Attitudes About the News Media

mzungu · 17-05-2017 10:28pm #1

Recent PEW study from the US suggest that 89% of Democrats believe that news media keeps leaders in line, compared to 42% of Republicans. This question has been asked every year since 1985, but this the widest gap recorded between the two in that time. Link: http://www.journalism.org/2017/05/10/americans-attitudes-about-the-news-media-deeply-divided-along-partisan-lines/

It's hardly surprising given the events of the past few months. It was inevitable that both sides would retreat to their respective trenches.

Thoughts?

Black Swan · 01-06-2017 10:30pm

Politicians that claim "fake news" may face legal suits for defamation of character by news media organisations claiming damage. Colorado Senator Ray Scott (R) may be sued by the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel in Colorado, and if so, a landmark court case decision may be rendered if the Daily Sentinel prevails.

Donald Trump continues to label news unfavourable to him as "fake news." From an anthropological standpoint, what may be occurring between Trump and the news media during past months may be called "ritualized warfare," where two tribes face each other in a pantomime of battle shouting insults, but beyond that, very little chance of actual blood being spilled.

mzungu · 03-06-2017 11:11pm

Black Swan wrote: »

Politicians that claim "fake news" may face legal suits for defamation of character by news media organisations claiming damage. Colorado Senator Ray Scott (R) may be sued by the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel in Colorado, and if so, a landmark court case decision may be rendered if the Daily Sentinel prevails.

Donald Trump continues to label news unfavourable to him as "fake news." From an anthropological standpoint, what may be occurring between Trump and the news media during past months may be called "ritualized warfare," where two tribes face each other in a pantomime of battle shouting insults, but beyond that, very little chance of actual blood being spilled.

Great article.

I wonder if what we are seeing now is the end product of a merger between politics and entertainment that has been nearly 40 years in the making? For example, Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985) suggests news has now become a form of entertainment. This has the negative effect of taking focus off policies, and instead making the personality the selling factor.

Since Postman wrote that nearly 32 years ago, we can add to the above the arrival of 24 hour news, "reality TV", and the mega echo chamber of social media. All these mediums have in effect merged with politics almost seamlessly, and needless to say, they both merge with the entertainment industry effortlessly. This is a mitigating factor behind a "reality TV" star being elected to the White House. Trump always had media backing, this only made it easier to build a brand of the self and sell it to the world via social media and 24-hour news channels.

Granted, there were other factors in the election like jobs in the rust belt etc. Nevertheless, taking all that out of equation, Trump's ease in creating a cult of personality (of sorts) should make people stop and think. Will the next person who uses the cult of personality be as incompetent, or will they be devious and intelligent? The former, like right now, would be shambolic, however the latter would be infinitely worse.

Fathom · 13-06-2017 11:25pm

News "Infotainment" > TV Ratings or web clicks > Advertisers > Profits. Affected general news media. Also, how science was communicated (or miscommunicated).

mzungu · 11-07-2017 3:05pm

Fathom wrote: »

News "Infotainment" > TV Ratings or web clicks > Advertisers > Profits. Affected general news media. Also, how science was communicated (or miscommunicated).

Is the answer to have only journalists with a strong scientific background writing about science related topics? Might go someway towards eradicating needless clickbait like "Hamburgers more dangerous than Anthrax" etc.

Fathom · 14-07-2017 3:48pm

13 percent of the world’s population enjoys free press. Where state intrusion was minimal. To what extent does Donald Trump's attempts to discredit press reporting an attempt to control content? A variation of government intrusion?

mzungu · 15-07-2017 4:47pm

Fathom wrote: »

13 percent of the world’s population enjoys free press. Where state intrusion was minimal. To what extent does Donald Trump's attempts to discredit press reporting an attempt to control content? A variation of government intrusion?

I would say he knows he won't be able to control content of news outlets that lean Democrat (news media for GOP will back him regardless), rather it is the classic "play to the gallery" for the supporters. Since the content can't be controlled, then going on the offensive is the next line of attack. Try discredit them among the support base. I am not sure if that comes under intrusion (unless it can be proved that overtures were made), but it certainly walks near to a line that should not be crossed in any truly democratic society. It is not far off something that would happen in one of the tinpot dictatorship regimes in Latin America

Fathom · 17-07-2017 4:07pm

Is there a Trump media phenomenon? Historically unique? If yes, what does it reflect about media attitudes? For example. Talk show hosts Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, and Trevor Noah appear to have found a Trump cultural comedy niche. These shows are getting high ratings.

