Meme Culture Reflection
In our findings for the Meme Culture project, we found that with regard to Trump and the Russia collusion through the election, there is clearly some evidence that it occurred. However, if you take a look at both sides of the political spectrum, there is inaccuracy and embellishment no matter where you look. Let me explain what I mean by embellishment. Embellishment is when you take something that actually occurred, and then cherry pick certain aspect of the facts and exaggerate them to better fit your argument. This is definitely the case with our findings, regarding the left or the right. For example, one of our articles from Fox News was about other hoaxes unrelated to the Trump and Russia situation, but in its title it reads “Gregg Jarrett: The Trump-Russia 'collusion' and other great hoaxes” therefore associating the Trump news with other previous hoaxes, in an attempt to discredit the evidence, found against Trump for collaborating with the Russians. On the left however, a similar case is present. An article by the Guardian titled, “The Trump-Russia dossier: why its findings grow more significant by the day?” also presents no additional evidence, but its article is suggestive of new evidence being available. The vagueness of the article is present throughout the text. For example, regarding the new evidence, it reads, “But as every passing month brings more leaks, revelations in the press, and more progress in the investigations, the Steele dossier has generally gained in credibility, rather than lost it.” The word generally is particularly concerning, because who’s to decide what is generally accepted or not? A poll perhaps, or data, neither of which is present here. I think the most concerning aspect of the concept of fake news is really the headlines they present. A significant portion of people don’t read the actual articles, and notification centers, like the one in my computer, present only the titles of articles when giving you breaking news. The titles can be very misleading and lead to readers that are uninformed and biased.
