#CampusRassismus

Just a short note:

The amazing people at PoC-Hochschulgruppe Mainz will be showing an interesting example of Hashtag activism in order to highlight all those aggressions and racist patterns PoC are facing at universities. Here's a link to the Facebook event. Show your support.

Praised be the White Hetero

Hold on, the Angry Queer Feminist™ is at it again.

As much as I adore Matt McGorry for his acting and support of feminist ideas (his Twitter gives me life), I felt quite stumped after reading the following headline shared by ZEIT ONLINE: "The Feminist Celebrity of the Year könnte zum ersten Mal ein weißer Hetero werden." There are so many things that are just plainly wrong with that article, I find it hard to get a good starting point.

First of all, why is his sexuality newsworthy enough to put it into the headline - especially since it's only mentioned in the headline but not in the actual article at all? Also, a quick google search showed that his sexuality was never really confirmed by him at all. He could easily be bi (see what I did there), pan, gay, asexual, whatever. Why does an author go so far as to assume someone's sexuality and thinks that it is important enough to put it into a headline? If you listen closely, you might hear me faintly ranting over my cup of tea about heteronormativity. Several queer centuries later and people still assume that being hetero and cis is still the status quo? What a time to be alive.

Plus, isn't it rather hypocritical to pit feminists against each other like that? Feminism needs all its different voices and opinions, its intersectionalism in order to provide a broad and complex and rewarding discussion. And awarding one special feminist ("The Chosen One") for their work seems rather forced to me. Wouldn't it be better to highlight the work of many different feminists in different areas? Wouldn't this do a better job at representing the complex and versatile field of feminist discussions instead of unnecessarily simplifying it for the sake of popular culture?

Also, it's worth taking a look at who else was nominated: Amandla Stenberg, America Ferrera, Laverne Cox, Margaret Cho, Rowan Blanchard, Shonda Rhimes, Tracee Ellis Ross, Viola Davis... and many more amazing women.
Is it really that revolutionary that a white man considers himself to be a feminist that he outweighs all these amazing people? Wouldn't it be a great sign to nominate and award one of these amazing Women of Colour? They've been fighting their whole life, always pushing borders of racial prejudices, actually living under the influence of oppression... But hey, let's nominate that white dude, he's pretty hot.

On The Trustworthiness of News

Most times we sort of have a feeling for what source can be considered trustworthy, sometimes we can't. Some argue that this "trustworthiness detector" might be influenced by the person's intelligence, even though I wouldn't want to generalise this. Personally, I think it has more to do with education and one's own interests.

Studies (especially page 7) show that it's easier for people with a higher education to differentiate what news source can be considered reliable. This could be explained by taking a look at their news consumption in general. Most people with a higher education are granted a more thorough understanding of politics and history which in turn tends to heighten their interest in these topics making them more likely to regularly consume news. And those who regularly consume news tend to know the bigger news sources better and get acquainted with their reporting style, thus unintentionally learning to understand what is considered good news.

What makes us believe that a news source is trustworthy, what makes news "good news"? 

Well, for one, it's that simple: fame and reputation. Most bigger papers such as the New York Times are well-known enough for people to know their name without ever reading them. But, as I already said some posts ago, even the bigger news sources are increasingly showing a tendency towards newstainment, towards "trashier" articles on soft topics. Which is at least partly understandable but I fear that it will damage their reputation in the long run. Which brings me to my next point: fame alone isn't enough to be considered trustworthy, reputation is what really qualifies a news source as good. The Bild, for example, is one of the best-known German papers but very few (educated) people would call their articles trustworthy and reliable because their reputation is that of a tabloid paper. While some political blogs may be lesser known, their reputation among the"initiated" makes them seem more reliable.

Knowing a news source, in turn, also plays a bigger role in how it is perceived. You could criticise that fame and knowing something is quite the same, but I'd argue that their is quite a difference between having heard of a news source and consuming it regularly, maybe knowing some names of the regular authors. By watching a news source over a longer time and consuming it quite often you will start to understand the paper's political attitude and will thus be able to determine when something has changed or does not fit the paper's overall image at all.

