Running head: Seven ASSIGNMENTS1
Seven Assignments
Student Name
College/University Affiliation
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Seven Assignments
Press Release
COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc globally. Tolls mounting and no vaccine in sight, economies scramble over a looming free fall. Given early bearish stock performance, worsened by paralyzed economic activity and dire measures for containment, global economic damages are showing early signs of social unrest. In more recent weeks, laid off and stay-at-home workers, particularly in more vulnerable economies, are explicitly challenging executive orders to stay-at-home to make a living.
In India, a BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) member, at-risk worker populations are going out against official orders to stay home to help contain COVID-19. Lacking means and having virtually no safety net benefits, most vulnerable, low-income workers, particularly in rural areas or urban inner cities, are hard pressed between clear and imminent dangers of a lethal new virus and earning a hand-to-mouth income barely sufficient to meet basic needs. The situation is made worse by recent racial incidents fueled by a new far-right government reviving nationalist sentiments against racial and religious minorities. The economic gains made over decades are now slashed by COVID-19 and, now reconsidered along racial and religious lines, are, labor right experts say, a recipe for social unrest.
The COVID-19 Effect is not sparing less developed economies. In Africa, healthcare systems are already unprepared for acceptable care services, let alone a pandemic. Lacking resources, including detection and monitoring methods, African economies, not yet hit hard by COVID-19, are expected to experience a spiral economic down soon, analysts predict. Historically underdeveloped and politically unstable, Africa, against pre-COVID-19 outlook for emerging economies, is now bomb ready to implode internally and spill over externally. The increasing predictions of mass displacements in response to local/national hardships in COVID-19 aftermath, immigration policy analysts agree, draw a grim picture of internal conflict and uncontrollable immigration flows into neighboring countries or, in a far worse scenario, longer journeys to more affluent countries in Europe, North America and Australia.
Given current state of uncertainty, The Wall Street Journal has launched a cross-country poll on potential economic and social costs of COVID-19 aimed at major economic organizations and business executives. The poll report, out mid-June, is projected to help inform policy and decision makers unite global efforts to navigate current and future impact of COVID-19 crisis.
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Audience Profile Sheet
What is the source?
The Wall Street Journal
Who is my audience?
Readership
General Middle-Upper Class Public
Businesspersons, Policy & Decision Makers, and Stock Investors
The Wall Street Journal
What is the education level of my audience?
Readership
General Middle-Upper Class Public
BSc or BA and Higher
Businesspersons, Policy & Decision Makers, and Stock Investors
BSc or BA and Higher
The Wall Street Journal
BSc or BA and Higher
What does my audience expect from me?
Readership
General Middle-Upper Class Public: factual, informative business and investment news
Businesspersons, Policy & Decision Makers, and Stock Investors: market-oriented news, and policy insights
The Wall Street Journal
Policy insights, stick to editorial line, and add content value
What does my audience read?
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Readership


General Middle-Upper Class Public: a variety of business, entertainment and real estate publications
Businesspersons, Policy & Decision Makers, and Stock Investors: economy-, business-and stock market-related publications
The Wall Street Journal: all news media sources, particularly economy-, business and stock market-related publications
How does my audience read?
Readership
General Middle-Upper Class Public: casually unless actively seeking investment opportunities
Businesspersons, Policy & Decision Makers, and Stock Investors: very closely having a focused eye on industry patterns and developments
The Wall Street Journal: in depth, laser-focus on content value, and deep understanding of editorial policies and lines
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Social Media Critique
To post or not to post. This is a question school applicants and job seeks are now asking more frequently. The explosion in using social media platforms and applications has initiated a parallel explosion in understanding students and job candidates. The overly polished resumes and admission applications are no longer enough for schools and employers to decide whether someone should proceed in admission or hiring process or not. Instead, looking up information about people online has become a standard, if not a staple, in school admissions and job applications. The insights online presence offer to school administrators and employers, compared to more formal application processes, are invaluable. For one, people are usually more open (and honest) in less formal settings. Online, most users post comments and content in almost an instant response to some similar comment or content or, no less frequently, in a spontaneous expression of emotions and ideas. The match, or not, between formal (i.e. resumes and admission applications) and informal (i.e. online posts across different social media) does not only reflect, from an administrator's or employer’s perspective, a candidate’s actual character, or profile, but, more importantly, whether proceeding in admission or hiring process is a wasteful or not.
