Celebrity Tweets and Fake Reviews - Further Proof that we need Higher Education to Foster Critical Thinking Skills

Rio Ferdinand, recently involved in 'Sponsored Tweets' debate. Image via Wikipedia

Last week a chocolate bar maker was heavily criticised for sponsoring celebrities including Rio Ferdinand, Katie Price and Cher Lloyd to post Tweets which were part of a campaign to promote their products.  The BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones raised concerns via his blog, citing the recent ruling on the activities of 'Handpicked Media' by the Office of Fair Trading that ' "consumers should understand when they are reading paid-for promotional content"(OFT, 2010).

Add to this today's news that the online travel advice company Tripadvisor - one of the pioneers of Internet business models based on User-Generated-Content (UGC) - has been criticised by the Advertising Standards Authority for using marketing copy that suggested that reviews were genuine and 'concluded that the claims were misleading' (ASA, 2012), and by recent criticism of Amazon's policy regarding rewards for customers for positive reviews (Time, 2012; New York Times, 2012).

Not only does this raise ethical and  legal questions, but it also has broad implications for businesses, consumers and, I would suggest, for educators too.  The  problem could be tackled in a number of ways.  Industry regulation (as provided by the ASA) and government intervention are, of course, important to consider, but so are the issues of the ethical responsibilities of marketers and our abilities as consumers to determine the validity of the messages we are presented with.

This, for me, is further proof that we need the skills developed through Higher Education more than ever.  Final year undergraduate students and postgraduate students across the country will be only too familiar with the phrase 'critical analysis and evaluation' - this is one of the key abilities we seek to develop in our students, and it is a crucial life skill for understanding and surviving in a consumer society.  We need to make sure students can tell the difference between fakes and the real thing, we need them to be able to make sound judgements based on the evidence they have and to have an understanding of their own biases and those of others.  The link between these thinking skills and our ability to decode and understand the marketing messages we receive is important, and in the context of the latest figures from UCAS showing that applications to Higher Education are down 7.4% so far in this recruitment cycle (UCAS, 2012), (although these figures need to be contextualised - or critically analysed if you prefer!), it is worrying that we may find ourselves with fewer people who have highly developed critical thinking skills.

There is no quick solution here (without a damaging knee jerk), and I do believe we need to consider putting in place the policy and regulatory environments that encourage businesses to tackle these issues - without censorship - but don't forget that we as consumers should also be able to make sound judgements about our purchases, and have the freedom share our views with others.

This is where Higher Education can help...