which recommends that journalists respect the presumption of innocence, in particular in cases that are still sub judice.

Evolution and Purpose of Codes of Journalism:

The principles of journalistic codes of ethics are designed as guides through numerous difficulties, such as conflicts of interest, to assist journalists in dealing with ethical dilemmas.

The codes and canons provide journalists with a framework for self-monitoring and self-correction. Journalism is guided by five important values:
  1. The first is honesty: a journalist should not make up news or share news that give off wrong impressions.
  2. The second is independence: a journalist should avoid topics they have an interest in.
  3. The third is fairness: a journalist should not tell the truth if it is with bad intentions.
  4. The fourth is productiveness: a journalist should work hard to try to gather all the facts.
  5. The last value is pride: a journalist needs to be able to accept all credit for their work, bad or good.

Codes of Practice:

While journalists in the United States and European countries have led the formulation and adoption of these standards, such codes can be found in news reporting organizations in most countries with freedom of the press.

The written codes and practical standards vary somewhat from country to country and organization to organization, but there is substantial overlap between mainstream publications and societies.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) launched a global Ethical Journalism Initiative in 2008 aimed at strengthening awareness of these issues within professional bodies.

In 2013 the Ethical Journalism Network was founded by former IFJ General Secretary Aidan White. This coalition of international and regional media associations and journalism support groups campaigns for ethics, good governance and self-regulation across all platforms of media.

One of the leading voices in the U.S. on the subject of journalistic standards and ethics is the Society of Professional Journalists. The Preamble to its Code of Ethics states:
  • ...public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility.

The Radio Television Digital News Association, an organization exclusively centered on electronic journalism, maintains a code of ethics centering on public trust, truthfulness, fairness, integrity, independence, and accountability.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Journalism Ethics and Standards:







Investigative Journalism
YouTube Video: Outstanding Investigative Journalism - Long Form
YouTube Video: Astroturf and manipulation of media messages | Sharyl Attkisson | TEDxUniversityofNevada
Pictured below: Investigative Journalists and Digital Security (PEW Research Center)

Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing.

An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Investigative journalism is a primary source of information. Most investigative journalism is conducted by newspapers, wire services, and freelance journalists. Practitioners sometimes use the terms "watchdog reporting" or "accountability reporting".

An investigative reporter may make use of one or more of these tools, among others, on a single story:
  • Analysis of documents, such as lawsuits and other legal documents, tax records, government reports, regulatory reports, and corporate financial filings
  • Databases of public records
  • Investigation of technical issues, including scrutiny of government and business practices and their effects
  • Research into social and legal issues
  • Subscription research sources such as LexisNexis
  • Numerous interviews with on-the-record sources as well as, in some instances, interviews with anonymous sources (for example whistleblowers)
  • Federal or state Freedom of Information Acts to obtain documents and data from government agencies

Professional definitions:

University of Missouri journalism professor Steve Weinberg defined investigative journalism as: "Reporting, through one's own initiative and work product, matters of importance to readers, viewers, or listeners." 

In many cases, the subjects of the reporting wish the matters under scrutiny to remain undisclosed. There are currently university departments for teaching investigative journalism. Conferences are conducted presenting peer reviewed research into investigative journalism.

British media theorist Hugo de Burgh (2000) states that: "An investigative journalist is a man or woman whose profession is to discover the truth and to identify lapses from it in whatever media may be available. The act of doing this generally is called investigative journalism and is distinct from apparently similar work done by police, lawyers, auditors, and regulatory bodies in that it is not limited as to target, not legally founded and closely connected to publicity."

Terminology:
Main article: Muckraker

American journalism textbooks point out that muckraking standards promoted by McClure's Magazine around 1902, "Have become integral to the character of modern investigative journalism." Furthermore, the successes of the early muckrakers continued to inspire journalists.

Examples:
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  • Julius Chambers of the New-York Tribune had himself committed to the Bloomingdale Asylum in 1872, and his account led to the release of twelve patients who were not mentally ill, a reorganization of the staff and administration, and eventually to a change in the lunacy laws; this later led to the publication of the book A Mad World and Its Inhabitants (1876).
  • Nellie Bly is known for her record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days, in emulation of Jules Verne's fictional character Phileas Fogg, and an exposé for the New York World in which she faked insanity to study a mental institution from within.
  • Bill Dedman's 1988 investigation, The Color of Money, for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on racial discrimination by mortgage lenders in middle-income neighborhoods, received the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting and was an influential early example of computer-assisted reporting or database journalism.
  • Brian Deer's British press award-winning investigation for The Sunday Times of London into the worldwide MMR vaccine controversy which revealed that research, published by The Lancet, associating the children's vaccine with autism was fraudulent.
  • The Daily Telegraph investigated claims that various British Members of Parliament had been filing dubious and frivolous expenses claims, and had done for many years in secret. The House of Commons Authority initially tried to block the release of the information, but the expenses were leaked to the Telegraph. The newspaper then released pieces of information which dominated the news for weeks and caused considerable anger in the UK.
  • John M. Crewdson of the Chicago Tribune wrote a 1996 article proposing the installment of defibrillators on American airliners. Crewdson argued that based on his research and analysis, "Medical kits and defibrillators would be economically justified if they saved just 3 lives each year." Soon after the article's publication, airlines began installing defibrillators on planes, and the devices began to show up in airports and other public spaces. Ten years after installing defibrillators, American Airlines reported that 80 lives had been saved by the machines.
  • One of the largest teams of investigative journalists is the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) launched in 1997 by the Center for Public Integrity which includes 165 investigative reporters in over 65 countries working collaboratively on crime, corruption, and abuse of power at a global level, under Gerard Ryle as Director. Working with major media outlets globally, they have exposed organised crime, international tobacco companies, private military cartels, asbestos companies, climate change lobbyists, details of Iraq and Afghanistan war contracts, and most recently the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers.

