Media and how opinions are formed

Almost everything you know about the world beyond your daily life comes from media – news apps, videos, feeds and stories. In “Authoritarian systems today”, you saw what happens when a state controls this window on the world: people only see the filtered version. Free media offer an alternative – but even they never simply show ‘reality’. Between an event and your screen lie decisions, and you should know what they are.

The journey of a news story has four stages:

1. Event: Something happens somewhere – a storm, a sports result, a local council decision.
2. Source: Someone reports it: eyewitnesses, people involved, authorities or news agencies. Much is already decided here – whoever tells the story sees the event from their own perspective, and not every source is reliable.
3. Selection by the editorial team: Thousands of events happen every day – only a few make it onto the programme or the homepage. Editorial teams select what they consider important and interesting. This selection is necessary – but it also means that anything not selected remains invisible to the audience.
4. Presentation: Now the team decides how to report it: which headline? Which image? Which words? How much space? The same story can sound matter-of-fact or dramatic.

Remember: Mistakes and distortions can arise at every stage – at the source (error, exaggeration, self-interest), during selection (what is missing?) and in presentation (how is it framed?). Media literacy does not mean distrusting all media – it means knowing where to look closely.

Not everyone who publishes content takes the same care. You should be able to distinguish three types:

You can recognise quality journalism by three criteria:

• Citing sources: The report states where the information comes from (‘according to a police report’, ‘the local council says’, ‘two independent sources confirm’). You can trace the basis for the claim.
• Separating news from opinion: A news report tells you what happened – an opinion piece tells you what the author thinks about it, and is labelled as opinion. Both have their place, but they are not mixed together.
• A culture of correcting mistakes: Mistakes happen everywhere – reputable editorial teams correct them openly instead of covering them up. A published correction is a sign of care, not weakness.

Tabloid media (gossip and sensationalist media) thrive on attention: huge headlines, strong emotions, dramatic emphasis, celebrities and drama. Tabloid stories are not automatically false – but emotion and the drive to sell strongly influence selection and presentation. Be particularly wary of exaggeration here.

Unverified social media content is the third category: anyone can post – without an editorial team, without having to cite sources and without a culture of correcting mistakes. Some posts are true, some are mistaken, and some are deliberately false. On top of this, platform algorithms favour content that provokes reactions – and outrage provokes a lot of them. A post can therefore reach a huge audience and still be false. Reach is not proof of truth.

Remember: reputable media are active on social media too – what matters is not the platform, but who is behind a post and how they work.

Now for the most subtle point where distortion can arise – presentation. Here is a thought experiment involving a fictional municipality:

The municipality of Musterberg decides to cut taxes. Two headlines appear the next day:

‘Tax cut eases pressure on families’

‘Tax cut tears a hole in council finances’

Both headlines can be true: families really do pay less – and the council really does lose revenue. Yet readers come away with completely different impressions. This is framing: the same fact is placed in a different frame through selection (which aspect makes the headline?), word choice (‘eases pressure’ sounds positive, ‘tears a hole’ sounds threatening) and image choice (a smiling family or an empty till?).

Framing is not the same as lying – media often frame things unconsciously, and it is impossible to avoid framing altogether: every story needs some sort of headline. But recognising framing makes you less easily influenced. Three questions help:

1. What is emphasised – and would another aspect also have been worth reporting?
2. What is left out – is the other side of the story missing?
3. Which words express a judgement – would neutral words give the story a different feel?

Try it: take any headline and rewrite it once positively and once negatively – without changing the fact. If you can do that, you have understood framing.

Deliberately false reports – fake news – exploit everything you have learnt in this module: they look like news, rely on outrage and spread through feeds faster than any correction. Here are three checks you can complete in a few minutes:

1. Check the source: Who is behind the story? Is there a legal notice with real names and an address? Is the publisher a well-known editorial team – or a website that seems to exist just for this one story? Be wary of names that imitate reputable media and of sites without a legal notice.
2. Run a reverse image search: Images look like evidence – but they are often older than the event or come from a completely different context. Upload the image to a reverse search tool (for example, a search engine’s image search) and check: where and when did this image first appear?
3. Look for a second source: Are other independent, reputable media reporting the same thing? A genuine major news story never appears on just one unknown website. If you cannot find the story anywhere else – or only on sites that copy each other – you have reason to be sceptical.

Here is a rule of thumb for everyday life: The more strongly a post appeals to your feelings – anger, fear, outrage – the more worthwhile it is to check before sharing. False reports are designed to trigger exactly these feelings, because outraged people share more quickly. If you check first and share later, you are already more media-literate than most people.

In “Deconstructing conspiracy theories”, you will look at the extreme form: narratives that build an entire worldview out of false information – conspiracy theories.