Fathom · 18-07-2017 3:31pm

Marijn van Klingeren Hajo G. Boomgaarden Claes H. de Vreese (2017) in Will Conflict Tear Us Apart? The Effects of Conflict and Valenced Media Messages on Polarizing Attitudes toward EU Immigration and Border Control, Public Opinion Quarterly 81 (2): 543-563, suggested "conflict in news messages can have a polarizing effect on public perceptions." Happening in EU. Also in America.

mzungu · 18-07-2017 4:42pm

Fathom wrote: »

Is there a Trump media phenomenon? Historically unique? If yes, what does it reflect about media attitudes? For example. Talk show hosts Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, and Trevor Noah appear to have found a Trump cultural comedy niche. These shows are getting high ratings.

It's a ratings winner. No matter what side of the fence one is on, the POTUS is big news, and historically has always been fodder for satire on the US left media (when it is a Republican president), whereas on right leaning media the focus will not be satire, but rather the sort fire and brimstone (dressed up as policy analysis) pontificating done by the likes of Bill O'Reilly (when a Democrat is president).

Both feed their respective viewer base, giving them what they want, as opposed to what they need.

mzungu · 18-07-2017 5:05pm

Fathom wrote: »

Marijn van Klingeren Hajo G. Boomgaarden Claes H. de Vreese (2017) in Will Conflict Tear Us Apart? The Effects of Conflict and Valenced Media Messages on Polarizing Attitudes toward EU Immigration and Border Control, Public Opinion Quarterly 81 (2): 543-563, suggested "conflict in news messages can have a polarizing effect on public perceptions." Happening in EU. Also in America.

I guess this has shades of the whole "are the audience passive receivers?" line of thought. Although, it is in a sense quite different. In the study mentioned above, it is based on readers of certain newspapers, the researchers do allude to the fact that even prior to any EU crisis or coverage, people usually read whatever newspaper aligns with their previously held critical beliefs.

people tend to select attitude-congruent news media, which would mean conflict has the potential to continuously magnify polarization. (Marijn van Klingeren Hajo G. Boomgaarden Claes H. de Vreese, 2017)

So, without stepping into the passive receiver side of the pond, I would say a lot of views were set in stone prior to the EU crisis. The conflict was always there, but ever since the financial crisis and the rise of Euro-skepticism, the trenches were dug even deeper and the polarisation became clear for all to see.

Fathom · 23-07-2017 4:37pm

Social media (Facebook, etc.) has become surrogate news. Content and context created with questionable sources. No 3rd party filtering, fact-checking, or editorial judgement. News and fake-news combined. Differentiating problematic. Ref: Hunt Allcott and Matthew Gentzkow (2017), Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election, Journal of Economic Perspectives 31 (2), pp 211–236.

mzungu · 23-07-2017 8:25pm

Fathom wrote: »

Social media (Facebook, etc.) has become surrogate news. Content and context created with questionable sources. No 3rd party filtering, fact-checking, or editorial judgement. News and fake-news combined. Differentiating problematic.

Ref: Hunt Allcott and Matthew Gentzkow (2017), Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election, Journal of Economic Perspectives 31 (2), pp 211–236.

Interesting study, thankfully it's available for free online so I'm just going to include the link for it here in case anybody wishes to have a further read: Hunt Allcott and Matthew Gentzkow (2017), Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election, Journal of Economic Perspectives 31 (2), pp 211–236

I thought this part was interesting:

We estimate that the average US adult read and remembered on the order of one or perhaps several fake news articles during the election period, with higher exposure to pro-Trump articles than pro-Clinton articles. How much this affected the election results depends on the effectiveness of fake news exposure in changing the way people vote. As one benchmark, Spenkuch and Toniatti (2016) show that exposing voters to one additional television campaign ad changes vote shares by approximately 0.02 percentage points. This suggests that if one fake news article were about as persuasive as one TV campaign ad, the fake news in our database would have changed vote shares by an amount on the order of hundredths of a percentage point. This is much smaller than Trump’s margin of victory in the pivotal states on which the outcome depended.

Even though "fake news" had little to no impact on the outcome, the fact that the average adult read and believed at least one story is a worrying sign of where the media could be headed. As technology improves, and becomes more invasive, will we see it playing a much greater role in shaping how we view candidates/policy, and with that what is to stop it being used nefariously?

Fathom · 24-07-2017 8:27pm

mzungu wrote: »

As technology improves, and becomes more invasive, will we see it playing a much greater role in shaping how we view candidates/policy, and with that what is to stop it being used nefariously?