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Broadcast Journalism
YouTube Video: Katie Couric* on how to conduct a good interview
* --  Katie Couric
YouTube Video: Soft Questions? Larry King* Explains His Interview Style
* -- Larry King
Pictured below: Clockwise from Upper Left:
Anderson Cooper, Diane Sawyer; Rachel Maddow; Brian Williams

Broadcast journalism is the field of news and journals which are "broadcast", that is, published by electrical methods instead of the older methods, such as printed newspapers and posters. Broadcast methods include radio (via air, cable, and Internet), television (via air, cable, and Internet) and the World Wide Web. Such media disperse pictures (static and moving), visual text and sounds.

Broadcast articles can be written as "packages", "readers", "voice-overs" (VO) and "sound on tape" (SOT).

A "sack" is an edited set of video clips for a news story and is common on television. It is typically narrated by a reporter. It is a story with audio, video, graphics and video effects.

The news anchor, or presenter, usually reads a "lead-in" (introduction) before the package is aired and may conclude the story with additional information, called a "tag".

A "reader" is an article read without accompanying video or sound. Sometimes an "over the shoulder digital on-screen graphic" is added.

A voice-over, or VO, is a video article narrated by the anchor.

Sound on tape, or SOT, is sound or video usually recorded in the field. It is usually an interview or soundbite.

Radio was the first medium for broadcast journalism. Many of the first radio stations were co-operative community radio ventures not making a profit. Later, radio advertising to pay for programs was pioneered in radio. Later still, television displaced radio and newspapers as the main news sources for most of the public in industrialized countries.

Some of the programming on radio is locally produced and some is broadcast by a radio network, for example, by syndication. The "talent" (professional voices) talk to the audience, including reading the news. People tune in to hear engaging radio personalities, music, and information. In radio news, stories include speech soundbites, the recorded sounds of events themselves, and the anchor or host.

Some radio news might run for just four minutes, but contain 12–15 stories. These new bulletins must balance the desire for a broad overview of current events with the audience's limited capacity to focus on a large number of different stories.

The radio industry has undergone a radical consolidation of ownership, with fewer companies owning the thousands of stations. Large media conglomerates such as Clear Channel Communications own most of the radio stations in the United States. That has resulted in more "niche" formats and the sharing of resources within clusters of stations, de-emphasizing local news and information.

There has been concern over whether this concentration serves the public. The opposition says that the range of political views expressed is greatly narrowed and that local concerns are neglected, including local emergencies, for which communication is critical. Automation has resulted in many stations broadcasting for many hours a day with no one on the station premises.

Television:

Television (TV) news is considered by many to be the most influential medium for journalism. For most of the American public, local news and national TV newscasts are the primary news sources.

Not only the numbers of audience viewers, but the effect on each viewer is considered more persuasive ("The medium is the message").

Television is dominated by attractive visuals (including beauty, action, and shock), with short soundbites and fast "cuts" (changes of camera angle). Television viewing numbers have become fragmented, with the introduction of cable news channels, such as Cable News Network (CNN), Fox News Channel and MSNBC.

Local television:

The industry divides local television in North America into media markets. These television markets are defined by viewing area and are ranked by the number of audience viewers. New broadcast journalists generally start in the smaller markets with fewer viewers and move up to larger television stations and television networks after gaining experience. The larger stations usually have more resources and better pay.

United States stations typically broadcast local news three or four times a day: around 4:30–6 am, 11:30 or noon, 5 or 6 pm, and 10 or 11 at night. Most of the nightly local newscasts are 30 minutes, and include sports television and weather.

News anchors are shown sitting at a desk in a television studio. The news anchors read teleprompters that contain local interest stories and breaking news. Reporters frequently tell their stories outside the formal television studio in the field, in a remote broadcast setting where Electronic news-gathering (ENG) techniques are used with production trucks. Daytime television or morning shows include more "soft" news and feature pieces, while the evening news emphasizes "hard" news.

News jobs:

News anchors (formerly "anchormen") serve as masters-of-ceremonies and are usually shown facing a professional video camera in a television studio while reading unseen teleprompters. The anchors are often in pairs (co-anchors), who sit side by side and often alternate their reading. Meteorologists stand in front of chroma key backgrounds to describe weather forecasting and show maps, charts and pictures. Reporters research and write the stories and sometimes use video editing to prepare the story for air into a "package".

Reporters are usually engaged in electronic field production (EFP) and are accompanied by a videographer at the scenes of the news; the latter holds the camera. the videographer or assistants manage the audio and lighting; they are in charge of setting up live television shots and might edit using a non-linear editing system (NLE). Segment producers choose, research and write stories, as well as deciding the timing and arrangement of the newscast. Associate producer, if any, specialize in other elements of the show such as graphics.

