2/4 Reading Response

In the Poynter article, Tardaguila is trying to inform the readers of of the different ways they can look out for fake images. Her reason for doing this is to stop the spread of misinformation in media. In the article, she states, “False news producers take advantage of breaking news to spread disinformation and fool people”(Tardaguila). For example, when someone tweets out a photoshopped image of a recent event or hot topic, there is a decent likelihood it will could traction. When those images gain traction, news outlets begin to spread the information as if it was real because they know it will get attention, and the people that read it thinking it’s real will be misinformed. The rest of her article is devoted to informing people of the different methods they can use to spot false images. I think the biggest takeaways for me were the methods for spotting false images since I’m not very good at identifying differences between real images and well photoshopped ones.

In The Multiple Media of Texts, Chapter 5, Wysoki is explaining how media like typography (size, font, spacing), shapes, photos, etc., affect the final product and how things progressed up to where we are today. She also provides a three part approach to analyzing the visual aspects of texts, being: “Name the visual elements in a text, name the designed relationships among those elements, and consider how the elements and relations connect with different audiences, contexts, and arguments” (Wysoki). These apply very well to the study of differentiation between social media platforms, as each platform has it’s own unique distinctions. For example, Twitter is very distinct from a platform like Instagram. With Twitter, you simply type a tweet quickly into a text box and hit “send” to let the world see it. With Instagram, you start by picking a picture. But after that, you have the option to add filters or make small edits to the photo. Then after that, you come up with a caption and have the option to tag people or places. Finally, you post. The difference between the ways you approach this media determines which platform you may want to post on, even though it’s technically possible to post a picture and text on either platform.