Traditionally, the news media played an important role in social groups by deciding what events were important enough to be shared with their readers or viewers. Not only did the news media decide what information was important but they decided how that information should be delivered. In the past, there was an attempt to remain impartial when reporting on current events. It feels sometimes as if this attempt has been abandoned for onesided and often heavily biased news reporting.

Recently, there has been an increase in what is called

“fake news” and public gures stating what are falsiable statements. Kellyanne Conway, a spokeswoman for President Trump, has defended untrue statements made by the Trump administration by calling them “alternative facts”.

For more information, read the following article.

CNN “‘Alternative facts’: Why the Trump team is planting a

ag in war on media”: http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/22/

media/alternative-facts-donald-trump/index.html When societies need to make decisions about important things such as climate change, going to war or national budgets they need actual facts. These facts must be “real”:

they must accurately represent the world around us. What does it mean for gatekeepers and citizens if we accept the idea that there is such a thing as “alternative facts”?

To what extent has the internet and social media changed the relationship between society and gatekeepers?

To what extent do you agree with the statement: “alternative facts are not facts, they are falsehoods” (CNN, 2017)?