Nomshado Lubisi, the communications manager for Media Monitoring Africa, has emphasized the need of battling false and misleading information since it endangers democratic processes.
On Thursday at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) Pretoria Campus, she spoke at the fourth annual panel discussion for women in the media and communication sectors. She warned that misinformation could have an impact on the democracy of the nation by influencing who citizens elect to positions of authority and how they decide on societal issues.
“It’s crucial to avoid taking information at face value and to avoid sharing it. Because sharing knowledge influences the next person, how we engage with it online has to reflect reliability, according to Lubisi.
While social media gives people a chance to hold the powerful accountable and express their perspectives on societal concerns, Lubisi said that the same platform has also provided people a chance to fabricate a story to disprove reliable facts.
Disinformation, according to Lubisi, is information that is intentionally created to hurt the public. This harm may take many different forms, such as influencing a person’s choice to vote or whether or not to be vaccinated.
She said that the COVID-19 epidemic was the ideal environment for deception since local, continental, and international residents all faced information overload.
The public had to decide how to handle the epidemic and whether or not to get the vaccination.
We have an overburdened public, which translates to a highly susceptible public. This presents a chance for the public to become perplexed, frightened, and afraid about what to believe and what not to believe.
It has become so complex that it is really difficult for someone to distinguish between false information and reliable information. Consider someone who has no idea that false information exists.
WhatsApp is the riskiest channel for misinformation sharing since it allows for direct conversation with relatives and friends. This makes it very simple to believe the information being transmitted, according to Lubisi.
She drew attention to the lack of digital literacy in the nation and the potential for information overload among the general populace.
Because of the rise of false news, Lubisi added, “media credibility and confidence have been somewhat declining over the previous several years.”
Phumla Williams, the director general of the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS), emphasized the function of government communicators, who are responsible for educating the public about government initiatives.
As a government communicator, you uplift common people and carry the dreams of the nation’s population. In the public sector, we want you to work tirelessly, and we look for consistency in a government communicator, she added.
Williams said that government communicators who turn off their phones to avoid awkward queries from reporters are not doing the nation any favors.
“I must close by mentioning a journalist who is attentive to gender issues. Only if your great pen responds to gender can we win this battle. It is a pen that writes from the perspective of an out there battered young girl, mother, or woman.
When writing a narrative, keep the victim of the abuse in mind rather than the abuser, Williams said. “Sometimes I even wish our media firms could have a gender sensitive editor who would for those prejudices that infiltrate some of their articles without their realizing it,” she said.
The fourth annual panel discussion for women was hosted by the GCIS in collaboration with TUT and has as its subject “A look into the future of communication and journalism in South Africa.”
The panel discussion, which is a part of the Women’s Month events, aims to foster cross-generational dialogue with influential businesspeople.
Through this platform, the GCIS has been interacting with women since 2019 on a variety of subjects, such as difficulties with gender representation, media gender sensitivity, and recognizing women photographers who were in the forefront of covering the COVID-19 story.
The conversation in 2021 was on the effective navigating of these professions by female political reporters and editors. – SAnews.gov.za