The use of social media is not, however, a straightforward process and could backfire. In several, recent cases a growing number of schools, including no less than Harvard, has, based on social media content posted by students, decided to withdraw already accepted applications (Zimmerman, 2017; Education Week, 2017). This has drawn much criticism about whether schools are actually fact-checking or simply policing student behavior outside campus. This debate applies similarly to employment, albeit in far more worse consequences of losing one’s living. The question of whether social media posts by prospective students and job candidates should be considered is controversial. On one hand, a major political and social gain, freedom of speech, is at stake; on another, safety and security of schools and workplaces. For current purposes, one question, informed by recent
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developments, is of central focus: Do you feel that Harvard University and other schools have the right to rescind acceptance offers, and monitor and punish students for online postings? Why or why not? I personally disagree on Harvard’s position and, for that matter, similar actions by employers to monitor and punish job candidates for online postings. Tapping to ongoing debates over whether freedom of speech or safety and security should be more emphasized at schools and workplaces, I offer several reasons and examples to prove my position.
The influence of social media is relatively new. In 10 years, social media has grown to be a powerful influence in everyday life and in almost every personal, professional, and social activity. Give current research, attempts to define what social media is date to a little over 10 years (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). The novelty of social media, in hindsight, makes current monitoring practices at best policing in nature and at worst outright abuse of social and political liberties. In a pre-social media world, law, not posts, has reigned supreme. That is, only cases proven to violate clear school or employer policies have been deemed punishable. Today, one has only to perform a simple online search and browse social content in order to decide, single-handedly, that someone should not be admitted to school or hired. Consider how professors are now “rated” - anonymously – by students online. Controversial, Rate My Professor is a platform, popular among students, is used by school administrators and provosts to consider whether a professor should be promoted or not (Quintana, 2019). This leaves open questions about “speaking one’s mind”. That is, freedom of speech. From a student’s perspective, professors should, as students are, be “rated” and “graded.” The rating and grading, argue students, is, after all, a free expression of opinion made openly and, largely, fairly. From a professor’s perspective, however, giving one’s opinion on an online platform not affiliated to university is at best unethical, particularly if comments are made such as to create an overall negative impression and, at worst, an outright collective cyber bullying. The lines become, accordingly, blurred when no one can be clearly accountable and, more dangerously, when online “hype” guide decisions,
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not established policies, let alone law. In a reversal of hard-won liberties – including, notably, freedom of speech and accountability – everyone loses by resorting to social media, at least alone, to make major decisions about school and employment. At Harvard, retraction is hardly defensible. Indeed, one wonders whether admission to Harvard is a school admission for education or a search for student worth and value by a handful of decision makers. Ironically, Harvard’s commencement ceremonies – and speakers – are case in point of a dual standard. If anything one does not need to look beyond a “speech” delivered by Sacha Baron Cohen (Ali G) in Harvard Commencement in 2004 (Harvard University, 2015) and wonder if Ali’s choice of words and body language is any way acceptable compared to comments made by students Harvard chose not to accept based on online social postings.
For employment, matters are not any better. In more recent years, employers are not only “fact-checking” about candidates but, more important, profiling job candidates based on social media postings (Career Builder, 2017; The Creative Group, 2017). This is not to mention cases of suspension of long-serving employees based on personal views about current political or social matters (Joseph, 2017). By looking up an applicant’s online activity on and off social media platforms and monitoring social media activity of employees outside work hours, employers are, in fact, creating a new class of self-censoring workers. For generations, Y and Z in particular, raised digital natives, limiting online expression amounts to a coercive act of silencing made worse by a set of values defined by a different, older generation. Moreover, one should expect future candidates to project a false online profile, or image, only to satisfy prospective employers. This only creates workers – and, for that matter, future leaders – who are afraid to speak freely and give, consequently, bad example to subordinates, families, friends, and community. The unintended, negative consequences of fact-checking and monitoring job applicants and employee social media activity far outweigh any benefits employers find in making hiring decisions based on social media activity.