Production jobs:
Main article: Television crew

A newscast director is in charge of television show preparation, including assigning camera and talent (cast) positions on the set, as well as selecting the camera shots and other elements for either recorded or live television video production. The technical director (TD) operates the video switcher, which controls and mixes all the elements of the show. At smaller stations, the Director and Technical Director are the same person.

A graphics operator operates a character generator (CG) that produces the lower third on-screen titles and full-page digital on-screen graphics. The audio technician operates the audio mixing console. The technician is in charge of the microphones, music and audio tape. Often, production assistants operate the teleprompters and professional video cameras and serve as lighting and rigging technicians (grips).

Business Changes:

Broadcast journalism is changing rapidly, causing issues within the business as well. Many people can no longer find jobs in broadcast journalism because much more is online and does not even need to be broadcast by a person. Others are being laid off to invest more money into new technologies. Other changes include innovations allowing TV stations to better alert viewers in emergencies and have higher quality services. 

Online Convergence:

Convergence is the sharing and cross-promoting of content from a variety of media, all of which, in theory, converge and become one medium. In broadcast news, the internet is a key to convergence. Frequently, broadcast journalists also write text stories for the Web, usually accompanied by the graphics and sound of the original story.

​Websites offer the audience an interactive form where they can learn more about a story, can be referred to related articles, can offer comments for publication and can print stories at home. Technological convergence also lets newsrooms collaborate with other media, broadcast outlets sometimes have partnerships with their print counterparts.

Citizen Broadcast Journalism:

Citizen broadcast journalism is a new form of technology that has allowed regular civilians to post stories they see through outlets such as Snapchat, Facebook, and Twitter. It has become a new trend that some allegedly fear will take over broadcast journalism as it is known. News companies, like Fox News, are employing citizen journalists, which is a new phenomenon among journalism. 

Fake News:
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The term "fake news" has taken over broadcast journalism throughout the past and current years. Its impact on broadcast journalism played a role in how news about the election was spread.

Fake news defines how viewers see news that may be misleading or false. Many of these false or misleading stories came out during the 2016 election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

See also:







​Social Media
YouTube Video: The Best Way to Share Videos On Facebook
Pictured: Images of Logos for Some of the Most Popular Social Media Websites

​Social media are computer-mediated technologies that allow the creating and sharing of information, ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks. The variety of stand-alone and built-in social media services currently available introduces challenges of definition. However, there are some common features.
  1. Social media are interactive Web 2.0 Internet-based applications.
  2. User-generated content, such as text posts or comments, digital photos or videos, and data generated through all online interactions, are the lifeblood of social media.
  3. Users create service-specific profiles for the website or app that are designed and maintained by the social media organization.
  4. Social media facilitate the development of online social networks by connecting a user's profile with those of other individuals and/or groups.

Social media use web-based technologies, desktop computers and mobile technologies (e.g., smartphones and tablet computers) to create highly interactive platforms through which individuals, communities and organizations can share, co-create, discuss, and modify user-generated content or pre-made content posted online.

They introduce substantial and pervasive changes to communication between businesses, organizations, communities and individuals. Social media changes the way individuals and large organizations communicate.

These changes are the focus of the emerging field of technoself studies. In America, a survey reported that 84 percent of adolescents in America have a Facebook account. Over 60% of 13 to 17-year-olds have at least one profile on social media, with many spending more than two hours a day on social networking sites.

According to Nielsen, Internet users continue to spend more time on social media sites than on any other type of site. At the same time, the total time spent on social media sites in the U.S. across PCs as well as on mobile devices increased by 99 percent to 121 billion minutes in July 2012 compared to 66 billion minutes in July 2011.

For content contributors, the benefits of participating in social media have gone beyond simply social sharing to building reputation and bringing in career opportunities and monetary income.

Social media differ from paper-based or traditional electronic media such as TV broadcasting in many ways, including quality, reach, frequency, usability, immediacy, and permanence. Social media operate in a dialogic transmission system (many sources to many receivers).

This is in contrast to traditional media which operates under a monologic transmission model (one source to many receivers), such as a paper newspaper which is delivered to many subscribers. Some of the most popular social media websites are: 
These social media websites have more than 100 million registered users.

Observers have noted a range of positive and negative impacts from social media use. Social media can help to improve individuals' sense of connectedness with real and/or online communities and social media can be an effective communications (or marketing) tool for corporations, entrepreneurs, nonprofit organizations, including advocacy groups and political parties and governments.

At the same time, concerns have been raised about possible links between heavy social media use and depression, and even the issues of cyberbullying, online harassment and "trolling".

Currently, about half of young adults have been cyberbullied and of those, 20 percent said that they have been cyberbullied on a regular basis. Another survey was carried out among 7th grade students in America which is known as the Precaution Process Adoption Model. According to this study 69 percent of 7th grade students claim to have experienced cyberbullying and they also said that it is worse than face to face bullying.

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Blogs including a List of Blogs and a Glossary of Blogging
YouTube Video: How to Make a Blog - Step by Step - 2015
YouTube Video by Andrew Sullivan* on quitting blogging: "It was killing me."
* -- Andrew Sullivan
For an alphanumerical List of Blogs, click here.

For a Glossary of Blogging Terms, click here.

A blog (a truncation of the expression weblog) is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries ("posts").

Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order, so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page. Until 2009, blogs were usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often covered a single subject or topic.

In the 2010s, "multi-author blogs" (MABs) have developed, with posts written by large numbers of authors and sometimes professionally edited. MABs from newspapers, other media outlets, universities, think tanks, advocacy groups, and similar institutions account for an increasing quantity of blog traffic. The rise of Twitter and other "microblogging" systems helps integrate MABs and single-author blogs into the news media. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

The emergence and growth of blogs in the late 1990s coincided with the advent of web publishing tools that facilitated the posting of content by non-technical users who did not have much experience with HTML or computer programming. Previously, a knowledge of such technologies as HTML and File Transfer Protocol had been required to publish content on the Web, and as such, early Web users tended to be hackers and computer enthusiasts.

In the 2010s, majority of blogs are interactive Web 2.0 websites, allowing visitors to leave online comments and even message each other via GUI widgets on the blogs, and it is this interactivity that distinguishes them from other static websites.

In that sense, blogging can be seen as a form of social networking service. Indeed, bloggers do not only produce content to post on their blogs, but also build social relations with their readers and other bloggers.

However, there are high-readership blogs which do not allow comments.
Many blogs provide commentary on a particular subject or topic, ranging from politics to sports. Others function as more personal online diaries, and others function more as online brand advertising of a particular individual or company. A typical blog combines text, digital images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic.

The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important contribution to the popularity of many blogs. However, blog owners or authors need to moderate and filter online comments to remove hate speech or other offensive content. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (art blogs), photographs (photoblogs), videos (video blogs or "vlogs"), music (MP3 blogs), and audio (podcasts). Microblogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts.

In education, blogs can be used as instructional resources. These blogs are referred to as edublogs. On 16 February 2011, there were over 156 million public blogs in existence. On 20 February 2014, there were around 172 million Tumblr and 75.8 million WordPress blogs in existence worldwide.

According to critics and other bloggers, Blogger is the most popular blogging service used today. However, Blogger does not offer public statistics. Technorati has 1.3 million blogs as of February 22, 2014.

Click on any of the following bluehyperlinks for additional information about Blogs:


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Political Journalism * - Stephen Miller
Pictured below:
  • TOP: American Urban Radio's Washington bureau chief April Ryan asks questions during an exchange with President Trump at a news conference following Tuesday's midterm elections at the White House. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
  • BOTTOM: 12 Top D.C. Political Media Stars' Standout Moments (The Hollywood Reporter)
Political journalism is a broad branch of journalism that includes coverage of all aspects of politics and political science, although the term usually refers specifically to coverage of civil governments and political power.

Political journalism aims to provide voters with the information to formulate their own opinion and participate in community, local or national matters that will affect them. According to Edward Morrissey in an opinion article from theweek.com, political journalism frequently includes opinion journalism, as current political events can be biased in their reporting. The information provided includes facts, its perspective is subjective and leans towards one viewpoint.

Brendan Nyhan and John Sides argue that "Journalists who report on politics are frequently unfamiliar with political science research or question its relevance to their work". Journalists covering politics who are unfamiliar with information that would provide context to their stories can enable the story to take a different spin on what is being reported.

Political journalism is provided through different mediums, in print, broadcast, or online reporting. Digital media use has increased and it provides instant coverage of campaign, politics, event news and an accessible platform for the candidate.

Media outlets known for their political journalism like The New York Times and the Washington Post, have increased their use of this medium as well. Printed, online, and broadcast political humor presented as entertainment has been used to provide updates on aspects of government status, political news, campaign, and election updates.

According to Geoffrey Baym, the information provided may not be considered "fake news" but the lines between entertainment and factual news may seem blurred or biased while providing political updates.

This type of journalism is analyzed, interpreted, and discussed by news media pundits and editors. It can lack objectivity which can prevent the accuracy of the presented information. The reporting of news with a bias view point can also take away the audience's ability to form their own opinion or beliefs of what has been reported. This type of reporting is subjective with a possible social or political purpose.

Subsets of Political Journalism follow:

​Election journalism or electoral journalism is a sub-genre of political journalism which focuses upon and analyzes developments related to an approximate election and political campaigns. This type of journalism provides information to the electorate that can educate and help form opinion that empowers a specific vote.

This subgenre, like data journalism, makes use of numerical data, such as statistics, polls and historic data in regards to a candidate's chance of success for office, or a party's change in size in a legislature. It provides knowledge that may make the presented news hold more relevance. Information added to the reports are of campaign statuses and political events. A politician's strategy can be exaggerated or provided without context or historical perspective.

Trends on each party candidate are reported and at times compared to previous party candidates. The news on the status of the elections, like other political reporting's, are provided in different mediums. The election report coverage has taken full advantage of the digital era in providing instant access to news.

Defense journalism or military journalism is a subgenre which focuses upon the current status of a nation's military, intelligence and other defense-related faculties. Interest in defense journalism tends to increase during times of violent conflict, with military leaders being the primary actors. 

During the course of military journalism, news reporters are sometimes assigned to military units to report news taking place in areas of conflict. The term embedded journalism was used when the media was involved in the reporting of the war in Iraq. Embedded journalism can also be biased because it is one sided.

