Is on-chain news the next blue ocean?
Tags: Newspapers, News, Blockchain Technology, Media Criticism, Bitcoin Mining

Photo by Yang Xia on Unsplash

Under the dual logic of digital technology and commercial marketing, the integration of technological means, content creation and mass communication has brought about a new form of media that is globalized, socialized and easily accessible.

The impact of digital technology as a subject of action on China’s news industry is the mainstream perspective in the study of China’s news industry changes in current journalism circles. The relationship between people and technology has become a new variable for understanding and reflecting on the Chinese news scene. However, at a time when problems such as information implosion, misrepresentation, and advertising fraud are emerging, the road of development of digital media is not smooth, but rather full of challenges.

This paper discusses the ethical dilemmas facing the production and dissemination of social media information in the digital age and the implications of blockchain technology for the future of digital information chain communication.

The Fading Role of “Gatekeepers” in the Digital Media Age

The impact of digital technology as a subject of action on China’s news industry has become the mainstream perspective for journalism academics to study the changes in China’s news industry.

However, with the surge of populism, information implosion, disinformation, ad fraud, and false news in the age of social media, people are worried about digital security, privacy violations, and property damage.

Some scholars have argued that the existing communication ecology and order have been overturned, and traditional news concepts and structures have been greatly impacted as a result, facing the reconstruction of news production models and news ethics.

In the Internet era, the audience, once the user, is moving from the periphery to the center of the new communication landscape as a producer/distributor/consumer, and the elitist view of professional news is gradually being deconstructed, with the definition of “news” shifting back to the user. Compared to the previous “elite screening” criteria guarded by the traditional media, news sources are “selected by the public” or “produced by choice”, which reduces users’ ability to recognize fake news. To some extent, it also obstructs the authority of news check.

Is the gradual fading of the traditional “gatekeeper” role of journalism really a catalyst for the public to become more and more mature, and to rely on their own media literacy to discern the truth of news? I’m afraid this is a hypothetical proposition, and it’s terrifying to contemplate.

Pain Points in the Changing Face of Digital Communication

With the spread of digital technology, the chain reaction generated by atomic fission is also applicable to the exponentially increasing characteristics of social media communication. The chain propagation of news in the social media era: propagation source — -excitation layer — -fission layer has exacerbated the proliferation of false news on social media platforms, especially the viral propagation of false news by some self-media in order to gain fans.

At a time when the concept and mode of news and information dissemination in the media have undergone profound changes, the diversification of news styles has also changed the pain points of the “gatekeepers” of news in the era of traditional media.

1、Deviation in Media News Transcription

Innovations and developments in media technology have further dissolved the boundaries between virtual reality and objective reality. In the process of Internet news delivery, some news details are selectively sharpened (the retained details become the core of the remaining message) or intensively sharpened (certain details are reinforced in an exaggerated manner). In the subsequent series of news relayed from the media, news messages can be distorted or assimilated due to the interests, attitudes, cultural norms, or stereotypical expectations of the experimental subject audience.

2、 “No gate-keeping” for open text

New media is a typical “centerless” communication, which not only does not have a strict vetting process, but also makes it easier for the audience to modify the text. Since the widespread adoption of social networks, UGC (user-originated content) has become an important form of new media text that audiences are exposed to.

In the past, most of the texts in the television and print media were systematized contents with a specific “ideological” purpose after careful consideration and strict control, and the main purpose was to implicitly make the audience accept the existing system. The characteristics of “decentered,” “gatekeeperless,” and “borderless” make the new media texts more open and inclusive, but they also bring about the “fragmentation” and “shallowness”.

3、Anomie of public opinion

Anomie is defined by American sociologist Robert Merton as when there is a conflict between ultimate values and legitimate means. Anomie occurs when a practitioner does not recognize and abide by professional norms and ethics that should be followed.

In the era of traditional media, agenda setting guides public opinion in a relatively standardized and orderly manner; however, in the era of new media, when the main body of communication is huge and the values and positions of self-media communication platforms and standardized journalism ethics are inconsistent or in conflict with each other, anomie may occur. In addition, there are a large number of self-media communication platforms, which tend to dominate the direction of public opinion. Some self-media platforms have repeatedly claimed that they are only a “technology company” and will not guide the direction of news ethics, but the essence is the instrumental rationality of the ideology of technological supremacy, which causes news ethics to deviate from the direction.

4、Virtualized Construction of Multiple Texts

Compared to traditional media, new media communication places more emphasis on the virtual construction of social relationships. New media can create new contextual experiences. The text, images, audio and video, and three-dimensional virtual space in cyberspace create a fantasy experience for the senses of news that is unattainable in the real world, and the construction of news in the new media context is more diversified, which also provides a more “convenient” way for the dissemination of false news.

The problems of immediacy, spatiality, and interactivity that could not be solved in the traditional media era have been overcome in the new media era through technology, but in another dimension, the viral fission of negative information has become more obvious. The entertainment sharing spirit of netizens makes information irrationally spread on the media without being “proven”.

