Informed citizenry is an essential component of democracy. If the people are truly in the driver’s seat of the American political machine, naturally, you hope they have their license. In America, educating democratic citizens on political issues makes them more capable of electing representatives who will serve their interests. Given its importance, is it working?
American media is a for-profit industry, where large organizations compete for your readership, viewership, and support. More accurately, these large media corporations are more focused on selling advertising than unbiased news coverage.
This for-profit model is not without drawbacks. Corporations have learned that the news is often boring. As a result, they have discovered that entertainment is the true source of profit. Your modern “political” news source is heavily focused on political scandal, outrageous sound bites, and extremely polarized viewpoints.
Authoritarian regimes on the other hand, have state run media, which means that all news is filtered through state bureaucracy. As a result, there is no watchdog searching for government corruption or wasteful spending. The citizens of this country are subject to the indoctrination of their government. Often times, a political voice, one that disagrees with the ruling party, goes unheard.
Now the question must be asked, are we informed as citizens or is our media failing us? Although it’s quite obvious that America does not have the most informed citizenry, I don’t think we are destined for peril quite yet, but the consolidation of news media is not helping. If the media is controlled by fewer and fewer sources, fewer and fewer people are having an influence on our political minds.
How can we be saved by news? News is everywhere! You can read 10 regional newspapers, watch local, national, and international news on 10 channels, and scrounge the web for smaller news sources. But, where do you go for solid information? Facts and analysis on one channel may be are extremely different from another. One source paints a candidate as the villain, while the other hails him as a hero.
The invention of the internet has changed the way news media is delivered, hopefully for the better. People have access to media voices that they may have never heard. This diversity of news media, which can reverse or halt a trend of consolidation, seems to be a great push for democracy. As long as fresh voices are being injected into a realm of media, all sides of the political argument can be waged, leaving it up to the voter to decide
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