Being informed about the news is more important than ever. Events that take place on the other side of the globe can have a huge impact on your day to day life, so it is important that you at least have a basic understanding of recent events. Unfortunately, there are dozens of new and entertaining distractions from keeping ourselves informed. One solution to this issue, is satire.
Satire is a much more entertaining form of news that focuses more on humor than actual information, while still conveying a fair amount of information. For example, this article by the Onion makes fun of Donald Trump’s campaign, and also informs readers that he is the last remaining republican candidate. This story is much more entertaining than a typical news story, but still contains a fair amount of information and informs readers fairly effectively. There are cases where satire does not contain any useful information about recent events, like in this story by the Onion that just makes fun of people's eating habits, but satirical sources are usually relatively reliable sources of information.
One issue with satire is when it is taken seriously, which can cause confusion and spread disinformation. Because of this, it should be made clear when something is satire so readers do not confuse it with a serious news story. Some examples of this can be found at literally unbelievable which is a website that compiles people's responses on social media to satire that they had taken seriously.
No comments:
Post a Comment