Will impression management evolve too? Real and fake-news confounded. Facts and alternative facts confounded. Entertainment replacing journalistic content and context. News media going the way of reality shows that evidence little reality.

mzungu · 25-07-2017 8:58pm

Fathom wrote: »

Will impression management evolve too? Real and fake-news confounded. Facts and alternative facts confounded. Entertainment replacing journalistic content and context. News media going the way of reality shows that evidence little reality.

A certainty IMO. However, if I had to take a guess I would say that it will be adapted from the usual corporate techniques (that we already have) and whatever new methods are on the horizon (of which there will be many) for use among the "politics as entertainment" media. Things will become less about policy and more about personality. Some might say that we have that already, and they are probably right. But it could become an even bigger issues than it is now.

Fathom · 26-07-2017 6:20pm

What is "News Media?" Is it a "social construction of reality" that's "manufactured by journalists?" Are news stories "random reactions to random events?" And to be newsworthy, are most stories reported of haphazard accidents that spark the imagination? Furthermore, to what extent are journalists "gatekeepers" of what is or isn't reported? Dull stories drag. Sensationalist stories fly. Such fliers build high ratings, draw advertisers and profits. Dull stories don't. News media is first a business. Without profits, it dies. Ref: Michael Schudson (1997), The Sociology of News Production, Chapter 1, in The Social Meanings of News, Daniel Berkowitz, Ed.

mzungu · 29-07-2017 3:41pm

Fathom wrote: »

What is "News Media?" Is it a "social construction of reality" that's "manufactured by journalists?" Are news stories "random reactions to random events?" And to be newsworthy, are most stories reported of haphazard accidents that spark the imagination? Furthermore, to what extent are journalists "gatekeepers" of what is or isn't reported? Dull stories drag. Sensationalist stories fly. Such fliers build high ratings, draw advertisers and profits. Dull stories don't. News media is first a business. Without profits, it dies.

Ref: Michael Schudson (1997), The Sociology of News Production, Chapter 1, in The Social Meanings of News, Daniel Berkowitz, Ed.

Not too dissimilar to what Herbert Schiller (1973) describes as "packaged consciousness" in his book The Mind Managers. This means that the relatively small amount of large media companies (and there are far fewer of them now than back in 1973) have absolute control over the information that shapes our beliefs and behaviour. Take the Leveson inquiry in the UK a few years back, Rupert Murdoch said that if anybody ever wanted his opinion, all they needed to do was "read editorials in the Sun".

Things obviously differ among most of the large media organisations, and there are some great journalists out there still. Their work is probably more critical now than it ever was. But there is also a fair amount stuff that passes for journalism when it is really only glorified PR. Whomever owns a media company, it will be safe enough to assume that the general editorial slant of the paper will always be in a direction that benefits them, as opposed to the reader.

Fathom · 06-08-2017 12:17am

Reads like talking points. Intended to set our agenda.

Fathom · 17-08-2017 4:16am

Revisiting Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow (2017), Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election, NBER Working Paper No. 23089. They concluded: "people are much more likely to believe stories that favor their preferred candidate, especially if they have ideologically segregated social media networks." In other words, attuned to repetitious affirmations of what is already believed.

mzungu · 18-08-2017 3:02pm

Fathom wrote: »

Revisiting Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow (2017), Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election, NBER Working Paper No. 23089. They concluded: "people are much more likely to believe stories that favor their preferred candidate, especially if they have ideologically segregated social media networks." In other words, attuned to repetitious affirmations of what is already believed.

Now that people appear to be moving towards only engaging with their own political viewpoint on social media, it may result in increased polarisation online but offline it may not be a game changer yet. People still get their views from consuming TV news, although things may change drastically in the near future.

Fathom · 19-08-2017 5:51pm

Tweets offer bite-sized news. POV biased. Obviously.

Black Swan · 21-08-2017 5:07pm

To counter presidential charges of "fake news," many news media outlets have been relying on polling organisations to lend substance to their news reporting and editorial opinions. This approach has been confounded by the failure of the vast majority of polls to predict the November 2016 presidential election.

Fathom · 25-08-2017 4:20pm

Russian TV news waged information warfare during Ukrainian conflict. Internet provided counter narrative. Debunked distorted information. Twitter users entered the fry. Judged veracity of news stories. Or contributed to perpetuation of narratives. Ref: Irina Khaldarova & Mervi Pantti (April 2016), Fake News: The narrative battle over the Ukrainian conflict, Journal of Journalism Practice, pp 891-901.

mzungu · 25-08-2017 10:42pm

Fathom wrote: »

Russian TV news waged information warfare during Ukrainian conflict. Internet provided counter narrative. Debunked distorted information. Twitter users entered the fry. Judged veracity of news stories. Or contributed to perpetuation of narratives.

