Mass Media, Echo Chambers, Theories

People's trust has gone in mass media has gone down in the last decade, according to an in class presentation, only 4 percent of people see an increase in trust in their mass media outlets. Mass media like CNN or FoxNews have their own agenda and own bias, and people know this. CNN i have head be referred to as "Clinton News Network" and people associate FoxNews as a conservative news outlets.

Echo Chamber was mentioned in class as well. Echo chambers make it difficult to distinguish fact from fiction, which is super prevalent today. With disinformation, the act of deliberately lying to sway opinion and establish a bias, it is really hard to distinguish what is fact and what is not.

Reliable sources are also a tricky subject. What is even reliable anymore? Are anonymous sources even reliable? Are there bias sources? In some articles, unnamed sources are uses...hmm...how reliable (said no one ever).

Something i heard that made me actually nervous is the Illusory Truth effect when something is heard enough times that it becomes fact in your head. Scary! Especially with confirmation bias, (not wanting to believe information that does not align with your ideas) the real truth will become distorted. Then we get into the topic if what is truth...well what the Truth is with a capital T seems harder and harder to find. Sources that stink and are biased and unreliable, biased mainstream media and echo chambers, one may never know.

Sincerely a distressed consumer of media and prob fake news,

Maddy

Comments

Antiwar.com

I have never heard of Antiwar.com, and after briefly reading through the website and articles, I was very intrigued. This website pointed out viewpoints and ideas I have never really thought of before. For example, I did not know that the American Military has killed more foreign civilians than any other military force since dropping the two nuclear bombs in Japan in 1945. The article I read first talked about how no one cared about Syrian civilian's deaths until now. in 2014, you would never hear about the deaths of these Syrians, but now it is on mainstream media. The mainstream media say that all these deaths are by the IS, Russian airstrikes or the Syrian Government forces, but remain silent when the US is responsible for casualties. According to the article, in 2017 the US was killing more civilians in Syria than IS, Russia and Syrian forces. This is information I had no idea about. I think I am ignorant, and don't want to know about war and what goes on. It i...

#NotAgainSU - Syracuse Battles Hate Crime

Once again, hate crimes spread on a university campus. Syracuse University in New York experiences a slew of hate speech all over campus. Starting with an instance of the n-word and other prolific language against African Americans and Asian Americans, to a swastika drawn in the snow to a verbal attack from a fraternity to an African American female student. Students have been participating in sit ins on campus, demanding information from Syracuse officials and demanding a change on campus. Night after night students sit in halls demanding response, especially from Chancellor Kent, who seems to remain silent throughout the situation. Students grow increasingly frustrated with lack of response and feel unsafe on campus. The fraternity involved in the incident of November 16, Alpha Chi Rho, has been suspended indefinitely from campus. Yet, students with the #notagainsu want to see more done for other fraternities who have shown racial bias. Students have expressed conc...

Madeleine McCracken

Search This Blog