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

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