Information reported has been collected from the area the journalist has been stationed with the possibility to lean towards the agenda of the group they have been assigned to. This sub-genre of political journalism is also applied to media coming from journalists embedded in a particular campaign or candidate. Like military assignments, reports can be influenced by the message the campaign or candidate is trying to bring across.

See also:





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Disinformation including Fake News Pictured below: Infographic How to spot fake news published by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions
Disinformation is false information spread deliberately to deceive. This is a subset of misinformation, which also may be unintentional.The English word disinformation is a loan translation of the Russian dezinformatsiya, derived from the title of a KGB black propaganda department. Joseph Stalin coined the term, giving it a French-sounding name to claim it had a Western origin. Russian use began with a "special disinformation office" in 1923.

Disinformation was defined in Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1952) as "false information with the intention to deceive public opinion". Operation INFEKTION was a Soviet disinformation campaign to influence opinion that the U.S. invented AIDS. The U.S. did not actively counter disinformation until 1980, when a fake document reported that the U.S. supported apartheid.

The word disinformation did not appear in English dictionaries until the late-1980s. English use increased in 1986, after revelations that the Reagan Administration engaged in disinformation against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. By 1990 it was pervasive in U.S. politics; and by 2001 referred generally to lying and propaganda.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Disinformation:​
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Fake news, also known as junk news or pseudo-news, is a type of yellow journalism or propaganda that consists of deliberate disinformation or hoaxes spread via traditional news media (print and broadcast) or online social media.

The false information is often caused by reporters paying sources for stories, an unethical practice called checkbook journalism. Digital news has brought back and increased the usage of fake news, or yellow journalism. The news is then often reverberated as misinformation in social media but occasionally finds its way to the mainstream media as well.

Fake news is written and published usually with the intent to mislead in order to damage an agency, entity, or person, and/or gain financially or politically, often using sensationalist, dishonest, or outright fabricated headlines to increase readership.

Similarly, clickbait stories and headlines earn advertising revenue from this activity.
The relevance of fake news has increased in post-truth politics. For media outlets, the ability to attract viewers to their websites is necessary to generate online advertising revenue. Publishing a story with false content that attracts users benefits advertisers and improves ratings.

Easy access to online advertisement revenue, increased political polarization, and the popularity of social media, primarily the Facebook News Feed, have all been implicated in the spread of fake news, which competes with legitimate news stories. Hostile government actors have also been implicated in generating and propagating fake news, particularly during elections.

Fake news undermines serious media coverage and makes it more difficult for journalists to cover significant news stories. An analysis by BuzzFeed found that the top 20 fake news stories about the 2016 U.S. presidential election received more engagement on Facebook than the top 20 election stories from 19 major media outlets. Anonymously-hosted fake news websites lacking known publishers have also been criticized, because they make it difficult to prosecute sources of fake news for libel.

​The term is also at times used to cast doubt upon legitimate news from an opposing political standpoint, a tactic known as the lying press. During and after his presidential campaign and election, Donald Trump popularized the term "fake news" in this sense when he used it to describe the negative press coverage of himself. 

In part as a result of Trump's use of the term, the term has come under increasing criticism, and in October 2018 the British government decided that it will no longer use the term because it is "a poorly-defined and misleading term that conflates a variety of false information, from genuine error through to foreign interference in democratic processes."

​​Fake news is a neologism often used to refer to fabricated news. This type of news, found in traditional news, social media or fake news websites, has no basis in fact, but is presented as being factually accurate.

Michael Radutzky, a producer of CBS 60 Minutes, said his show considers fake news to be "stories that are probably false, have enormous traction [popular appeal] in the culture, and are consumed by millions of people." These stories are not only found in politics, but also in areas like vaccination, stock values and nutrition. He did not include news that is "invoked by politicians against the media for stories that they don't like or for comments that they don't like" as fake news.

Guy Campanile, also a 60 Minutes producer said, "What we are talking about are stories that are fabricated out of thin air. By most measures, deliberately, and by any definition, that's a lie."

The intent and purpose of fake news is important. In some cases, what appears to be fake news may be news satire, which uses exaggeration and introduces non-factual elements that are intended to amuse or make a point, rather than to deceive. Propaganda can also be fake news. Some researchers have highlighted that "fake news" may be distinguished not just by the falsity of its content, but also the "character of [its] online circulation and reception".

Claire Wardle of First Draft News identifies seven types of fake news:
  1. satire or parody ("no intention to cause harm but has potential to fool")
  2. false connection ("when headlines, visuals or captions don't support the content")
  3. misleading content ("misleading use of information to frame an issue or an individual")
  4. false context ("when genuine content is shared with false contextual information")
  5. impostor content ("when genuine sources are impersonated" with false, made-up sources)
  6. manipulated content ("when genuine information or imagery is manipulated to deceive", as with a "doctored" photo)
  7. fabricated content ("new content is 100% false, designed to deceive and do harm")

In the context of the United States of America and its election processes in the 2010s, fake news generated considerable controversy and argument, with some commentators defining concern over it as moral panic or mass hysteria and others worried about damage done to public trust.

In January 2017, the United Kingdom House of Commons conducted a parliamentary inquiry into the "growing phenomenon of fake news".

Some, most notably United States President Donald Trump, have broadened the meaning of "fake news" to include news that was negative of his presidency.

