Over the years technology has become the greater factor when it comes to everything. There is very few things that are unaffected by the new and powerful technology that has come about. Most of the news that we hear today comes from social media or a media source that has not been around that long. With technology being such a huge influence on how we get our news, it is very hard to determine if the news we are receiving is real news or fake news. This has been problems in the past but when we had very little technology. This happened when we still reading newspapers. As technology has evolved how do we know the news that is being spread is true? There is limitations and laws in place to try and protect the people and limit what the social media outlets can say and law put in place to assure what they are saying is true. Now does this always work? Of course not. There is a lot of rules in this world and a lot of them get broken everyday. This is one of them for sure. Being that technology is so huge now a days, when one report gets word that is somewhat crazy to one person they spread it to the next person and then it starts a chain. With all this false information that gets spread so easily how do we tell what is real and what is fake? It takes someone to question the statements being made and look for themselves to try and find the right information. Now how often does this happen? How often do people now a-day look for information for themselves? All of this depends on the people around you and the experiences you’ve had with people in my opinion.
With all of the power that media has in today’s society most would think they would try and promote good things in today society and try to help the public. They do this as well. Social media and just media in general has been very good for our society. The ease of being able to find out about important news that is happening in our country is just unbelievable. An example is the constant information on the current election. If it were not for social media or television we would be in the dark for a majority of the current election. Now there has been problems with social media and spreading rumors of illegal ballot information and that has spread. Weather this information is false or true I have no idea. The point is the ease of information to get spread and the very few limitations on what can be said and the accuracy of this information.
My question for the readers is, Is media becoming to much of an influence on the public opinion or is it on the public to know what is true and false?
Mass Media and American Life 
I think that media has always influenced public opinion. The difference is now we have to question whether or not what we are hearing is actually true, where as twenty years ago we would have assumed that it was. We just took the news reporters’ word for it because there wasn’t really a reason to think that people were reporting “fake news.” AND there were only a few ways to receive the evening news. Not like today where we are bombarded with many different channels and platforms and left to determine which one is trust-worthy. I have my own reputable sources that I turn to, mixed with some John Oliver and Trevor Noah to help me process what is going on. I do think that it is up to each individual to do your research and check a few different sources to determine if the message is true.
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Media has influenced public opinion and their is fault on both ends. Society today relies on the media to give them accurate information regarding various issues and to spread news. The problem is that media is often unfiltered, misconstrued and opinion-based that trying to find a legitimate truth takes a lot of self investigation. On the other hand individuals have to know how to self filter to find answers. We know that the media often misleads so we must be smart enough to find our own answers.
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I feel that there is a strong majority of people who willingly let people make their opinions for them. What I mean by this is that there are people who hold the media to the same degree as a primary source these days. Whatever the media concludes in their article or puts as their headline will be what some of these people believe. Hardly anyone goes directly to the primary sources anymore. I literally see it every single day.
It’s not a bad thing to read these articles. It’s a bad thing when you read the article and just accept that this is the only side or the truthful side of the story and don’t do any of your own due diligence to correct it.
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