As they say in Sound of Music, "Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start." Before we can dive into all the ways that the media is affecting citizens and the political process or how much politicians and political organizations are trying to influence the media, we need to start with ourselves. What kinds of political information are we consuming? What sources do we use more or less? What do we trust? How does all of this affect our political ideology and our ideas about particular political issues? There is a lot there.
We know from many interesting studies like this one from Pew Research that people typically get news from a variety of sources using a variety of formats. We will explore what all of this means throughout the course. But first we need to analyze our individual media exposure. Please think about yourself during a "typical" week and try to honestly describe your political media profile using some or all of the following prompts to guide you:
- How much time during an average day or week do you think you consume news?
- What sources (NYTimes, Buzzfeed, NBC News, FoxNews...) and formats (TV, internet, radio, newspaper, magazine...) do you use the most? Are you a newspaper or blog reader, do you watch local or national or cable news, what channels, what radio stations?
- What role does the internet/social media play in the news you consume?
- How do you find news sources?
- What sources do you trust? Why?
Please note that this is not designed as as opportunity to brag about how much political news we watch or lie about how little we consume. It is simply a time to be honest so we can have a sense of what is out there.
Remember: Your responses should be approximately one long or two short paragraphs and no more (around 150 words). No research is necessary but think carefully about what you want to write and respond to the ideas presented on the blog, not the people. The goal is to use these prompts to start a dialogue that can evolve through the week. You should post your comment(s) by 8pm on Wednesday. Everyone should skim the discussion before class on Thursday.
I wouldn't consider myself to be a political or news fanatic to any extent but at the same time I feel I stand above most Americans as it pertains to how much I watch and attempt to consume. Being a very financially orientated person I watch CNBC every morning for 2-4 hours and visit CNN and a few other sites throughout the day, which provides adequate reports, but it seems that the stories that really grab your attention these days are found through social media with people sharing and retweeting which I find to be very interesting. The trust issue is a big question in this era because there are so many fake stories put out that people are willing to grasp on too and spread across millions of viewers via social media that it is just instinct now for me to check the small text at the bottom of every page I read just to make sure their isn't a disclosure for comedy or entertainment purposes notation at the bottom of the page. I am interested to hear what my classmates think about how, for lack of a better word, naive people are becoming towards what is credible and what isn't.
ReplyDeleteAs Wes pointed out, social media has truly revolutionized the way that people, especially younger people, consume news today. More often than not, my friends on Facebook are sharing Buzzfeed articles before they would ever share something from a major news source such as CNN. As for myself, I consume very little news because I find it frustrating to listen to talking heads going back and forth (especially in my house where my parents are tuned into Fox News 24/7).
ReplyDeleteAs for myself, I find it difficult to trust many news sources today. Like Wes, I find myself always looking for the "angle" that you expect to find in the small font at the bottom, and without spending the time to consider multiple sources or media outlets, it's difficult to ascertain whether or not you're receiving unbiased news reports. I find myself looking for consistency in news sources to build trustworthiness. I don't think that you can look at one source and take it for its word, regardless of how often you check it or whom the news is supposedly "coming from".
Perhaps this is a much more cynical view of the media, however if you don't consume news regularly, I always find that this approach is best. I often get the more conservative side of things at home, so typically I seek out the opposite view to help form my own opinion on events which often falls somewhere in the middle.
I too am interested to see how others decide what news sources are best to look at, especially since I am probably one of the more ambivalent students in the class when it comes to news and media consumption. Particularly, how do you all get a more balanced view of things? Without my parents, I feel like I too would fall into the trap of consuming the news that I want to hear from the sources that align with my own opinion.
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ReplyDeletePolitics is a relatively new interest for me. Initially I entered college with intentions of pursuing accounting; however exposure into the realm of law during an elective initiated a new passion. With new intentions of pursing law I decided it would be prudent to actively engage in politics for complementary purposes. I consider the near absolute absence of political engagement during my childhood/teenage years advantageous as my exploration into the political realm began through a university educated lens, rather than an opinion pressed one. Introductory political science courses enlightened me on the heavily biased news TV networks, such as MSNBC and FOX, which had a subsequently repelling effect. The spins these networks put on a similar issue led me to seek an alternative. This is when I discovered CSPAN. CSPAN allows access to live debates between politicians and political parties about news and particular issues, allowing the viewer to interpret their own opinion rather than a politically spun one. For many people--including ALL my friends and family, it can be dreadful to watch; however I highly recommend tuning in if you want to remove the rooted bias that many of us find undesirable. I dedicate at least an hour every night to watching CSPAN for purposes of keeping up with new political issues and news.
ReplyDeleteTo briefly address internet and social media, it plays a large yet sometimes annoying role in the news I consume. As mentioned in the above comments, there is a great frequency of misleading news, heavily biased opinions, and invalid conspiracy theories. In agreement with the comments above, I am very skeptic of any news I find on the internet and social media, and conduct further investigation to establish validity.