In November 2017, Claire Wardle (mentioned above) announced she has rejected the phrase "fake news" and "censors it in conversation", finding it "woefully inadequate" to describe the issues. She now speaks of "information pollution" and distinguishes between three types of problems: 'mis-information', 'dis-information', and 'mal-information':
  1. Mis-information: false information disseminated without harmful intent.
  2. Dis-information: created and shared by people with harmful intent.
  3. Mal-information: the sharing of "genuine" information with the intent to cause harm.

Author Terry Pratchett, who had a background as a journalist and press officer, was among the first to be concerned about the spread of fake news on the Internet. In a 1995 interview with Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, he said "Let's say I call myself the Institute for Something-or-other and I decide to promote a spurious treatise saying the Jews were entirely responsible for the second world war and the Holocaust didn’t happen, and it goes out there on the Internet and is available on the same terms as any piece of historical research which has undergone peer review and so on. There’s a kind of parity of esteem of information on the net. It’s all there: there’s no way of finding out whether this stuff has any bottom to it or whether someone has just made it up".

Gates was optimistic and disagreed, saying that authorities on the Net would index and check facts and reputations in a much more sophisticated way than in print. But it was Pratchett who had "accurately predicted how the internet would propagate and legitimize fake news".

Types of Fake News:

Here are a few examples of fake news and how they are viewed:
  • Clickbait
  • Propaganda
  • Satire/parody
  • Sloppy journalism
  • Misleading headings
  • Biased or slanted news
These are features of fake news and may help to identify and avoid instances of fake news.

Identifying Fake News:
​
The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) published a summary in diagram form (pictured at top of this article) to assist people in recognizing fake news. Its main points are:
  1. Consider the source (to understand its mission and purpose)
  2. Read beyond the headline (to understand the whole story)
  3. Check the authors (to see if they are real and credible)
  4. Assess the supporting sources (to ensure they support the claims)
  5. Check the date of publication (to see if the story is relevant and up to date)
  6. Ask if it is a joke (to determine if it is meant to be satire)
  7. Review your own biases (to see if they are affecting your judgement)
  8. Ask experts (to get confirmation from independent people with knowledge).

The International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), launched in 2015, supports international collaborative efforts in fact-checking, provides training, and has published a code of principles.

In 2017 it introduced an application and vetting process for journalistic organisations. One of IFCN's verified signatories, the independent, not-for-profit media journal The Conversation, created a short animation explaining its fact checking process, which involves "extra checks and balances, including blind peer review by a second academic expert, additional scrutiny and editorial oversight".

Beginning in the 2017 school year, children in Taiwan study a new curriculum designed to teach critical reading of propaganda and the evaluation of sources. Called "media literacy", the course provides training in journalism in the new information society.

​Detecting fake news online:

Fake news has become increasingly prevalent over the last few years, with over 100 incorrect articles and rumors spread incessantly just with regard to the 2016 United States presidential election. These fake news articles tend to come from satirical news websites or individual websites with an incentive to propagate false information, either as clickbait or to serve a purpose. Since they typically hope to intentionally promote incorrect information, such articles are quite difficult to detect. 

When identifying a source of information, one must look at many attributes, including but not limited to the content of the email and social media engagements. specifically, the language is typically more inflammatory in fake news than real articles, in part because the purpose is to confuse and generate clicks.

Furthermore, modeling techniques such as n-gram encodings and bag of words have served as other linguistic techniques to determine the legitimacy of a news source. On top of that, researchers have determined that visual-based cues also play a factor in categorizing an article, specifically some features can be designed to assess if a picture was legitimate, and provides more clarity on the news.

There is also many social context features that can play a role, as well as the model of spreading the news. Websites such as “Snopes” try to detect this information manually, while certain universities are trying to build mathematical models to do this themselves.

Fake News in the United States:
​
Fake news became a global subject and was widely introduced to billions as a prominent issue, especially due to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Numerous political commentators and journalists wrote and stated in media that 2016 was the year of fake news and as a result nothing will ever be the same in politics and cyber security.

Due to the increase in fake news in 2016, it became much harder to distinguish what was real and what was fake in 2017. Donald Trump tweeted or retweeted posts about "fake news" or "fake media" 176 times as of Dec. 20, 2017, according to an online archive of all of Trump's tweets. Governmental bodies in the U.S. and Europe started looking at contingencies and regulations to combat fake news specially when as part of a coordinated intelligence campaign by hostile foreign governments.

Online tech giants Facebook and Google started putting in place means to combat fake news in 2016 as a result of the phenomenon becoming globally known. Google Trends shows that the term "fake news" gained traction in online searches in October 2016.

Professor Philip N. Howard of the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford studied web traffic in the United States prior to the election. He found that about one half of all news on Twitter directed at Michigan was junk or fake, and the other half came from actual professional news sources.

According to BuzzFeed, during the last three months of the presidential campaign, of the top twenty fake election-related articles on Facebook, seventeen were anti-Clinton or pro-Trump. Facebook users interacted with them more often than with stories from genuine news outlets.

Debate over the impact of fake news in the election, and whether or not it significantly impacted the election of the Republican candidate Donald Trump, whom the most shared fake stories favored, led researchers from Stanford to study the impact of fake news shared on social media, where 62% of U.S. adults get their news from.

They assessed that 8% of readers of fake news recalled and believed in the content they were reading, though the same share of readers also recalled and believed in "placebos" — stories they did not actually read, but that were produced by the authors of the study. In comparison, over 50% of the participants recalled reading and believed in true news stories.

