Google, Facebook, and other digital networks have forever disrupted the news landscape and lead to a seismic shift in the way society interpret “facts.” According to the book’s author, our society is in one of themostmomentous shifts with respect to facts and knowledge since the Enlightenment. As a result, media producers need to learn how to harness the power of digital networks to foster greater democratization. In his book, Wihbey discusses how the flow of information, news, and knowledge has changed and suggests howmedia producers concerned about preserving democracy should respond. In the world of digital platforms, anyone can be a news producer—an arbiter of facts. Wihbey builds an argument justifying the power of facts by opening the bookwith a study he and his colleagues completed with Gen Z participants. According to responses from this emergent generation, the lines are blurred between news knowledge produced by professional journalists and news knowledge produced by ordinary citizens seen on digital platforms. In this environment, news producers need to find a better way of getting value-added news to the public in a way that coincides with modern conceptions of knowledge and facts. Noting that all facts are socially derived,Wihbey (2019) defines a social fact as “media content accompanied and influenced by information, indicating social attention or approval” (p. xv). Specifically, a social fact is digitally-driven, nonhierarchical media content derived from anyone perceived as having amodicum of authority who dispenses a statement, image, or anecdote that is, at least, valued by some part of the public as evidenced by the number of retweets, comments, viral videos, or other forms of social validation. The author then argues oneway of providing value-added news is for journalists to grasp the concept of a social fact.

中文翻译：

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社会事实

谷歌、Facebook 和其他数字网络永远扰乱了新闻格局，并导致社会解释“事实”的方式发生了翻天覆地的变化。据该书作者称，自启蒙运动以来，我们的社会正处于事实和知识方面最重大的转变之一。因此，媒体制作人需要学习如何利用数字网络的力量来促进更大程度的民主化。在他的书中，Wihbey 讨论了信息、新闻和知识的流动如何发生变化，并建议关注维护民主的媒体制作人应该如何回应。在数字平台的世界里，任何人都可以成为新闻制作人——事实的仲裁者。Wihbey 用他和他的同事与 Z 世代参与者完成的一项研究打开这本书，建立了一个论证，证明事实的力量是合理的。根据这一新兴一代的回应，专业记者产生的新闻知识与数字平台上普通公民产生的新闻知识之间的界限变得模糊。在这种环境下，新闻制作者需要找到一种更好的方式，以符合现代知识和事实概念的方式向公众提供增值新闻。注意到所有事实都是社会衍生的，Wihbey（2019）将社会事实定义为“伴随信息并受信息影响的媒体内容，表明社会关注或认可”（p.xv）。具体来说，社会事实是数字驱动的、非等级化的媒体内容，来自任何被认为有一定权威的人，他们发布声明、图像或轶事，至少受到某些公众的重视，这一点的数量证明了这一点。转发，评论、病毒视频或其他形式的社会认可。然后作者认为，提供增值新闻的一种方式是让记者掌握社会事实的概念。