This past election in the United States of America was of the most polarizing elections in history. And it coincided with a new wave of millennial voters being able to cast their vote for the first time. Another significant thing about this election in particular was the news coverage, which did not help to depolarize the political climate. Instead, the news outlet contributed to the political polarization throughout the election, creating what some people have called a complete failure by the press.
So, if the press failed in coverage, how did the format and ways in which the news was reported affect the voting choices and political biases of first time voters on election day? According to a report published by the American Press Institute, older generations are concerned about younger generations' lack of participation in politics partly because of the limited news sources they read, and the fact that some of them just don't read sources at all due to the endless choices. The question is then raised, of how it is possible to have an informed body of voters if that body of prospective voters is refraining form remaining politically educated and activ? According to the same report, "Virtually all Millennials, for instance, regularly consume a mix of hard news, lifestyle news, and practical "news you can use." Millennials are more likely to report following politics, crime, technology, their local community, and social issues than report following popular culture and celebrities, or style and fashion. Fully 45% of these young adults regularly follow five or more 'hard news' topics, and a lot of these genres come out of their social media usage, contextualized and suggested by their activity online and the things they search.
With the increased fragmentation of news sources, many news outlets are becoming increasingly biased and polarizing when it comes to left wing or right wing influence in the ways that stories are reported. Is this politically polarizing environment detering young voters from tuning into hard news? With the rise of social media, the statistics show how millennials turn to soft news and entertainment stories over hard news about politically relevant topics. While social media does make articles from certain news sources more accessible to millennials via social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, this also leads back to the problem of millennials being able to easily selectively expose themselves only to stories that are told from a perspective that supports their political views, and not alternate perspectives. Social media makes it easy to see the things just how we want to see them, all in one place, verifying our personal truths and not challenging them with things we don’t want to see.
Unlike a newspaper or television station (dependent on sponsorship of course,) seeking out specific news websites does not provide a comprehensive, two sided narrative from which to draw judgements about the state of things. Another study conducted by Pew Research Center, examined the “Modern News Consumer,” and found that “Attitudinally, Americans are split on whether they feel loyal to their news sources – but behaviorally, they tend to stick to the same sources anyway.” Putting this concept into numerical form, Pew calculated that, “ nearly half (46%) of Americans both describe themselves as loyal and also go to the same sources repeatedly (the ‘very loyal’). Just 18% are neither attitudinally nor behaviorally loyal (the ‘non-loyal.’)” This is a worrisome statistic because if 48% of Americans are loyal readers who only get their news from the same sources they are “loyal to,” it means they are mostly likely getting a narrative of current events that is biased in favor of their own predetermined ideas about major social and political decisions taking place in the world. In this way, loyalty to only a few select news outlets can lead to political biases that in the long run determine who individuals vote for, and whether they will vote at all.
This is not, unfortunately, only an issue in America. In the UK the 2017 general election has been considered the biggest social media election to date, however studies by YouGovUK suggest that traditional news sources have more influence amongst British voters. According to the article, 60% of voters said they regularly depended on the BBC for their updates, 15% said they relied on social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Buzzfeed), and 45% said they read the newspaper. The number for social media usage greatly increases amongst 18-24 year olds but even amongst this group traditional news sources remained the most popular.
As mentioned before, traditional news outlets can still have their own political bias. The Guardian, and the Daily Mail are the two most popular and read written news sources in the UK and according to another study by YouGovUK, the Guardian was considered to be biased towards the left by 70% percent of Brits. The Daily Mail was considered to be biased towards the right by 81% of voters. Regardless of the country it seems there is no escape to media bias. When every news source leans so far to one side, readers are destined to buy into these views thus causing greater polarization amongst voters.
Comments
Post a Comment