World Press Freedom Day
The duty of care traditionally associated with media houses has expanded to encompass business organisations in today’s digital landscape. This shift is driven by the fact that many businesses now function as media entities, engaging directly with their audiences through various communication channels. Through blog posts, articles, videos, podcasts, infographics, and social media posts, most organisations disseminate information to educate, entertain, or inform the communities they serve while subtly promoting their products or services.
In addition to social media, most organisations often own media channels such as websites, blogs, email newsletters, and mobile apps. These channels provide a controlled environment for them to publish content, engage with their audience and drive traffic to their products or services. Others have adopted a journalistic storytelling approach, producing content resembling traditional media articles or news segments. This information dissemination model focuses on providing valuable, relevant and timely information to audiences, establishing the organisation as a trusted source of expertise in its industry.
Today, media encompasses diverse platforms and voices, shaping public discourse by disseminating information, shaping opinions, and facilitating dialogue. Its role extends beyond traditional journalism to include citizen journalism, social media influencers, and user-generated content. Therefore, organisations today have become catalysts for social change, reflecting and influencing societal values, norms and beliefs. They provide a platform for diverse perspectives, enabling public engagement and debate on critical issues. However, it also faces challenges such as misinformation, echo chambers, and algorithmic bias, which can impact the quality and integrity of public discourse.
Misinformation through false or misleading information takes many forms, including inaccuracies, exaggerations, distortions, and outright fabrications communicated intentionally or unintentionally. Like the press, organisations today have the duty of care to address misinformation through fact-checking initiatives, employing responsible communication practices and ensuring accountability measures for the platforms they use to disseminate their information.
Organisations act as echo chamber environments, where individuals and other organisations consume information, opinions or beliefs that align with their own. In such echo chambers, people and communities tend to interact with like-minded individuals or sources that reaffirm their existing views but with the potential of excluding or dismissing alternative viewpoints. Whether online or offline, echo chambers often limit people to diverse perspectives. While echo chambers can provide a sense of validation and belonging to individuals, they can also foster polarisation, narrow-mindedness, and the spread of misinformation. By shielding individuals from dissenting opinions or critical analysis, echo chambers hinder constructive dialogue, inhibit critical thinking, and impede the exchange of ideas essential for a vibrant and multicultural society.
Websites and mobile applications are often employed to collect user data to inform organisations’ course of action. Such software can experience systemic errors or algorithmic biases usually present in algorithms or models that underpin various automated systems. These biases can lead to discriminatory outcomes or perpetuate existing inequalities, often unintentionally, due to how data is collected, processed, or used to train machine learning models. Biases may arise from the design choices made when developing algorithms, such as the features selected for inclusion or the optimisation objectives chosen. These design decisions can inadvertently favour certain groups or outcomes over others, leading to biased results.
In addition, bias might occur from the data used. Algorithms learn from historical data, and if this data is biased or reflects existing societal inequalities, the resulting model may perpetuate or even exacerbate those biases. For example, suppose a hiring algorithm is trained on historical data that reflects gender or racial biases in hiring practices. In that case, it may inadvertently discriminate against certain groups when hiring.
As we mark World Press Freedom Day, there is a need to consider the importance of organisational journalism and freedom of expression and how they impact society. Organisations are a powerful tool for informing, educating, and mobilising communities towards positive change in today’s interconnected world. Therefore, a duty of care is essential, especially as the world faces old and new complex and challenging crises every other day.