So after all, a paper's trustworthiness strongly depends on the people who consume it. A person who is not "media-literate" at all won't be able to tell the difference. And this so-called media-literacy strongly depends on the kind of education a person receives in my opinion. While school does not teach you how to consume critically (they tried but failed miserably, at least at my old school), it gives you the tools to analyse, to see it all in a broader context. Most of this happens subconsciously and there are many exceptions. A person might be educated but if they lack the interest for media and politics, they won't learn to consume critically (arguably you might refrain from calling them educated in that area because media literacy strongly depends on your own will to "study" it). Another person might not be as academically educated but have a strong interest for politics and is thus willed to learn more about media and news.

So, to make myself clear: when I'm saying "educated" I don't necessarily mean school education but what we like to call "self-study". Education matters, folks.

On The Troubles of Social Media Studies

Reading the texts on Facebook for next week's session, I found myself highlighting a fair amount of passages - but truth be told, not that much for CSIV but rather for my minor where we're preparing a study on Facebook's qualities as a source for (political) news.

Facebook and its qualification as a news outlet have really peaked the interest of people in my field - understandably. Last semester, we developed a survey trying to find out whether Facebook is actually seen and consciously used for daily news - turns out, it isn't (which did not come as such a big surprise). Derek Thompson did actually sum it up quite nicely: "It's an entertainment portal for stories that remind us of our lives and offer something like an emotional popper" and not at all intended to be a serious, reputable news source. But despite that fact, it simply cannot be denied that Facebook plays a big role for news - and vice versa. If you want people to see your content, you have to share it where the people are, it's as simple as that. At least in theory.

This semester we're working on a similar topic: after establishing that Facebook is not regarded as a real source for political news, we will take a look at how some of those political news posts are perceived - this time not focusing on how people consciously perceive it but what happens unintentionally with the help of eye tracking and how the posts we'll be showing to the test persons will alter their opinions.

At this point we're still working on what kind of stimulus material we want to use, whether we'll need a preliminary interview or not, etc. So, we're pretty much still stuck in the organisational phase. But even yet, I'm quite skeptic whether all this will actually be of much help to determine real, specific results and correlations. I was already ranting about this in last semester's research paper: while it is logical and important to research Facebook's influence in any way (the digital world has after all become a big part of our real life, like it or not), I think it's pretty much impossible to come to any lasting conclusions. Just take a look at Facebook's ever-changing algorithm - it determines what the user sees. And some pages might literally spam its fans with news articles, if those fans get only shown 10% of it because of that algorithm, they will perceive the news amount to be less than it is in "reality". That filter, that's constantly changing, will always alter the outcome of any given research - which is a real problem for the long-term comparability of such studies.

Of course, every topic of all studies ever done are subject to change, it's just natural. But in most cases there is at least some consistency in those developments and you might be able to link changes to human nature (boredom, fear, you name it). But in the case of Social Media, especially regarding Facebook, it's just so much harder because some changes just aren't due to its users but due to algorithms and decisions made by Facebook's management.

Conversely, when looking into Facebook and its user's behaviour you have to factor in both the human psyche and behaviour but also the algorithms and their thousands of additional factors while having trouble to base your findings on older researches (which are already scarce). Good luck with that, guys.

The Dangers of Anonymous

No, I'm not talking about the real Anonymous, that international network of hackers and activists that emerged from that ever-weird imagboard website 4chan. I'm talking about the German (apparent) representative of them on Facebook: Anonymous Kollektiv. 

I've known both, the Facebook Anonymous (which I'll call Kollektiv to make it easier to differentiate) and the real Anonymous, for some time now. And while Anonymous should always be seen critically (as should everything, to be quite honest), I've come to really detest Kollektiv years ago. Which is really funny, considering how clever they are: they jumped on the Anonymous bandwagon and used their fame to become famous themselves - preying on Anonymous' real strength, their anonymity, and making it their weakness.

Anonymous can try to distance itself from Kollektiv as much as they want, Kollektiv has reached that level of fame where it's become a myth that's come to stay. Even if every person with some intelligence and knowledge should easily recognise just how much Kollektiv deviates from what Anonymous actually wants to achieve, it sadly isn't the case.

