we are the media - 0 views
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Brent MacKinnon on 29 Jul 16"Understanding the effects of pervasive networks like social media is an essential literacy today. Each citizen has to be informed through active engagement in a digitally-mediated society. Unconsciously we do not trust experts, so we have to consciously develop expert networks that we do trust. This requires effort, such as the discipline of personal knowledge mastery. In the long run our networks can make our sense-making much easier. Without personal knowledge networks, we are at the whim of whatever current outrage is flowing through the social media platforms. "Maybe your friends and family aren't experts … but they surely have your best interests at heart, and that it why they are nearly as trusted on this topic as scientists, despite their lack of expertise. So here we have a partial answer to why experts aren't trusted. They aren't trusted by people who feel alienated from them. My reading of this study would be that it isn't that we live in a 'post-fact' political climate. Rather it is that attempts to take facts out of their social context won't work." - Tom Stafford"