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“The Good and the Bad: How Social Media Affected Me as a Gen Z Individual”

Social media is a computer-based technology that enables us to share our thoughts, ideas and information to any person with the use of virtual networks. It helps us generation z individuals to have an easy life to communicate with our family, relatives, friends, classmates and schoolmates. Social media enables us to build a relationship with the person we are communicating with. It also helps us to make new friends or to know a random person with the use of social media. Social media makes it easier for us to know the news faster. Thus, social media is very helpful and important to us generation z individuals nowadays.

However, social media can lead a person to depression, anxiety, loneliness, self-harm and even suicidal thoughts. It has bad effects due to addiction of using social media or too much time consumed using it, cyber bullying and exposure to contents that are not age appropriate. Due to addiction of using social media, it can lead us to low quality of sleep and harm our mental health. Fake news is also rampant in social media and leads us to false statements exposure. Many people are depending on social media especially us generation z individuals because we believe that it is somehow very helpful without knowing that is adds up to the factors to our problems. Therefore, we can say that we need to have a limitation of spending too much time on social media in order for us to avoid mental issues or any problems that are caused by social media.

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“Digital Divide in the New Normal”

Digital divide can be acquired because of the differences of each individual when it comes to knowledge about digital technology. This is also because of the evolving society and how the creation of mobile phones, computers, and other devices are made. Therefore, in some instances people who do not know how to navigate certain devices creates a “gap” comparing to other people who knows how to do it. As our society keeps evolving, the knowledge of each individual in a certain society about technology also develops into more advanced than others who do not have the initiative to learn about the new normal or technologies.

                The impacts of the digital divide in education have also been significant. The digital divide has affected individual students in the same school as well as groups of students across districts, lowering the academic outcomes of low-income, underserved students and districts. Moreover, the lack of resources or money to buy these new gadgets creates a gap. Some people might not have the opportunity to learn during the new normal even if they want to due to poverty. This is also connected to our economy, internet provide users with improved education, which can lead to higher wages; the people living in nations with limited access are therefore disadvantaged.

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Delivering News in the Present Age

The term "media" refers to many forms of media that supply us with essential information and knowledge. Even when humans utilized paintings and writings to communicate information, media was always a part of our culture. As time went on, people devised new ways to deliver news to the public . Their job may change according to the media, but they all exist to communicate with the audience and influence their views. The objective of media is to provide an advertising message to the target audience via the most relevant media channel for their product. In general, media may be categorized into 3 groups. Print media is the oldest and most fundamental kind of public communication. Print Media includes magazines, newspapers, flyers, brochures, and books. Broadcast media entails sending information containing signals electronically and simultaneously. Broadcasting Media uses television or radio to send messages and audio or video material to a large number of people. Internet Media offers information in the form of video, text, and audio. We can even select how we wish to receive news, such as through websites, social networks, or podcasts. We use a variety of media to stay informed, learn new things, and have fun. No matter where we are or what time it is, technology allows us to choose the media we wish to use. Now, when we hear the word convergence we always think of unity, to unite, moving toward union, or uniformity. This is just the same with media convergence. According to The Canadian Encyclopedia, media convergence is defined as the merging of previously distinct media technologies and platforms through digitization and computer networking. One of the examples of media convergence is the smartphone, it is a perfect device that describes the definition of media convergence, for it is a device that has everything in one. 

According to The Encyclopedia Britannica, the interconnection that brought on media convergence involves the three C’s of computing, communication, and content, and smartphones contain all of these three. A term used to refer to the use of digitized media in conjunction with the old media tools to portray information is what we call Media Convergence. When a person is portrayed in public more people are likely to access the information online. Basically, more people will access a person portrayed in public via a digitized system as compared to the old types of media. Unlike in the past where one could only access information from very limited sources, mainly the print media, in this age, there has been an increase in the number of blogs that give information. There is no restriction on who can write a blog with platforms like word press offering even a free version of their blogs. Some of the platforms include YouTube where uploading a video is completely free. Basically, more people will access a person portrayed in public via a digitized system as compared to the old types of media. Media has its own pros and cons especially in present time media for it’s more accessible for everyone that gives us the opportunity and the advantage to collect information on however we please, but even though we have this as an advantage in present media this can also backfire to us because we can have access to misinformation so easily without knowing these information are not factual and children can also easily access information that are not appropriate for them.

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“Understanding the Relevance of Information and News Literacy in the Midst of Social Era”

These days, people are more likely internet dependent. Social media additionally have become a news source given that people share and post information there too. Even normal citizens and not professional media or journalist tend to post and share their opinions in their social media accounts and some people who see their post labels it as facts. From our point of view, social media filters or influences the way a person thinks base on what they see there. This is where the importance of being an information and news literate. In this era, people tend to believe what they want to believe even if it doesn’t supposedly need to be believed in. They tend to normalize everything even if that is not appropriate to be normalized just like the normalizing of sharing non-factual information. Being an information and news literate individual, you will actually help to break the curse and stop this now. Don’t let others’ non-factual information stir the fact, learn to analyze when an information is true or not.

              Additionally, being an information and news literate is a NEED during this era due to rampant emergence of faux information in social media. If we are able to distinguish facts between fake news and refuses to be influenced by these illegitimate sources, this will help us end the cycle of never-ending non-factual information sharing. Being information and news literate improves our critical thinking or problem-solving skills that will help us make better citizens in the future. When we know what is true and what the whole story tells, we can easily make decisions as to what we should believe. In addition to that, it can also help us boost our confidence because if we know that what we are saying is true we become confident in sharing the information. Instead of sharing false information, why not make social media as one of a news and information credible source? In this social era, it is crucial to be an information and news literate individual not just because of the rampant emergence of fake news but also for ourselves to emerge as knowledgeable who's capable of examining information and supply valid facts for everyone.