The authors do not assess the final impact of these numbers on the election, but seek to "offer theoretical and empirical background" for the debate.

​In the United States in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, fake news was particularly prevalent and spread rapidly over social media "bots", according to researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute.
​
In a speech shortly after the election, former Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton warned of the "real-world consequences" of fake news. Shortly thereafter, in the early weeks of his presidency, U.S. President Donald Trump frequently used the term "fake news" to refer to traditional news media, singling out CNN. 

Linguist George Lakoff says this creates confusion about the phrase's meaning. According to CBS 60 Minutes, President Trump may use the term fake news to describe any news, however legitimate or responsible, with which he may disagree.

After Republican Colorado State Senator Ray Scott used the term as a reference to a column in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, the newspaper's publisher threatened a defamation lawsuit.

In December 2016, an armed North Carolina man, Edgar Maddison Welch, traveled to Washington, D.C., and opened fire at the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria, driven by a fake online news story known as the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which accused the pizzeria of hosting a pedophile ring run by Democratic Party leaders. These stories tend to go viral quickly.

Social media systems, such as Facebook, play a large role in the broadcasting of fake news. These systems show users content that reflects their interests and history, leading to fake and misleading news. Following a plea agreement with prosecutors, Welch pleaded guilty to the federal charge of interstate transport of firearms and a District of Columbia charge of assault with a dangerous weapon. Welch was sentenced to four years in prison on June 22, 2017 and agreed to pay $5,744.33 for damages to the restaurant.

A situation study by The New York Times shows how a tweet by a person with no more than 40 followers went viral and was shared 16,000 times on Twitter. The tweet concluded that protesters were paid to be bussed to Trump demonstrations and protest. A Twitter user then posted a photograph of two buses outside a building, claiming that those were the Anti-Trump protesters.

The tweet immediately went viral on both Twitter and Facebook. Fake news can easily spread due to the speed and accessibility of modern communications technology.

​A CNN investigation examined exactly how fake news can start to trend. There are "bots" used by fake news publishers that make their articles appear more popular than they are. This makes it more likely for people to discover them.

"Bots are fake social media accounts that are programmed to automatically 'like' or retweet a particular message."

Fraudulent stories during the 2016 U.S. presidential election included a viral post popularized on Facebook that Pope Francis had endorsed Trump, and another that actor Denzel Washington "backs Trump in the most epic way possible". Trump's son and campaign surrogate Eric Trump, top national security adviser Michael Flynn, and then-campaign managers Kellyanne Conway and Corey Lewandowski shared fake news stories during the campaign.

​Starting in July 2017, President Trump's 2020 presidential campaign launched Real News Update, an online news program posted on Facebook. The series reports on Trump's accomplishments as president of the United States and claims to highlight "real news" as opposed to alleged "fake news". Lara Trump introduced one video by saying "If you are tired of all the fake news out there...we are going to bring you nothing but the facts" and "I bet you haven't heard about all the accomplishments the president had this week, because there's so much fake news out there". The show has been labelled as "propaganda".

In January 2018, it was reported that a Gallup-Knight Foundation survey found that 17% of Democrats and 42% of Republicans "consider accurate news stories that cast a politician or political group in a negative light to always be 'fake news.'" A June 2018 poll by Axios and Survey Monkey found that 72% of Americans believe "traditional news outlets knowingly report false or misleading stories at least sometimes," with 92% of Republican and Republican-leaning independents and 53% of Democrats believing this.

A series of fabricated stories in Europe’s largest weekly magazine, Der Spiegel, prompted U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell to call for an independent investigation. Grenell wrote that "These fake news stories largely focus on U.S. policies and certain segments of the American people."

See also:






​
Media Franchises, including List of Multimedia Franchises  and List of Highest-grossing Media Franchises Pictured below are Examples of Media Franchises:
TOP ROW (L-R) Aladdin Multimedia Franchise; Mickey Mouse Universe Franchise
BOTTOM ROW: Pokémon Media Franchise
A media franchise, also known as multimedia franchise, is a collection of related media in which several derivative works have been produced from an original creative work of fiction, such as a film, a work of literature, a television program or a video game.

The intellectual property from the work can be licensed to other parties or partners for further derivative works and commercial exploitation across a range of media and by a variety of industries for merchandising purposes.

Transmedia Franchise:
​See also: Media mix

A media franchise often consists of cross-marketing across more than one medium. For the owners, the goal of increasing profit through diversity can extend the commercial profitability of the franchise and create strong feelings of identity and ownership in its consumers (fandom). 

Aarseth describes the financial logic of cost-recovery for expensive productions by identifying that a single medium launch is a lost opportunity, the timeliness of the production and release is more important than its integrity, the releases should raise brand awareness and the cross-ability of the work is critical for its success.

American Idol was a transmedia franchise from its beginnings, with the first season winner Kelly Clarkson signing with RCA Records and having the release of A Moment Like This becoming a #1 hit on Billboard Hot 100.The success resulted in a nationwide concert tour, an American Idol book that made the bestseller list and the film From Justin to Kelly.

A transmedia franchise however is often referred to by the simpler term "media franchise." The term media franchise is often used to describe the popular adaptation of a work into films, like the popular Twilight book series that was adapted into the five films of The Twilight Saga.