The concept of public news comes along with self-media, and personality is its characteristic. When the source of information expands from traditional media to self-media mobile, the “hot” news in public news without a gatekeeper needs a real, objective and traceable technology to support the new life of digital news.

Photo by Launchpresso on Unsplash

Features of Blockchain-based News

Recognized as a revolutionary technology, blockchain technology is an open, distributed ledger with cryptography to ensure that it cannot be tampered and falsified. Blockchain technology is characterized by the use of blockchain data structures to validate and store data, distributed node consensus algorithms to generate and update data, and cryptography to ensure secure data transmission and access.

Although blockchain technology originated in the financial sector, its “decentralized digital trust mechanism” can be combined with the journalism domain to achieve transparency and decentralization of the news production process. The news is digitally transcoded and combined with blockchain technology to form blockchain-based news.

This kind of news is a more objective, transparent, unalterable digital news based on blockchain technology. It is based on blockchain technology, and all news production, dissemination, etc. occur in the “blockchain” technology field. All processes leave traces in the block chain program code, which is transparent and cannot be tampered with.

The Value of Blockchain-based News

Rumors are most likely to arise when an unexpected event occurs, as the event itself is highly publicized. The moral judgments set off by media leaders such as the opinion leaders often help push public opinion toward subjective judgments rather than true objectivity without clarifying the facts. With the fast-paced lifestyle brought about by new media, the media, in a fragmented reading situation, grab the “first issue” to attract attention and increase the number of clicks as quickly as possible.

Blockchain-based news uses blockchain structures and distributed node algorithms to measure the value of labor, sustain media operations, stimulate audience participation, and evaluate news products, enabling the practice of journalism to be free from the influence of gatekeepers and to achieve objective, fair, and transparent value.

1、Traceable news sources, open and transparent news production

The transparency of the news production process inevitably leads to the objectivity of the media’s news practice, which gradually returns the news to the audience and promotes the return of news value.

Blockchain includes source evaluation, multi-node verification mechanism, distributed storage structure, etc., which makes news tamper-proof and traceable in the process of information collection, dissemination and sharing. Blockchain technology’s full record-ability and openness provide technical possibilities for news transparency.

By tracing the source of news, it marks the reliability of news, and by establishing and maintaining the database, it can identify the authenticity of news on any node of the blockchain, which is transparent and can’t be tampered with, effectively combating fake news.

2、Replace “value gates” with “technology gates”.

News published on the blockchain cannot be modified at will, and even if it is changed, the modification record will be fully recorded, solving the problems of subjectivity and abuse of editorial power that exist in the review process of traditional media and making the content review more objective.

The decentralized nature of the blockchain eliminates the need for gatekeepers, and every time people disseminate information, it is done in an assembly line of writing and editing, in this sense, everyone is a news organization. When all the information is gathered on a public news bulletin board, all the people together form a brand new news organization.

This consensus mechanism replaces the old “value gates” with “technical gates” to ensure the objectivity of the facts on the news bulletin board. In this way, people can draw their own conclusions from unbiased facts, rather than being exposed to value-biased and emotionally charged information.

3、Improve public opinion analysis and response

In an online environment where blockchain technology is widely used, any tampering will be recorded and any forgery will be tracked. In this case, the self-cleaning mechanism of rumors will work. Eventually, information dissemination will remain intact and the public opinion environment will become transparent. Public opinion analysts can analyze the hidden information behind the data in terms of the values, time of occurrence, transaction flow, proof of provenance, and other details of the records.

For example, during this year’s epidemic outbreak, blockchain can be used to start with node data, process data such as location and content, intercept hotspot words, and quickly process public opinion during fermentation so as to guide public opinion at the fastest speed, accurately grasp the real status of public opinion, and predict its direction.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Conclusion

It has been said that while technological development brings new and unprecedented experiences to people’s lives, it can also cause damage and even harm to material and spiritual civilization.

But if the technology is manipulated or used appropriately and ethics are upheld, the technology can serve the audience, rather than the audience being trapped by the technology, especially in the crossover between blockchain and news media.

In the age of the Internet, news has undergone many changes due to the combined effects of technology, capital, and power in social communication dominated by new media. Professor Clifford G. Christian, known as the “father of media ethics,” argues that “truth, human dignity, and nonviolence are the native norms of global media ethics.”

Even if blockchain technology and journalism have a promising future, the blockchain field is a digital virtual field that does not correspond to entities on a one-to-one basis, so it will be wary of differences in discursive power, which may lead to problems of formal equality but not actual equality. Also, blockchain has only mechanical judgment but lacks intelligent judgment criteria, so it cannot determine truth. For the application of new technologies in the media, we also need clearer judgment and vigilance of risks, restraint in the application of technology and technical ethics, which are essential for the safe release of the new “nuclear energy” of intelligent productivity such as blockchain technology.

Article from PeopleDigital FINTECH

Translated by Yang(Mengyan Finance)