Ref: Irina Khaldarova & Mervi Pantti (April 2016), Fake News: The narrative battle over the Ukrainian conflict, Journal of Journalism Practice, pp 891-901.

Whats most worrying there is the 70% of viewers in Russian who believe the Ukraine war was covered fairly and without bias by state media. Credit must be given to www.stopfake.org for calling out the lies and mistruths pushed by the Kremlin.

It does appear that despite the good work done on separating fact from fiction, western media largely held off on calling it a war, a move that no doubt pleased Russia. Instead, we got a "crisis" which does not sound quite as bad but neglected to highlight the reality on the ground.

Crisis or War. Yet despite the overwhelming evidence of a war on Ukrainian territory – an aggressive, unprovoked war, begun by Russia, financed by Russia and largely lead and fought by Russians, much of the media continues to use the language of “crisis” rather than the language of “war.” We can speculate why the euphemism of “crisis” is preferred to “war,” but whatever the reasons, there can be no doubt that “crisis” is the preferred term in Russian media. And there are reasons for this. War refers to a relatively concrete set of hostile acts. The euphemism “crisis” on the other hand creates a kind of distance from the reality of war’s violence. “Crisis” also invokes a sense of complexity, perhaps even of murky, difficult to understand events.

More significantly, however, the use of the word “war” entails specific, identifiable parties to the war. “Crisis” does not necessitate identifying the parties or even determining the aggressor. A messy, murky crisis can exist independent of an aggressor. Thus, the use of the euphemistic “crisis” for Russia’s war in Ukraine works to divert attention from the very concept of responsibility in general, and in Russia as a responsible party, specifically. Once our attention shifts away from Russia, the door is then open to the Kremlin’s own alternative narrative.

This is precisely what we’ve seen for two years: Russia issues one incredulous denial after another that it is not the aggressor of war in Ukraine. At the same time, the Kremlin swoops in with a set of anti-Ukraine propaganda memes – US-sponsored coup, fascist Kyiv junta, Ukrainian neo-Nazi nationalists – that provide another ready-made version of events for mass consumption. The memes are disseminated using specific language patterns and word choices to paint the picture Russia wants the world to see, diverting attention and thereby consequences from its very aggression.

We’ve come to expect the Russian media using the language of “crisis” rather than the language of “war” precisely because it diminishes Russia’s responsibility. State-run Sputnik and RT (Russia Today) have run thousands of articles about the “Ukrainian Crisis,” all of which perpetuate Russian myths about Ukraine. But it’s even more disconcerting to see the same language patterns regularly used in Russia’s propaganda press seep into the seemingly uncaptured Western media. As a result, people casually reading the news are given Russian perspectives on Ukraine, and come away with more Russian perspective and more Russian propaganda myths than they bargained for.

Link: http://www.stopfake.org/en/how-russia-s-worst-propaganda-myths-about-ukraine-seep-into-media-language/

Black Swan · 28-08-2017 6:54pm

News media purposes have changed from the middle of the 20th century to present times. Back then news media ethics largely included a large public service aspect, whereas today the driving forces are associated with business profits. Sensationalist "breaking news" today drives up ratings and attracts advertisers. During this sea changing shift, news access has been migrating to digital sources including the net and mobile access. Consequently, in depth news stories have been lost to bite-sized points and blurbs lacking meaningful discussion, understanding, and supporting content; e.g., tweets, etc. To use the old computer expression today's news bites have all too often be subject to GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out.

Fathom · 28-08-2017 8:30pm

Black Swan wrote: »

Consequently, in depth news stories have been lost to bite-sized points and blurbs lacking meaningful discussion, understanding, and supporting content; e.g., tweets, etc. To use the old computer expression today's news bites have all too often be subject to GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out.

GIGO: Exemplified by Trump tweets?

Black Swan · 29-08-2017 5:26pm

Fathom wrote: »

GIGO: Exemplified by Trump tweets?

