Differing trajectories of legacy and social media

Citizens are becoming oblivious to the deviousness of various state institutions due to this dichotomy

When the Finance Minister was presenting her second Budget, we were interacting with readers in Vijayawada at an open house session. These interactions not only provide valuable feedback to the editorial team, but also help readers understand how a newspaper works. During these interactions, we have been asked about the demands of a deadline, the changing nature of the information ecology, competitive pressures from other platforms such as social media and television, and this newspaper’s emphasis on secular values, which one reader felt was a sign of bias.

Legacy media and digital media

I explained that the legacy media developed and honed its skills from a deep desire for change. From the journalism of Thomas Paine — an Englishman whose writing inspired the American rebellion against the British, defended the cause of revolution in France, and challenged slavery — each century witnessed pioneers across continents who yearned for free and open societies.

One issue that was discussed was of freedom of expression versus accountability. The idea of journalism is to empower people and minimise harm rather than widen the divide and fan violence. The editorial decision to not carry inflammatory content is a manifestation of this desire and cannot be termed as censorship.

Students were keen to know about the transformations caused by digitalisation. They asked what changes are being made in newsrooms to cope with these challenges. The legacy media had 300 years to define its role and refine it for the needs of citizens. The years also saw political movements such the anti-colonial struggle, resistance to fascism, the movement for democracy, women’s suffrage, the anti-apartheid struggle and labour movements that demanded less exploitative working environments.

On the other hand, the digital media revolution is less than two decades old. It started as a huge democratising venture. However, the emergence of behemoths at Silicon Valley and the ability of the state to selectively switch on and switch off connectivity are disturbing. Journalists are trying to negotiate this reality through multiple means. The means include challenging state-imposed restrictions in the court of law, spreading media literacy, and engaging in dialogue with technology companies.

What happens when disinformation spreads fast in cyberspace? Readers will be reading this column a day before Facebook’s 16th birthday. Facebook was launched on February 4, 2004, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The consolidation of technology companies in controlling the information flow has taken place in less than a decade. After denying for nearly 15 years that they are in the profession of publishing, platform companies now acknowledge their role in the spread of misinformation and malicious propaganda. For instance, Facebook has unveiled its plan to create an independent ‘oversight’ board to make decisions on how the network should be moderated. It insists that the panel, which will hear its first ‘cases’ in 2020, will have the power to override decisions it makes over contentious material and influence new policy.

Deviousness of state institutions

In this dichotomy between the market and metrics-driven requirements of the digital platforms, and journalism driven by core values, citizens are becoming oblivious to the deviousness of various state institutions. Official documents are supposed to contain carefully collated data based on rigorous methodology. Earlier, there was trust in the credibility of official documents. Journalists would analyse the content of these documents rather than looking at the process of how these documents were produced. However, in the last few years, there seems to major erosion in the way official documents are produced. Rigorous methods have given way for rhetoric and grandiloquence. For instance, Chapter 7 of the latest Economic Survey is supposed to assess public sector banks. However, pages 150 and 151 are based on reports from Wikipedia. If the defining macroeconomic document of the country is going to be based on Wikipedia entries, it makes a journalist’s job much more difficult.

Source: The Hindu, 3/02/2020

How college students outsource homework

Websites Now Let People In Developing Nations Bid For And Complete Assignments Of Pupils In US, UK & Oz

Tuition was due. The rent was, too. So Mary Mbugua, a university student in Nyeri, Kenya, went out in search of a job. At first, she tried selling insurance policies, but that only paid on commission and she never sold one. Then she sat behind the reception desk at a hotel, but it ran into financial trouble. Finally, a friend offered to help her break into “academic writing,” a lucrative industry in Kenya that involves doing school assignments online for college students in the US, Britain and Australia. Mbugua felt conflicted. “This is cheating,” she said. “But we have to make money to make a living.” Cheating in college is nothing new, but the internet now makes it possible on a global, industrial scale. Sleek websites have sprung up that allow people in developing countries to bid on and complete American homework assignments. The essay-for-hire industry has expanded significantly in developing countries with many English speakers, fast internet connections and more college graduates than jobs, especially Kenya, India and Ukraine. A Facebook group for academic writers in Kenya has over 50,000 members. It is not clear how widely sites for paid-to-order essays, known as “contract cheating” in higher education circles, are used. A 2005 study of students in North America found that 7% of undergraduates admitted to turning in papers written by someone else, while 3% admitted to obtaining essays from essay mills. Cath Ellis, a leading researcher on the topic, said millions of essays are ordered online every year worldwide. “It’s a huge problem,” said Tricia Bertram Gallant, director of the academic integrity office at the University of California, San Diego. “If we don’t do anything about it, we will turn every accredited university into a diploma mill.” In an email, EssayShark’s public relations department said the company did not consider its services to be cheating, and that it warned students the essays are for “research and reference purposes only” and are not to be passed off as a student’s own work. Contract cheating is illegal in 17 states, but punishment tends to be light and enforcement rare. Experts said that no federal law in the US, or in Kenya, forbids the purchase or sale of academic papers. Contract cheating is harder to detect than plagiarism because ghostwritten essays will not be flagged when compared with a database of previously submitted essays; they are generally original works — simply written by the wrong person. In Kenya, a country with a per capita annual income of about $1,700, successful writers can earn as much as $2,000 a month, according to Roynorris Ndiritu, who said he has thrived while writing academic essays for others. As for Mbugua, she said she never felt right about the writing she did in the names of American students and others. But adds: “People say the education system in the US, UK is on a top notch. I wouldn’t say those students are better than us. We have studied. We have done the assignments.” NYT

Source: Times of India, 9/09/2019