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In balance, Harvard’s decision is hardly defensible. The personalization, one strongly believes, of admission decision-making process at Harvard based on social media comments by rejected students uncovers a disrespect for freedom of speech and, sadly enough, a double standard by which Harvard recognizes as “good” vs. “bad” student conduct, made all more saddening because rejected students did not care to conceal personal views. This case of misrepresentation is equally valid for current employment practices. By hiring (or not) applicants based on social media postings, employers are creating a generation of workers who care less to offer a genuine personal view or character and more about misleading professional (and social) acceptability. There is, indeed, much at stake by reducing individuals into mere social media postings without even giving enough space to express one’s mind openly in more welcoming schooling and employment contexts.
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References
Career Builder. (2017, June 15). Number of employers using social media to screen candidates at all-time high, finds latest CareerBuilder study. http://press.careerbuilder.com/2017-06-15-number-of-employers-using-social-media-to-screen-candidates-at-all-time-high-finds-latest-careerbuilder-study
Education Week. (2017, June 21). Snapchat and Schools - Monitoring What Students Post Online [Video]. YouTube. /watch?=BVTm9hFicXE&feature=youtu.be
Harvard University. (2015, January 2003). Sacha Baron Cohen (Ali G) Class Day | Harvard Commencement 2004 [Video]. YouTube. /watch? v=GUCy75CA3Aw
Joseph, A. (2017, December 19). Jemele Hill on tweets that got her suspended: I thought they were 'pretty benign.' USA Today. https://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/12/jemele-hill-trump-espn-sportscenter-suspension-jerry-jones-cowboys-tweets-podcast
Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M., (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media. Business Horizons, 53(1), 59-68.
Quintana, C. (2019, January 16). No, Rate My Professors probably won’t remove your profile. The
Chronicle of Higher Education.
/article/No-Rate-My-Professors/245489
The Creative Group. (2017, February 13). Job seekers, check your selfie. Cision PR Newswire. https:// /news-releases/job-seekers-check-your-selfie-300405735.html
Zimmerman, J. (2017, June 13). Free speech loses ground as Harvard retracts offers to admitted
students. The Chronicle of Higher Education. /article/free-speech-
loses-ground-as/240328?
cid=cr&elq=7217168b7d9744e394ecce3661d8e04d&elqCampaignId=6060&elqTrackId=928
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Fakes News Essay
Information has become central to everyday life in 21st century. The rapid shift in recent decades from a manufacturing to a service economy has put information front and center of major political, economic and social activities. Historically, information was a privilege accessible only to to a handful elite. This made information highly guarded and, for protection, barriers were set up to help maintain information within a narrow circle. Today, information is inaccessible to almost about everyone and, more important, at increasingly lower cost. The question in a world inundated by information is not longer about what but how. That is, as accessibility has come to be more universal, getting which information (what) is not so much an issue. Instead, how actual, reliable and credible information could be gotten is now what counts. The limitless repository of information has made credibility, not accessibility, at stake. Given how social media, coupled by a major shift to online platforms by major news organizations, has come to create and disseminate news, readers, or rather users and viewers, are much more at loss of which news to believe. In a far simpler world, pre-Internet, editorial policies defined by “clear” news agency management rules offered “visible” signposts for readers to decide on one news source or another. That is, ideology, editorial policy matters and well-established agency-reader/viewer conventions – all made for a convenient and more credible mutual relationship between news agencies and readers/viewers. There was – is- a room for fake news, of course. However, established criteria, however arbitrary, offered at least guidance on what to judge as “fake” or “credible.” Today, fake news has become a norm. That is, one’s perspective on a news piece, even if “factual,” could make news fake. Thanks to speed and increasing inaccuracy in reporting news by established news organizations and social media platforms, news developments reverse initial reports and make incredible, if not completely dismissible, initially factual and credible news reports. The growing of news fakeness in more recent years highlights a deeper crisis in news reporting and consumption. To put matters into perspective, a closer examination of required of fakeness as a
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defining characteristic of news reporting and consumption at major news organizations and on social media platforms. The main argument in current essay is for a dilution of credibility lines across institutional lines, represented by established news organizations, and non-syndicated lines, represented for current purposed by social media, resulting in a state of news fakeness and loss of reader/viewer/user respect.