So, so many people I know on Facebook have liked Kollektiv's site, often sharing whatever rubbish they've published now. And yes, I'm very consciously saying rubbish here (even if bullshit is what first came to my mind, but oh well) because they are so often contradicting their own messages or are simply preying on what's popular right now. Hello there, all you little tin foil hat wearing conspiracists.

Especially in the face of Anonymous latest move on ISIS the public interest in what they're doing just exploded - and really, searching for something on Facebook is the next best thing we do after looking it up via Google. And tragically, most people blindly believe whatever they read on the Internet. In this case this means that Kollektiv and Anonymous must absolutely be the same thing, amirite? Yeah.

Just take a look at what kind of people comment their posts.

Trying not be judgemental but that doesn't sound like the kind of people that's trying to form their own opinion on important matters without questioning what some website is telling you.

And that's the tragedy of our age. We're being told to take everything with a grain of salt on the web but for most people it's just so tempting to believe that just because it's on the Internet it has to be true. Even with schools trying to teach children what you could call media literacy, it still won't change the fact that simply everybody with some decent IT knowledge can pose as someone else - and spreading lies has thus become easier than ever before.

Being Anonymous has never been so easy and difficult simultaneously.

For further insight, take a look at this Spiegel article that also offers some pretty valid points as to why Kollektiv and Anonymous are certainly not the same.

Newstainment

I thought newspapers wouldn’t survive the Internet but what happened next made me cry…!

(See what I did there?)

Last week, I was talking about how clickbaiting works and I thought that it would be interesting to further continue this line of thought focusing on what this increase of clickbaits across the Internet actually means for other "real" news outlets.

It's clear that it's tough for every paper across the globe to remain successful in times of directly available, free information online any time - but maybe this is just the tip of the iceberg. Most big newspapers have succeeded to build a more or less stable online presence (take a look at Spiegel Online or The Guardian), but the times they are a-changin'. 

Next to heavily emotional!, exciting! clickbait "news" those good old-fashioned news articles seem rather dull and tend to get lost amidst the masses of posts, they just don't stand out unless they are about some very recent big news (like Fukushima some years ago). Who, after all, would claim to be interested in depressing and frustrating news on politics and catastrophes after a long day of work? Yeah, you get the idea.

And while huge numbers of clicks are nice for those few big news sites that are “successful”, they don't help much to bring in money. Most users use adblockers and won't agree to subscriptions, they’d rather search for websites with free content (another way to compete – which is completely toxic to one's own work in the end). And real-life subscriptions of newspapers have been steadily declining these last decades anyway.

Will this eventually be the end for newspapers as we know them? The times they are a-changin' but the media tries its best to keep up.

About five years ago I started to be more interested in real news and in this short time so much has changed about what is considered “news”. It seems that the number of commentaries and “soft” news has not just increased, it almost exploded. Even those news sources that are (still) considered reputable, have long begun to publish articles on kitten that had been rescued (no offense, kitten – I still love you) and oh so tragic stories. Of course, sometimes it can’t be helped to search for “filler news” when nothing else is available that could be interesting in any way, but in times like these with rapid changes all about every single day?

I don’t buy it. Actually, it really feels as if “real” news sites try to mimic what clickbait sites have been doing for years – more or less subtly. But is it really the right strategy to just copy what everyone else is doing – and thus risking the quality of one’s own content. I highly doubt it.

Definition of Newstainment on the Urban Dictionary:

"Newstainment is the product of 24 hour news stations which are a combination of news and entertainment. The news portions fill in the space between the entertainment which is what gets the viewers. Some stations like to also use exaggeration, innuendo and deceptive practices like splicing stock footage of crowds into a story to make it look more newsworthy. They all have a slant to oneideology or another but that is mainly to appeal to their newstainment audiencewho do not like hearing confusing viewpoints that disagree with or are different than their own. Negative news stories about the ideological opposition is a staple of Newstainment."

How to be #heftig

We all know headlines like this:
"This boy will die in a few days. But you can't imagine what happens next..."

German Facebook users might instantly think of heftig but there are more than a hundred other examples across the globe in many different languages and variations. But they all have something in common: their formula for success always remains the same. They try to create suspense, to intrigue the reader, to manipulate emotions. In the end, it's all about the number of views a story generates. But let's take a closer look at how they actually do it.

