Fragmentation (user targeting) - How technology’s advancement in mass media has changed society’s expectation and culture

Technological advancements have considerably altered society’s expectations of mass media due to fragmentation (user preferences of topics and beliefs). People, to a certain degree, expect from mass media, that only those stories/news/blog-posts will be shown in their timeline(s), which they prefer or believe in. People tend to interact and share any news or opinion on the new media (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, news feed aggregator websites etc.) which they are interested in and subconsciously or consciously support. Resultantly, the mass media divides people into different fragments/groups, based on user preferences, to target news and advertisements.

This user targeting by the mass media (new media) has cultivated a cultural change in the users which ultimately makes them firm on their beliefs, irrespective of the fact, that the story/news is backed by real or fake evidence. This makes people firmly stick to the news/opinion even if they were only slightly inclined towards that particular idea/opinion. This creates issues where these groups like “flat-earth society” and “corona virus is side effect 5G”, could garner momentum by convincing relatively young minds, and distribute false information to a large number of people. Another real world example is when (political) fake news, could potentially even affect the election results, as presidential candidates could sponsor the spread of fake news regarding their rivals just before elections.

Furthermore, this issue of belief in fake news in elections is illustrated beautifully by Terry Lee in an article, on emerald website. Another in-depth article available on lumenlearning.com highlights the issue of fragmentation along with real world examples.