Other neologisms exist to describe various franchise types including metaseries, which can be used to describe works such as Isaac Asimov's Foundation series.

Multimedia franchises usually develop through a character or fictional world becoming popular in one medium, and then expanding to others through licensing agreements, with respect to intellectual property in the franchise's characters and settings.

As one author explains, "[f]or the studios, a home-run is a film from which a multimedia 'franchise' can be generated; the colossally expensive creation of cross-media conglomerates predicated on synergistic rewards provides an obvious imperative to develop such products." The trend later developed wherein franchises would be launched in multiple forms of media simultaneously:

In one of the most celebrated ventures in media convergence, Larry and Andy Wachowski, creators of The Matrix trilogy, produced the game Enter the Matrix (2003) simultaneously with the last two films of the trilogy, shooting scenes for the game on the movie's sets with the movie's actors, and releasing the game on the same day as The Matrix Reloaded.

Likewise, on September 21, 2004, Lucasfilm jointly released a new DVD box set of the original Star Wars trilogy with Star Wars: Battlefront, a combat game in which players can reenact battles from all six Star Wars films. In 2005,

Peter Jackson likewise produced his blockbuster film King Kong (2005) in tandem with a successful King Kong game designed by Michel Ancel and published by Ubisoft. In the last several years, numerous licensed videogame adaptations of major summer and holiday blockbusters were released a few days before or a few days after their respective films, including:
These multimedia franchises have made it more difficult to distinguish the production of films and videogames as separate enterprises
— Harry Brown, Videogames and Education.

Development to Other Forms:

​Fiction:

Long-running film franchises were common in the early studio era, when Hollywood studios had actors and directors under long-term contract. Examples include Andy Hardy, Ma and Pa Kettle, Bulldog Drummond, Superman, Tarzan, and Batman.

The longest-running modern film franchises include: 
In such cases, even lead actors are often replaced as they age, lose interest, or their characters are killed.

Media franchises tend to cross over from their original media to other forms. Literary franchises are often transported to film, such as Nancy Drew, Miss Marple, and other popular detectives, as well as popular comic book superheroes.

Television and film franchises are often expanded upon in novels, particularly those in the fantasy and science fiction genres, such as The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Doctor Who and Star Wars.

Similarly, fantasy, science fiction films and television shows are frequently adapted into animated television series, video games, or both.

A media franchise does not have to include the same characters or theme, as the brand identity can be the franchise, like Square Enix's Final Fantasy or the National Lampoon series, and can suffer from critical failures even if the media fictional material is unrelated.

Non-fiction:

Non-fiction literary franchises include the ...For Dummies and The Complete Idiot's Guide to... reference books.

An enduring and comprehensive example of a media franchise is Playboy Enterprises, which began expanding well beyond its successful magazine, Playboy, within a few years after its first publication, into such enterprises as a modeling agency, several television shows (Playboy's Penthouse, in 1959), and even its own television channel.

Twenty-five years later, Playboy released the following:
  • private clubs and restaurants,
  • movie theaters, 
  • a radio show, 
  • direct to video films,
  • music and book publishing (including original works in addition to its anthologies of cartoons,
  • photographs,
  • recipes,
  • advice,
  • articles or fiction that had originally appeared in the magazine),
  • footwear, clothing of every kind, jewelry, housewares (lamps, clocks, bedding, glassware),
  • guitars
  • cards and gambling,
  • playing cards,
  • pinball machines,
  • pet accessories,
  • billiard balls,
  • bedroom appurtenances,
  • enhancements,
  • plus countless other items of merchandise.
See also: ___________________________________________________________________________

A multimedia franchise (or a transmedia franchise) is a media franchise for which installments exist in multiple forms of media, such as: 
Multimedia franchises usually develop due to the popularization of an original creative work, and then its expansion to other media through licensing agreements, with respect to intellectual property in the franchise's characters and settings, although the trend later developed wherein franchises would be launched in multiple forms of media simultaneously.

In order to qualify for this list, a franchise must have works in at least three forms of media, and must have two or more separate works in at least two of those forms of media (a television series or comic book series is considered a single work for purposes of this list; multiple spin-off series or reboots of a previously ended series are considered multiple works).

For example, a television series that spawned one film and one novelization would not qualify; a television series that had a spin-off series, or was remade as a new series, and which spawned two films and one novelization does qualify.

This list does not include public domain works from which adaptations have been made in multiple media, but which do not involve licensing or other means by which an author or owner controls the franchise. A franchise may be included if it obtained multimedia franchise status prior to works within the collection entering the public domain.

Note: In the following table, the initial media through which the franchise characters or settings became known is shown in boldface. Only works of fiction are only considered part of the series; a book or a documentary film about the franchise is not itself an installment in the franchise.

Click here for List of Multimedia Franchises.

___________________________________________________________________________

This is a list of the highest-grossing media franchises. This includes media franchises that started as a book, film, video game, comic book, animation, cartoon or television series and have expanded to other forms of media.

This list covers every aspect of a particular franchise, such as box office, sales from merchandise, home entertainment, and revenue from video games, among other things, if such information is available.

​The list includes the total estimated revenue figure and the revenue breakdown. Estimates are based on combined revenue from different media and merchandise, based on publicly available data.

Click here for a List of highest-grossing media franchises.

See also:







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