For decades, established news organizations have garnered unquestioned respect from readers, listeners and viewers. As noted, clear editorial policies, accountability and, not least, pace (i.e., frequency by which news are gathered, edited and reported) – all has ensured reported news is “factually” checked and properly edited. True, not all readers/listeners/viewers have had critical eyes to double check for news. However, confidence in news has been wide spread and rarely questioned. The meaning of “fake news,” in a pre-Internet and social media era, has been, accordingly, limited to news agreed on as unacceptable by community standards (Standage, 2017). Indeed, community – and, for that matter, consensus – has played a major role in maintaining a sense of a collective agreement on what is, or not, acceptable – even when reported news has been factually checked and properly edited. The definition of “fake news,” in a pre-Internet and social media era, can be understood, accordingly, as news not only shown to be incorrect or misrepresented by news organizations or individual reporters but, more important, news unacceptable by a given community, or a whole nation, should such news runs against established norms or sensibilities (Standage). The lines news, in a pre-Internet and social media era, has had to maintain has not only been editorial but communal as well. Thus, “fake news” has been a relatively clear concept to define in and outside newsrooms.
Today, news feeds on fragmentation. In an Internet and social media world, community is virtual. Similarly, news is a latest breaking line or post. The ephemerality of conversations, posts and, of course, “news,” at news agencies and on social media is a defining feature of current state of news creation and consumption. Given how news could be gathered and disseminated in a matter of seconds,
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a gold rush has been initiated whereby firstness, not accuracy, let alone credibility, is God. The value news now offers to news organizations, social media, readers/viewers/listeners and many more stakeholders is, accordingly, about a scoop of firstness only. Time consumed to gather, let alone fact-check news properly, is not unnecessary but at best a substantial loss of money and reputation, particularly for professional news organizations and a new breed of news mongers aka influencers. The mistakes now made by so called established news agencies are, unsurprisingly, more frequent and damaging. There is, for one, news media’s disastrous misidentification of Boston Marathon bombing’s shooter (Rieder, 2013) and Fox’s reporting of Navy Yard events from a police scanner (Wemple, 2013). The details per se do not matter just as how firstness and scale have become so dominant in news reporting in an Internet and social media era. Twitter is, unsurprisingly, a “credible” news source for a growing number of reporters, let alone readers/viewers/listeners. Indeed, so-called established news organizations are shown by a growing body of research to disseminate fake news – in an ironic reversal of a conventional wisdom that social media is source of all fake news (Allen et al., 2020). This introduces a new definition of fake news, in an Internet and social media era, as news gathered and disseminated in speed and at scale by established news organizations and web-mediated platforms, particularly social media, not so much purposefully and in a premeditated manner, but in a reactive response to competition and readership/viewership ratings in order to achieve higher ratings and, ultimately, increased revenues. This definition problematizes fake news beyond mere accuracy and credibility and into deeper accountability and social responsibility issues lost in a (global) community now much more fragmented and is far more divided and less consensual on almost about everything.
The question of fake news in an Internet and social media era reflects radical shifts in news creation and consumption. In contrast to a community-centered news practice, news under current circumstances is cast in different lights in ways confusing facts and falsities. If anything speed and scale, not social media per se, are culpable for current state of news fakeness or rather perplexity. To
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reverse current damaging patterns, one possible solution is to integrate news processes in new ways in order to ensure all news management processes are adequately maintained. This necessitates collaboration with, not animosity against, social media platforms in order to ensure not only readership/ viewership/listener base is properly informed and entertained but, most important, served in a most socially responsible manner.
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References
Allen, J., Howland, B., Mobius, M., Rothschild, D., & Watts, D. (2020). Evaluating the fake news problem at the scale of the information ecosystem. Social Sciences, 6(14).
10.1126/sciadv.aay3539
Rieder, R. (2013, April 18). On Boston bombing, media are wrong – again. USA Today. /story/money/columnist/rieder/2013/04/18/media-bostonfiasco/ 2093493/
Standage, T. (2017, June/July). The true history of fake news. The Economist. /technology/rewind/the-true-history-of-fake-news
Wemple, E. (2013, September 16). Washington’s Fox station tweets Navy Yard events from police
scanner. The Washington Post.
/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/09/16/washingtons-fox-station-
tweets-navy-yard-events-from-police-scanner/
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Ethics and Law Essay
Google: Background
Google’s name is instantly recognizable. The company’s history is, however, less so. Born Backrub by Larry Page and Serg...