I would definitely agree with you Joshua that CSPAN is a great way to get the facts before the media has a chance to spin it for viewer entertainment or to please an outside entity. Unfortunately, it takes a ton of patience to sit there and watch CSPAN on a regular basis especially in the fast paced world we live in today.
DeleteI would say I take in about 15 hours of news a week. I watch the Daily Show/Colbert Report almost every weekday and check out what Fox/ABC News here and there. I also flip through the international headlines on AOL every once in a while when checking my email and contribute to organizations like Public Citizen and MoveOn (which send regular emails).
ReplyDeleteI’m happy to say that I don’t have a Facebook and social media plays no part whatsoever in feeding me news. The comments that come with news-like posts are mostly ignorant and undiscerned. I normally find news sources from a Google search after reading a book. For example, after reading Kevin Ryan’s, “Another Nineteen: Investigating Legitimate 9/11 Suspects” (I am impossibly liberal) I checked out whatever recent articles there were on asshole Dick Chaney’s Halliburton.
Overall, I trust sources that are well respected, not ultra-Conservative, and not handsomely rewarded. Basically, I trust nothing owned by Rupert Murdoch.
I would say I deliberately consume about 1-2 hours of news per day, but that does not include accidental consumption through social media. Everyone knows the black hole facebook can suck you into once you click on a news article on your news feed, and then you spend quite a bit of time stumbling upon more articles and videos from there.
ReplyDeleteIn the morning I like to watch a little news while I eat breakfast and drink coffee. Mostly this includes ABC / CNN, and sometimes FOX. Throughout the day, I get alerts from "real clear politics" and "newsy", and then at night, my guilty pleasure is to watch John Stewart and Stephen Colbert, occasionally watching Anderson Cooper or Bill O'Reilly.
The best way to approach news consumption, for me, is to understand that every single piece of information is biased one way or the other, whether that is deliberate or not, and thus if i am interested in a certain story, I always research various sources to gain a full understanding of the truth. John Stewart does a great job at exposing how biased the media really is, usually picking on FOX given Stewart's liberal politics, however MSNC is often worse than FOX, and CNN sometimes slants a little to the left as well. Unfortunately, I can't really trust any news, which is why it is important to get news from a number of different sources.
I believe I consume news more than I realize which makes it difficult to quantify it. Perhaps the most consistent source and the one I trust the most has been NPR. I listen to it via the NPR app every morning during my commute to campus. I find watching the news to be somewhat insufferable due to the high performativity and the excess in graphics, the supposed objectivity, and the complete ignorance of the TV journalists. I always feel bad for whoever is being interviewed, because it’s such a sterilization of that person’s experience. I prefer to listen to or read it, and look for first person accounts.
ReplyDeleteAnother factor that impacts my news intake is that I am a graduate assistant for a department on campus, and I have to engage with social media more than I typically do in order to engage the students. I am on Twitter, BuzzFeed, UpWorthy, Thought Catalog, Salon, and Facebook way more than I care to, but I read about so many personal stories and see so many videos that are reacting to the political climate even if it is not explicitly about politicians or elections or bills being passed. Something that I learned very early in my DePaul career is that we are constantly practicing ideology, and our lives and everything we do with our lives is a political move no matter how unrelated it may seem. I see that exemplified in the stories I encounter online that are usually bypassed by large network news stations.
When I am absolutely tired of the news and of explicit politics in the news, I go to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to help me feel validated in the absurdity that are Fox and MSNBC and everyone in between falling over themselves to get the big story.
I would say I spend about 2 hours per day purposely consuming news, which I would guess is more than the average person. But aside from that I feel that almost everything we do, on the internet especially, results in us getting more news even if we are not looking for it. I personally get the majority of my news from a couple different websites. The Chicago Tribune is a site that I use a lot for local news especially, but also national news. I read both CNN and Fox's' websites as well to get different perspectives. I do not have a tv, but when I did i would flip back and forth between CNN, Fox, NBC etc. to get a number of different viewpoints. I do not think most people our age use the radio to get the news, that is probably older generations. I wouldn't say that I completely trust any of the news sources that I read, that is why I read a number of different ones in order to see what the differences in the reporting are. The Chicago Tribune usually seems to be more straightforward than the cable news sites. Facebook and Twitter also are major sources of news for me, although usually unintentionally. Friends often share articles which appear on my news feed, or re-tweet them.
ReplyDeleteDuring the average day I read the news for about ten minutes every hour. I read from the New York Times, ESPN, BBC News, CNN, and ABC News, as well as watch their news casts for nightly news. I also watch the Daily Show to see the news in a more lighthearted way however knowing that it is still a comedy show and some stuff is going to be slated. I am a double major in political science and Chinese studies. Therefore I do read and watch a lot of political news and try to focus on national news as well as international news related to how the US reacts to events. I am an avid Facebook user and sometimes I am able to get my pop news from the random articles that show up in my news feed. I usually pick which sources I trust based on how accurate they have been in the past. I try to make sure that when reading or watching the news I pick up on the facts and push away the bias.