Normally, there's a sort of classical structure for news stories:

• Headline: The actual core of the news story.
• Subheading: A couple more details on the story.
• Lead: The first sentence of the article. It contains all the necessary bits of information according to the six Ws.
• Source: The following sentences will give more information, especially on whom you rely for information (e.g. "spokesman XY said...").
• More details, offering further insight through a background story and how it might affect future developments.

The latter is not as necessary for good journalism - ideally your story will be constructed in such a way that makes it easy to "cut" your story's last paragraphs. Every article by a good journalist should be constructed like this, making it easier both for his colleagues to shorten the article if necessary and also for his readers - even if they don't read the whole story they will feel well-informed; and if your story is really great, they will feel compelled to read on. (On a side note, this is the reason why many online news sources tend to spread their articles over several pages, tempting the reader to click "Page 2" in order to find out whether the story is of good quality.)

But sites like heftig.co intentionally break this rule that has been tried and tested over decades - and big surprise, they are really successful! 

It's not far-fetched to say that some of their stories might get more clicks than those of big newspapers. By intentionally leaving out answers to the most essential w-questions they arouse curiosity. And in addition to this, they heavily rely on emotions: tragedy or strong positive feelings ("He was about to die, but what happened next will make you cry out of joy!"). The perfect combination to go viral. 

Interestingly enough, many of their stories go viral, even though it's far from being a secret that websites like this are the complete opposite of being reputable. But they have really optimised their "Social Media Game" - every single story is created to be shared in social networks, mostly Facebook. 

But why Facebook? Facebook is the social network to relax, to connect, to be entertained be it stalking your ex or that cute kitten... Most people don't use it for political news (that's Twitter's realm) but for pure entertainment. So yep, Facebook is just perfect for these stories while real news tend to remain noticed but not really clicked on. 

(Another side note: Facebook has a much higher percentage of older users while Twitter's users are remarkably younger. And as a matter of fact, younger generations tend to be more experienced with the Internet's tricksters and traps (digital natives) than the older ones (digital immigrants) who have just learned how to use it instead of growing up with it. So, they are more likely to fall for sites like heftig.co.)

Never telling the whole story is the main strategy for any sort of clickbait - but heftig.co has perfected it far more than any tabloid paper.

News to go

By now it's no big news (pun may or may not be intended) that the way we consume news has drastically changed over the past centuries even years.

While the public still considers traditional media to be more trustworthy, social media are continually increasing their influence in our everyday life. Twitter, Facebook, news apps... they all offer what you could call "news to go": news condensed to bits of information (ideally to the most important facts and figures) going along with a fitting picture. If it's a job well done the number of followers will increase and if it's a job done even better those followers will feel tempted to click the link leading to the longer news story.

Put together these mini-news offer a constantly updated newsfeed, similar to a liveticker.
So, instead of detailed analyses and overviews it is short news articles that are preferred as they enable us to obtain new information faster and thus making them easier to digest.

But what does this tell us about our society? Have people become so lazy that any effort put into thinking on their own is too much? Or is it maybe that it could also be seen as a sign that values have changed over time - as they so often do. After all, short and more condensed news enable us to read faster and thus give us the extra time to read more news from other sources. This, in turn, provides the possiblity to consider different point of views and perspective before forming one's own opinion - or altering it in the process. All this is taken from a rather optimistic point of view but in my opinion we should not condemn every new challenge and try to see the most terrible outcome in everything. Being critical is more than doubt and mistrust, it's also about acknowledging potential.

All the while, however, studies still prove that the original news sources are taken more seriously. But nonetheless it could and should be of interest to observe whether a shift in trustworthiness will take place over time, granting the unofficial but more organic news more popularity.

Using Publicity for the Right Cause

Those who have been watching news articles on the police brutality protests in the USA and those who have been paying attention to all those police murder stories being covered up as accidents, may have heard or read of Quentin Tarantino’s presence at one of those protests in New York City last Saturday.

Now, many of those people might initially be upset that now it all seems to be about Tarantino instead of the actual cause for protests like these. But his presence and the fact that the media covers it so extensively is more than just publicity for him – it matters for everyone involved and Tarantino is actually of great help.

