Val Hooper – Head of Marketing and International Business at Victoria University

The subject of Val’s presentation was “Fake News” 

I will start with my disclosure that what follows is my interpretation of the speech.  Therefore this could be interpreted as “Fake News”.  There is no harm intended in my report and I have cleared the potential for my coverage as being not entirely accurate with Val!!  We had a bit of a laugh about that so to be clear if you were not there you missed out!  This was a fabulous talk from a very dynamic professor. 

Impact of and recipients of fake news were the main points of the talk as well as the medium or channel.  It was made clear that it is our responsibility to determine if we want to believe news or not.  Unfortunately or fortunately in today’s world we are bombarded by news especially if we use social media as well as main stream media.  This can make it difficult to decipher what is real and what is not.  History tells us that we can work out when there is a hoax but these do not intentionally cause harm or mislead. 

It is interesting to note that Trump has claimed the term “fake news” but in fact it has been around a long time.  There have been many attempts to deliberately miss-inform by all kinds of media providers.  Political parties do it all the time attempting to denigrate or gain from miss-informing the public.  Does this sound familiar for readers of Trump’s verbal and written commentary!

However even search engines can mislead because these may not interpret the question accurately.  We miss out on information that could have guided a better decision.  Therefore we need to interact with the computer as if it is a robot and not a person thinking outside of the square.  Val outlined the integrity of credible sources such as journals where the research or item has been checked by professionals and confirmed in order to protect the validity of information.  There is regulation to protect consumers and this needs to be monitored, having said that individuals still need to have their own filter particularly with regard marketing and even other individuals profiles on the internet.  With regard the latter it was pointed out that profiles on the internet will be of your good side and not things you don’t want people to know about, so that is not a reflection of your true self! 

Val’s speech was much more technical and enlightening than I can portray, but at the end of the day we are flooded with information from lots of channels so we need to be sure of the source, seek out further information from credible sources if you need it and smile!  Also remember that Trump did not invent the title “fake news” it has been around a long time.  Considering most of us are long in the tooth we can tell the difference between a hoax, fake news and actual news.  I think personally our younger generation are wising up quicker than we did due to their over exposure to social media.  Therefore we have nothing to worry about – I hope!

Anne Hare