ReplyDeleteI would say that I spend about 1/2 hour to an hour of intentionally consuming news a day. However, I feel as though I can spend up to and additional hour or so consuming news that I did not seek myself. For the news that I intentionally seek, my sources include articles on sites like the Chicago Tribune, CNN, and other online newspapers, as well as some TV like nightly news programs or the Today Show. However, through social media, I am drawn to sites like Buzzfeed and other entertainment news articles.
ReplyDeleteI would say that most of the news I consume is through the internet and social media, so it plays a major role. I am much more likely to read a few articles online than sit and watch an hour long news program. In regards to social media, there have been many times when I come across something that I am interested in and would not have found otherwise if it wasn't on my Facebook newsfeed. Social media is also a way I find out about other news sources that I was unfamiliar with. So, although some of the news on social media can be more entertainment based, it is also a place where people can be introduced to a broader variety of news sources.
On the average day I estimate that I purposely consume 1-2 hours of news. I think the way I most enjoy news is in writing, so I tend to go for newspapers, blogs, and websites for news. My roommate and I subscribe to the NY Times and Chicago Tribune, so I try to read the Tribune every day. As far as online goes, I like reading from both CNN and FOX, mostly because I find it very interesting seeing the way each choses to present news and the order of importance they give to stories. I have problems with both sources, but they are good enough to get what I want to know, and if nothing else prove as a jumping off point for looking more into a certain subject. I think one of my favorite sources to read is BBC just because of diversity in material.
ReplyDeleteSimilar to many other comments above, I believe that it is difficult to quantify how much I consume news, because when I am on the internet or on social media, often times it feels like it never stops. I deliberately seek out news for probably an 30 min to 1 hour a day (on average) but as Steven said, that does not include all the "accidental consumption" of news that happens. Most often, I don't seek out news sources, but the news sources find me. I try to find "credible" news on newspaper websites like the WSJ or NYTimes, but the majority of news I consume is definitely from social media sites like Facebook, Buzzfeed, Reddit, etc. because I am constantly surrounded by those kinds of links and articles. I rarely consume news from a printed newspaper, radio, or TV. This is true for many people my age, and for the young generation of adults, the internet and social media plays a crucial role in news consumption.
ReplyDeleteSocial media is especially influential because people post links of news articles on Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit every minute, and they are almost never from unbiased resources. While the availability of information has increased drastically because of social media, so has the availability of misinformation. This is dangerous because myths, rumors, and opinions can be spread as facts, and then the truth can be so distorted that it becomes difficult to trust any source. This is why I find it difficult to trust any news source at all. Even "credible" sources like the NYTimes have some biased attached.
I cant say that I routinely check a specific online news source or specific magazine to learn about what is happening in the world but now a days I feel that the news really does find you. When on twitter or other forms of social media we see pop-up ads or people's post of what they found interesting which will spark out interest as well. sources like Buzzfeed tend to have more entertaining news articles or snip bits that are easier to skim or read then the New York Times but then again I would use the New York Times as a more trustable source then Buzzfeed. Therefore, I think that the outlet we choose to seek out when picking up our news depends on the type of news we are looking for.
ReplyDeleteI spend about 30-45 minutes every morning reading the news while I'm eating breakfast and getting ready for the day. Beyond that I check twitter almost hourly, for a couple of minutes here and there to check the latest news. Cumulatively, I would estimate i spend about 2 hours a day reading the news.
ReplyDeleteI have made a concerted effort to follow a variety of news sources on Twitter. While I personally do not tweet very frequently, I think the application's feed makes for an incredibly accessible method of gathering information from a wide variety of sources. I have made an effort to diversify the sources that I follow and as a result, it ranges from NYTimes, NPR, and the Chicago Tribune to ThinkProgress and political individuals.
Social media is understandably a very important tool for me in terms of consuming news, because it's the main way that I gather news. I can follow 50 different news sources without actually going to each individual page and reading their headlines.
I find these news sources by looking at what news sources important news and political figures are following. I always like to peek at who is following who because it's a good way to get a glimpse of where and how news is being created and shared.
As revealed in the Pew Research study, while it is important to note that many people think that news coverage may be wrong, biased, or subjective, I do not believe that that fact gets in the way of media playing the role of “watchdog”. If the press reveals something about a shady politician or an unethical decision, it doesn’t matter if every fact in the report is the truth to make an impact on society’s view of the situation, because the event was still exposed. Even though the media has been more polarized and opinionated in recent years, I believe that they still serve as an effective surveillance system over the happenings in the government.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it is also important to note that they are not perfect at keeping politicians in check because, as we mentioned last class, the media needs politicians just as much as politicians need the media. The government has a lot of power, and that probably includes power over the media as well. I would be surprised if there is bribing, lying, and slanting of information aided by politicians before it gets to the people. I want to believe that the media serves as an impeccable watchdog and exposes every single wrongdoing in Washington, but I would be incredibly ignorant to think so.