Social media makes it easy to be polarizing. Black or White, Yes or No, Republican or Democrat. Often, there is little room for nuance, context and thoughtful discourse. As the “virtual” iteration of who we are, social media often gives us a one-dimensional look at ourselves and our “friends.” Let’s look at an example. Sue may have expressed support for Hillary Clinton on her Facebook page. To many, that one “thing” about Sue can tell you many other things about her (she is p

Is there an actor shortage? It seems like there are an awful lot of real reporters who are making appearances in movies and TV shows. While it’s not new to see “real” reporters in the movies, in the age of fake news and “post truth” (the unfortunate choice for the “word of the year” from the folks over at Oxford Dictionaries), all of the sudden it feels icky to see our trusted sources of information shilling for the latest Batman movie (a la Charlie Rose). Sure, it’s fun to s

This election season has brought to light a particularly virulent strain of fake news. It’s true that people promoting fake information is as old as time, but the internet has made it easy for anyone to create social media profiles and websites in order to post whatever they want under the guise of “journalism.” In a disturbing study by BuzzFeed, they found that fake election news outperformed legitimate news on Facebook. Apparently, this is the new normal for news. The debat