Blog Post #6

 The Progressive Era

After being posed with this question, I was left contemplating why I think the media is in the current state that it is in today. Honestly, I am not exactly sure how we got here. As someone who does not consume as much news as they probably should, my thoughts are limited but connect to other issues in our society. 

The first thought that comes to my mind for why you have to seek out obscure websites in order to hear strong antiwar voices is because of money. Unfortunately, we see in the media world today that the power houses are the most divided. For example, CNN and FOX are widely known and have very opposing views. So why can they cover the same events in such different ways? I think that is because of their audience. By having more like-minded viewers, the advertisements these news sources are able to show are much more successful. This allows the organization to be paid more money while simultaneously pulling their viewers further away from the other side, solidifying them as their own consumer. 

In today's day in age, consuming media is done much quicker than ever before. In the Washington Post article, “Americans read headlines. And not much else.” explains how 41% people consume their news from the headlines alone. This leads me into the bigger societal issue with social media algorithms. A person's social media feed is filled with pieces based on what they have interacted with before. So while in the past, everyone was getting the same news information, today, people can hear the same story in different ways and not realize that other people are receiving different “facts”. Thinking about this reminded me of the quote:

“People have always had different opinions. Now they have different facts.” 

by Anne Applebaum. 

While this is a hard pill to swallow, it is the reality we live in now. Another article that stuck out to me was “How Reliable is Your News Source? Understanding Media Bias 2022” and drive this point further. This article shows the difference in coverage from three points-of-view of the same current event. 

So why specifically do I think that it is hard to find strong anti-war voices? I am not quite sure. Reflecting back on the points I have made above, I would say that I think it is because consumers of media did not interact enough which led to less coverage and therefore, news being broadcasted focusing on other subjects that will make them more money.