The first reason people go to the media is to develop a personal identity by incorporating the elements of the media into their lives. Today, the media has become the central part of our lives that influences interactions. From the article, Blair has a few physical friends; thus, he connects with most of his friends on social media platforms like Facebook. When his wife goes to work and the children to school, he waits online, which is part of his larger community ( Saslow, 2018) . Similarly, Shirley Chapian would log into Facebook, which had become her routine to start a problem-solving challenge on facebook. She incorporates the elements of media into her life that when daily newspaper supply failed, she would play facebook games ( Saslow, 2018) . Secondly, people go to the media to escape from reality. This is evident from the number of likes and shares that Blair's satirical stories would be shared and people would believe the stories without questioning their credibility. People love to be fed with lies.
Reinforcement theory is the limited effect that the media models the minds of the people to the extent that they pay attention to false information. Nothing on the pages is real, but people want to be fed with controversies like in the case of Blair who writes thousands of words in a day and people are willing to read, believe in the fake news and share widely. Blair has managed to change the minds of the readers that they do not want fo to seek true information from the mainstream media but from the fake websites.
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Bloggers navigate the internet with dozens of profiles like Blair with pseudo accounts. He achieves his target, for instance, in one of his profiles, he poses as a beautiful southern blonde woman who triggers people to make sexist and racist comments. In the story of Mitchell Obama and Trump, people believe the nonsense, yet they do not confirm the real images in the pictures ( Saslow, 2018) . They believe in the articles by reading the title without verifying to ascertain the credibility of the news being spread.
Blair's main aim of the website was to engage with liberal-minded individuals that will spread false, extremist, and satirical stories. He knew that the public would be, and they would think critically of what they shared online. I disagree with Blair's intentions since fake stories shared in the mainstream affects the country whereby political supporters lose trust and confidence or gain the trust of their leaders out of fake stories that influence their decisions.
Only a few minds like Chapian who were keen to share the unsourced stories would think critically, but the masses that got lost from the fake stories made worst decisions. For instance, A woman who commented on the fake story of Mitchelle Obama and Bill Clinton, she believed that the picture was real without verifying and wrote that the women had no respect for themselves ( Saslow, 2018) . Another person believed that Mitchelle and Clinton needed to be publicly shunned. They believed in Blair's fake stories, yet they hardly realized they were fooled. The impact of the stories would be so grossly that changing the minds of the people would be too late when the nation is hurt.
References
Saslow, E. (2018, November 17). 'Nothing on this page is real': How lies become truth in online America. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/nothing-on-this-page-is-real-how-lies-become-truth-in-online-america/2018/11/17/edd44cc8-e85a-11e8-bbdb-72fdbf9d4fed_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.3302c487ce95
