Media Polarization

The media is affecting society more than ever, and there are many different sides as to why that is happening but one thing is for sure, it is only getting worse. The media was an asset when it was first created, working for the betterment of society as an information hub to spread knowledge quicker around the world. The media has now turned into a biased entertainment news source that has strayed far away from where it began. This change has led to a divide in the United States that might never end.

There have been numerous political studies that give a new sight as to how the divide is really affecting the people that live in the US. These trends of media polarization have been proven to be true, split between political parties that are primarily democratic and republican being the two sides. The interesting part of this split that I have noticed through research is that the political parties have very opposing views on the media, because of the media. Even though this split is somewhat equal with how the media is biased, there seems to be an uneven affect based on these different parties. One research study from Reuters Institute stated that “The report reveals several important media trends, including rising polarization in the United States. While 51% of left-leaning Americans trust the news, only 20% of conservatives say the same. Right-leaning Americans are far more likely to say they avoid the news because “I can’t rely on news to be true.”” This is such an interesting study that really makes a strong point about how the news has changed, and in what direction it is leaning. At face value, I would see this study and assume that the only possibility could be that the news has been catering more towards the left-side views and somewhat gone against the right-side views, probably just to keep ratings high because that is who is watching the news most likely. On the other hand, it could have to do with the viewpoints of the two sides conflicting with the actual truth, and when the news puts up a segment then the right-side won't want to believe it because of their views, while the left-side is reassured because that is what they had thought the whole time. This could lead to the right-side not trusting the news as the left-side does, when in all reality the news source is actually just the truth, but not what they want to see. This idea is purely that, an idea, but it could have some merit to it. The only other idea that I have had surrounding this study is that the education levels and interest levels on both these sides are at different levels. What I mean by this is that the right-side, the non news watchers, could be saying that they don't trust the news because they purely don't care enough to watch it, or that they don't understand the value of it because it could oppose their views and instead of learning from it they just don't believe it and that's that. The left-side I believe if more educated and interested will watch the news regardless of whether it supports their views or not, because they are interested and also want to be more educated on the subject. In my opinion I believe that a basic part of being knowledgeable is listening and accepting the other side of an argument or discussion, and thinking about it before speaking your mind. This idea could add to the larger idea of this media separation, because of the knowledge disparity between the sides causing them to either watch the news and trust it, or not to watch the news because they do not trust it.

The idea of being knowledgeable to me as mentioned before, is listening to and accepting both sides of an argument, and going into this I thought media polarization was a bad thing. To more fully round myself on the topic I delved into articles that supported it and said that it was necessary. The main part of the articles that were supporting it had a very similar view, and that was it was necessary to run a democracy. One article that I found to be very interesting was from the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health which stated that “Polarized citizens more often vote, protest, and join political movements, all of which are necessary for functioning democracy and help disrupt undesirable status quos. Polarization also entails pluralistic policy alternatives; this is crucial for democracies, which rely on citizens being able to consider multiple policies and have thorough, constructive debates between them.” This is an extremely interesting take on the situation that I had not thought of at all. This to me at first doesn't seem like it makes sense however, because although I do understand that multiple viewpoints are essential to debate effectively and to run a democracy, I think that the polarization of the media has a more negative effect than they are leading on to. This does support it being a good thing and I do agree with that, but I think it has gone past the point of being healthy and helpful. They also say that having multiple sides creates grounds for constructive debates which seems like it could be true, but in actuality I believe it has gotten to the point where it is at a stand still, and people do not respect the other side enough to listen to it. This relates back to the news articles, and how the different sides view it on such a different level, which shows the actual acceptance of both the sides. Without the willingness of both sides to hear out the other, there can be no effective dialogue, and this article although it is true for the most part, does not account for the drastic changes that have occurred due to the media polarization, and is a bit optimistic in my opinion. In the end, I do think that the idea of polarization in a political sense is a great thing and of course necessary, but the media has taken it to an aggressive level, and it is no longer a functional polarization.

Heltzel, Gordon, and Kristin Laurin. “Polarization in America: Two Possible Futures.” Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Elsevier Ltd., Aug. 2020, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7201237/.

Edkins, Brett. “Report: U.S. Media Among Most Polarized In The World.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 27 June 2017, www.forbes.com/sites/brettedkins/2017/06/27/u-s-media-among-most-polarized-in-the-world-study-finds/.