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“Media and Government: A Love-Hate Relationship”

Do you know that the Government and Media have had this powerful connection ever since? These are the most powerful institutions in the world. Since then, the Government and media have had this love-hate relationship between each other. In fact, governments have relied on the media to communicate with citizens, and stakeholders around the world, ensuring that they receive the information that will shape their day-to-day decisions, from what to buy, where to live, which school to attend, to issues surrounding their health, safety and political views. Aside from that, we all know that there is also a lot of manipulation going on between these two. In the sketch, there are two symbols that are shown. The chameleon which represents the media and the man with a crocodile-skin tail which represents the government who have two sides, namely the good and bad side. Factually, a chameleon adapts to their environment and its surroundings just like the media. It adapts to current events, news, political aspects and many more. As shown in the sketch, the chameleon has two different scale textures, its normal chameleon skin located at the upper half and at the bottom half which is the crocodile skin that symbolizes corruption and negative sides. Furthermore, the man’s crocodile-tail stands for the corruption that is happening in the Government that is also reflected in the chameleon’s tail since chameleons adapt to what they see just like the media that shows citizens what the government is doing behind their backs.

A few years ago, there was a Presidential Election. Different news spread all over the media, and different statements were released by the presidential candidates, as well as the masses. As an example, different broadcasting stations conducted their own presidential debates. Some had negative statements to the government, while some praised and complimented the media, and vice versa. At some points, the media and the government tend to conflict with each other. People are saying that some news that are reported are biased, yet the government is saying that it’s not. Some journalists oppose what the government is saying. Because of this, the government releases statements that will then oppose the media. Another example is the government's "war on drugs" resulted in more killings and other human rights abuses. President Duterte has called for violence against persons accused that use or dealing drugs on many instances, while pledging to protect those who murder them. In cities wherein police chiefs who had recently overseen abusive investigations were appointed, reports of killings surged. Unknown murderers continued to kill people, many of them had connections to the police. The majority of the victims were poor. During the community quarantine, President Duterte instructed security troops and government representatives to "shoot dead" individuals causing "problems." Local authorities faced accusations for allegedly violating the quarantine by keeping individuals in dog cages. With these news that are made by the media, it shows that there are times that media and government hated each other for exposing and backfiring each other. Though we have these negative effects from the government and how they manipulate the media, they’ve also done a lot of positive things that benefited the society. While half of the chameleon is a crocodile’s skin, half of its skin also stayed normal which represented the positive effects that the government has done that the media showed to the citizens. There are various projects planned during the time when president Rodrigo Duterte was elected president also known as the BUILD! BUILD! BUILD! Program which started ever since Rodrigo Duterte became President.  According to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), the new NLEX Harbor Link, Segment 10 was opened to the public during March 2020 which is made easier for big trucks that pass through the port area from NLEX. Not only this but in 2019 the Government also started a project in Leyte called the Leyte Embankment Project, which has also been dubbed as the Leyte’s “Great Wall”. These are just some of the projects that the government has done and many more to witness in the future. Now, these news and information are also delivered by the media and this shows that the government and media did not only planted hatred in their hearts but also good deeds that will help each other and most importantly, the information for everyone.

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The Value of Being a Media and Information Literate Individual

It goes without saying that fake news and unreliable sources of information are one of the most widespread issues we are facing today. From our point of view, there are a lot of values of being a media and information literate individual. To begin with, being a media and information literate individual enhances our capability of raising awareness in the society. It is for us to learn how to put up the right questions about a certain movie, book, music, etc. Also, being media and information literate enables you to attain certain knowledge about what information or news you should believe. We need to analyze and understand rather than just reading the information we receive to make ourselves better by internalizing what we read beyond its literal meaning. Moreover, it's important to be a media and information literate for it helps us use the most relevant information in whatever source it is that we are reading. It can help us save time by summarizing what's important and what's needed. It also allows people to judge and use critical thinking as to what decision should be made or what information needs to be shared to many people. Certainly, it enables us to rate an information’s credibility and its sources hypercritically. Being a media and information literate plays an important role in one’s individuality such as one becomes a resource and a translator of certain a topic into media, or one can easily comprehend the information in the media and is able to collaborate with others by sharing information.

Irresponsible use of media and information is one of the most rampant issues in our generation especially we are currently developing the technology era in human history.  Social media as the biggest media platform as of today, has grown prevalent and even an addiction for some people. Some people utilize it as a means of expressing themselves and their opinions. With that, media also has advantages and disadvantages. In our point of view, using it responsibly is a must.  Use media and information to inspire other people, share informative content, think before you post, and spread love rather than hate. We can observe that a lot of people in different social media post or share misleading information that will surely affect someone’s perspective about a certain issue. Media keeps people updated in the happenings around the globe so we must not post or share unreliable sources of information without realizing the possible outcomes of what you shared. Informing people and educating them on some things that they are not familiar with, especially if it involves another individual or culture. We can do this by communicating with other people using media and spread knowledge for them to be informed or educated. Since media has played a very important role in communication nowadays why not make good use of it by sharing information across the globe or the people around us to keep them updated on current happenings or events.

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