We live in a culture in which we are almost obsessed with sharing ‘news’, however that may be defined. We hear much about ‘fake news’, and the social media giants taking some responsibility and action to monitor the news on their information machines that may be fake. We have ‘Snapchat,’, ‘Facebook,‘Twitter’, ‘Instagram’, blogs and any number of opportunities and sites on which we can share whatever information we wish. Many people are (rightly) suspect of information that is not substantiated, but that does not prevent people from using the media for any number of reasons, for evil or for good.
We see and hear pro and anti-government statements, we hear about people’s holidays, we can catch up on the latest family news – events of joy such as a birth, or of sadness, as on the occasion
of the death of a loved one. Then there are the inane ‘posts’s of pictures of last night’s meal or a political rant about this or that leader.