"Hybrid Media Campaigning" notes shift in approaches and attitudes about news media. Chris Wells, et al (2016) in How Trump Drove Coverage to the Nomination, Political Communication 33, pp 669-676, suggested that politics has moved into the entertainment arena, and that relatively new forms of social media (Twitter, etc.) has changed the dynamics of political news coverage.

mzungu · 29-08-2017 10:16pm

Black Swan wrote: »

News media purposes have changed from the middle of the 20th century to present times. Back then news media ethics largely included a large public service aspect, whereas today the driving forces are associated with business profits. Sensationalist "breaking news" today drives up ratings and attracts advertisers. During this sea changing shift, news access has been migrating to digital sources including the net and mobile access. Consequently, in depth news stories have been lost to bite-sized points and blurbs lacking meaningful discussion, understanding, and supporting content; e.g., tweets, etc. To use the old computer expression today's news bites have all too often be subject to GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out.

Indeed, the figures are in freefall across all sections. The number of newspapers per hundred million dropped from 1,200 in 1945 to 400 in 2014 whilst circulation per capita dropped from 35% in the mid-1940s to under 15%. Journalists have decreased from 43000 in 1978 to 3,000 in 2015 (Kamarck, E. C., & Gabriele, A. 2015). I think this is why we see some reputable papers going in the clickbait direction in order to keep afloat.

No matter what the medium, a bad result for everybody when news gets reduced into small and irrelevant snippets of information. Not to mention the "good vs evil" narrative that seems to permeate a lot of different stories. It is, after all, a way to sell the story to the public.

Kamarck, E. C., & Gabriele, A. (2015). The news today: 7 trends in old and new media. Center for Effective Public Management at Brookings. Chicago

mzungu · 29-08-2017 10:35pm

Fathom wrote: »

GIGO: Exemplified by Trump tweets?

Black Swan wrote: »

"Hybrid Media Campaigning" notes shift in approaches and attitudes about news media. Chris Wells, et al (2016) in How Trump Drove Coverage to the Nomination, Political Communication 33, pp 669-676, suggested that politics has moved into the entertainment arena, and that relatively new forms of social media (Twitter, etc.) has changed the dynamics of political news coverage.

An analysis was done by (Ahmadian, Azarshahi & Paulhus 2017) of his communication style in the primaries where all Republican candidates speeches were coded for things like grandiosity, use of first person pronouns, greater pitch dynamics, and informal communication (eg. Twitter). Not surprisingly, Trump scored highest of all the candidates in those areas mentioned. While I don't doubt Twitter had a role, it does seem that his style of speech played a part, and the study acknowledges that it might seem like it is a given (presumably how much media time was given to it) but that until now that link had not been shown via empirical research.

In retrospect, some observers may argue that our characterization of
Trump's communication style seems self-evident. However, we have
now confirmed those intuitions empirically and have shown how they
were associated with candidate success in the Republican primaries. Before
those primaries unrolled, one might have predicted that qualities
such as grandiosity, simplistic language, and excessive Twitter activity
would impair success. In that light, it is troubling to note that questionable
campaign strategies may portend problematic political leaders...

Ahmadian, S., Azarshahi, S., & Paulhus, D. L. (2017). Explaining Donald Trump via communication style: Grandiosity, informality, and dynamism. Personality and Individual Differences, 107, 49-53.

Fathom · 30-08-2017 3:40pm

The news media shift from journalistic service to entertainment exemplified in Trump, D. (1987), The Art of The Deal: “One thing I’ve learned about the press is they’re always hungry for a good story, and the more sensational, the better,” he writes on page 56. “It’s in the nature of the job, and I understand that. The point is that if you are a little different, or a little outrageous, or if you do things that are bold or controversial, the press is going to write about you.” “I don’t mind controversy, and my deals tend to be somewhat ambitious,” he added. “The result is that the press has always wanted to write about me.”

mzungu · 01-09-2017 3:14pm

Fathom wrote: »

The news media shift from journalistic service to entertainment exemplified in Trump, D. (1987), The Art of The Deal:

“One thing I’ve learned about the press is they’re always hungry for a good story, and the more sensational, the better,” he writes on page 56. “It’s in the nature of the job, and I understand that. The point is that if you are a little different, or a little outrageous, or if you do things that are bold or controversial, the press is going to write about you.”

“I don’t mind controversy, and my deals tend to be somewhat ambitious,” he added. “The result is that the press has always wanted to write about me.”

I believe he has stated that he believes journalists won't check the workability of claims made. To take one example, the wall. I have come across numerous TV shows and newspaper outlets that have offered their costing (and feasibility in general) for the wall. Most seem to conclude that while you can build one, it will be a massive drain on resources. This is not including upkeep. Lastly, most illegal immigration comes via the airports and not by land. So, I think the press have done their job and called out the nonsense, but at the same time it appears to make little difference.

Attitudes About the News Media

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