Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Since Tuesday’s election, there’s been a lot of finger pointing, and many of those fingers are pointing at Facebook, arguing that their newsfeed algorithms played a major role in spreading misinformation and magnifying polarization.

Some of the articles are thoughtful in their criticism, others thoughtful in their defense of Facebook, while others are full of the very misinformation and polarization that they hope will get them to the top of everyone’s newsfeed. But all of them seem to me to make a fundamental error in how they are thinking about media in the age of algorithms.

Consider Jessica Lessin’s argument in The Information:

"I am deeply, deeply worried about the calls I am hearing, from journalists and friends, for Facebook to intervene and accept responsibility for ensuring citizens are well-informed and getting a balanced perspective….

Facebook promoting trustworthiness sounds great. Who isn’t in favor of accepting responsibility and ferreting out misinformation? But major moves on Facebook’s part to mediate good information from bad information would put the company in the impossible position of having to determine “truth,” which seems far more objective than it really is. Moreover, it would be bad for society.”

My response: Facebook crossed this river long ago. Once they got into the business of curating the newsfeed rather than simply treating it as a timeline, they put themselves in the position of mediating what people are going to see. They became a gatekeeper and a guide. This is not an impossible position. It’s their job. So they’d better make a priority of being good at it....

Facebook and Twitter are increasingly becoming news sources for its users, but news is not necessarily the reason why people are logging onto these social networking sites. It just so happens that news ends up being part of the social media experience.

That’s according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.

"One of the things we saw early on is the degree to which people describe this as 'incidental news...And that's something that's being reinforced." -- Amy Mitchell, director of journalism research for the Pew Research Center

The findings cement the fact that both users and news organizations must continue to wrestle with social media, its different features and their implications.

“Social media is certainly a part of Americans’ news streams, and it’s going to continue to be a part of that,” said Amy Mitchell, director of journalism research for the Pew Research Center.

“And the different ways people connect with these platforms will influence how they learn about their communities and the world.”...

All the following audience figures are for print and digital editions only.

Among women’s interest magazines, the total print and digital edition audience for Woman’s Day fell 14.3% from 17.2 million in fall 2014 to 15.9 million in fall 2015. Over the same period, Cosmopolitan’s total audience fell 11.7% from 17.1 million to 15.1 million; Women’s Health fell 10.3% from 11.1 million to 10 million; Better Homes and Gardens 7.4% from 39.4 million to 36.5 million; and Family Circle 7.3% from 17.2 million to 15.9 million.

Turning to celebrity titles, Entertainment Weekly’s total audience fell 19.5% from 10.5 million to 8.5 million; People fell 10.4% from 44 million to 39.4 million; and US Weekly dipped 8% from 13.5 million to 12.5 million. In the fashion and beauty category, In Style was down 19.5% from 10.3 million to 8.3 million; Glamour was down 17.2% from 11.9 million to 9.9 million; Allure fell 13.7% from 6.1 million to 5.2 million; and Elle dropped 8.3% from 5.6 million to 5.1 million....