While some fear that his attendance will distract the media from the actual protest and its goals, the opposite is far more likely. His short speech and the attention of the media on him also draw more attention to the protest itself. The protest does not solely serve as publicity for him, it’s rather the other way around. Well yes, of course it does sort of push his publicity but it’s far from a safe bet for him: many have been speaking out against him, e.g. the NYPD has beencalling for a boycott of his films. He is clearly taking sides on a controversial topic, a topic most media outlets have treated as very one-sided (often decidedly “pro-cop”).

For the movement itself his presence will far more likely be of great importance and help. After all, his attendance has drawn more attention to their cause which has not been forgotten but has often been labelled as aggression and anger towards the police. This isn’t surprising at all, considering that it’s a rather common practice to diminish the actual critique of marginalised groups as “anger”, “outrage” or “rioting”. These people have a right to be angry but society is in huge parts turning its back on them. And Tarantino has done something very important by standing up with their protests, showing that while he is not affected by the troubles they face he wants to help them as an actual decent human being, acknowledging the discrimination they face as it is: racism.

And even though his voice is just as important and everyone else’s, his will be considered more important considering his fame and, to be honest, whiteness. He uses his status, his power, the attention on him to redirect it to the racism and corrupt police departments in the USA.

So in fact, he is tricking the media: they make it all about him, they can’t just ignore this event – they have to once again report on those protests. And people will want to know why he has sided with this movement. 

While Tarantino is far from being a perfect human being (there are certainly many aspects to criticise, but that’s a whole other topic) but he is actually doing something good by using his high status to lift up those in a lower position, becoming a white ally – which some other people should take as an example to be followed.

Why your Choice of Image Matters

It’s never just a picture, especially in the media. There is so much more to it than just placing it as a nice addition to the text. When it comes to the images to support an article there are many choices to be made: Is it ethical to use this sort of photograph (remember the drowned Syrian toddler – trigger warning: death)? Does it make the article seem more interesting? Does it add to the overall message the author is trying to convey? And so on.

Ideally, the author would be completely objective but let’s be frank, this is a standard that’s impossible to live up to – every choice of word, topic, perspective and, yes, photographs are influenced by one’s own opinion. To those interested in the journalist’s role in the media, might want to take a look at the Gatekeeping Theory. Now it would be nice to be able to just step back and say “I can’t help it, I’m making those decisions subconsciously” but it is – and should not be – that easy. It is in the author’s responsibility to maintain the utmost possible level of what we like to call objectivity while also questioning one’s own choices.

Let’s take a look at an easy example. The media loves scandals and everything outrageous since those topics are what lures readers in – and celebrities are the perfect foundation for articles following the “oh my god did you hear about…!” pattern.

Remember the Nicki Minaj vs. Taylor Swift feud? Which was never actually what one could call a feud, it wasn’t even a serious dispute – it was nothing but a simple misunderstanding that both women solved in a very mature way. But still, it was all over Twitter, the newspapers… It’s quite possible that many people didn’t even bother to read those articles, they just read the headlines and saw, guess what!, the image going along with it. And interestingly the type of images chosen was most often something along the lines of what billboard did:

Screenshot

Here we have Taylor looking rather serious but not at all aggressive while Nicki looks really annoyed and as if she’s about to say something, side-eyeing Taylor. Mixed together with popping (“aggressive”) colours and the word “VS.” suggesting a real fight this image creates the impression of Nicki attacking poor, passive Taylor. Yes, it is not stated clearly in the headline but the choice of image already tries to bias the reader into thinking this.

On the other hand, The Atlantic posted an article on this just a day later taking a whole other position:

Screenshot

Here we have Taylor and Nicki standing hand in hand with their back to the reader, suggesting support, equality, partnership. Plus, when taking a look at the headline it’s easy to see that The Atlantic author tries to focus on the real cause of the misunderstanding of those two – billboard mentioned the VMAs, as well, but it does not take as much prominence.

And while all this may seem way too subtle and trivial to some, it does have a huge impact on how an article and thus the respective event are perceived by media consumers. While the author of this billboard article would never say that they are racist, they are indeed supporting the racist stereotype of “the AngryBlack Woman” by using this image.

In the meantime, The Atlantic author remained respectful and more “objective” by placing the emphasis on the root of the problem. And thus they also support both women in their common fight as feminists striving for equality.