If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar or click here: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/das-ka-dum/
Q: There are fears of increase of misinformation and fake news during election period. But are we in the media fussing too much about it, and do the masses really care?
A: I agree with your observation that disinformation/ misinformation mixing with claims and counter-claims of various competing political parties. Besides, active citizens are also content creators now, thanks to technology and more often than not, they give vent to their opinions on the basis of their polarised perspective. WhatsApp University is a great institution to add to the cacophony. Even passive consumers of such content act trigger-happy (read ‘forward’) such misinformation to their group adding to the prevailing ‘Noise’.
The challenge of media is that they have surfeit of information and in their keenness to break stories, as part of so-called strategy of competitive edge, have no time to sift out facts from fiction. Besides, each media format has its ideological preferences, perhaps, apart from generating content.
Do the masses really care? I think they care, though they might be in a minority when compared with the teeming masses. But the cumulative noise level drowns the rational/ silent masses to subconsciously align one way or the other. There are voter apathies also which affect participation in the voting process but they are inconsequential in the context of noise generation.