User:Peach/year-2-thoughts

Welcome to Peach's Year 2 Thoughts. This is a page dedicated to writing down ideas and opinions related to Peach's study. For a documentation of the sessions Peach attends, please go to the Year 2 Journal page

September 18

I have a general idea on what interests me and what I can focus my study on. It lies somewhere at the intersection of online culture, social media, access to information and politics. I'm interested in the way social media is used as a news outlet, especially in situations where mainstream news outlets are censored by authoritarian governments or the companies that buy their ads. I'm also interested in how fake news, as well as conspiracy theories spread. And I'm interested in the ways information is distorted on the internet, by government trolls, brands, people themselves. If I had to summarize all this, I think I would say "I'm interested in censorship and propoganda." This interest, albeit informally, started in 2013. When there were nationwide anti government protests in my home country, the biggest news channel of the time stopped broadcasting news and aired a documentary about penguins instead. These protests taught me the importance of media literacy and fact checking in an online context. In the next seven years I witnessed the diminish of civil liberties and economic mobility for the public, and a rise in media suppression and propaganda campaigns.