Do We Drive the Media or Does the Media Drive Us?
This has always been a pretty important question to me. When you look at media, whether right- or left-wing (though this stands, to me, as a right-wing problem, but this is undoubtedly my bias), the question is, does media reflect our beliefs (and is thus consumer-led) or does it drive our beliefs (and thus the beliefs are product-led)?
The reality is probably both, in different circumstances, and coextensive at other times - a sort of incremental interplay of both.
I will, however, give you an anecdote that involves my own father. I hope he doesn't read this... He used to read the Daily Telegraph, a right of centre broadsheet that used to be fairly decent but, over the last few decade, has slipped more to the populist right. Since retiring, he has moved to reading the Daily Mail, particularly online. And in recent years, his reading behaviour has surged further to the right, along with the Brexit debacle, and he now predominantly reads the Daily Express, the most fervent of right-wing bilge of the UK tabloids. Eurgh.
He often sends me articles making certain points, and I ubiquitously slam dunk the claims with reams of evidence and, no doubt, too many words.
Water off a duck's back.
His has definitely been a case of being swayed entirely by the media he reads. He parrots pretty horrific points, and spreads the sort of disinformation I rail against. Now, as mentioned, there will be an incremental, coextensive relationship, but I really do think that the media he reads is driving his surge to the right. And there seems to be nothing I can do about it. He is now interested in and railing against stuff that would never previously have been on his radar. I have seen, in perhaps 4 years, a move from reasonable centre-right to a much more extreme right, and it's quite disturbing.
With religion, you can see people dipping their toes in and getting dragged in further and further by radicalising people, groups and (holy) texts. There are also some people who actively search out those people and texts because they are already naturally extreme people.
In "The Role of the Media in the Construction of Public Belief and Social Change", the authors state:
Drawing on findings from a range of empirical studies, we look at the impact of media coverage in areas such as disability, climate change and economic development. Findings across these areas show the way in which the media shape public debate in terms of setting agendas and focusing public interest on particular subjects. For example, in our work on disability we showed the relationship between negative media coverage of people on disability benefit and a hardening of attitudes towards them. Further, we found that the media also severely limit the information with which audiences understand these issues and that alternative solutions to political problems are effectively removed from public debate. We found other evidence of the way in which media coverage can operate to limit understanding of possibilities of social change. In our study of news reporting of climate change, we traced the way that the media have constructed uncertainty around the issue and how this has led to disengagement in relation to possible changes in personal behaviours. Finally, we discuss the implications for communications and policy and how both the traditional and new media might help in the development of better informed public debate....
The key to both of these lies in the complex process of negotiation in which audiences receive messages involving a range of factors including current and past media accounts, beliefs, knowledge and prior experience, structural barriers and values. These may lead to attitudinal and ultimately behavioural commitment and change, or may inhibit these. In relation to the role of public communications about climate change, for example, there is little point in driving home the message about behavioural change unless there are simple, effective and supported solutions open to people from which they can see the real benefits. But media accounts can play a central role in not only legitimising certain courses of action, but the placing of trust and credibility in particular versions of the possible directions for social policies. They can also be used to insert doubt and confusion into a debate such as climate change, and may reduce commitments to action. The media are in essence a contested space in which the most powerful groups can establish the dominance of specific messages. But, as we have shown, the complexity of the reception process then creates the possibility of variations in attitudinal and behavioural response.
Another paper, "The Mutual Reinforcement of Media Selectivity and Effects: Testing the Reinforcing Spirals Framework in the Context of Global Warming", looks at the spiral process that sucks people into a whirlpool of accepting the next "wave" of media in the general directional path they are on:
This study tests a model of reinforcing spirals in the context of global warming, using a 2-wave, within-subjects panel survey with a representative sample of Americans. Results show that, within waves, conservative media use is negatively related to global warming belief certainty and support for mitigation policies, while nonconservative media use is positively associated with belief certainty and policy support. In addition, the results show that consuming conservative or nonconservative media at Wave 1 makes people more likely to consume those same media at Wave 2, partly as an indirect result of the media’s effects on global warming belief certainty and policy preferences. Wave 2 media use, in turn, further strengthens audiences’ global warming belief certainty and policy preferences.
Of course, this says nothing about the truth of any given position concerned. The reinforcing spirals approach does seem to be a fairly well-evidenced account of belief-forming behaviour in the context of media.
The problem is being presently exacerbated by the influence of social media. And with social media, the echo-chamber effect is hugely evident. That spiral effect can really come to the fore.
But to return to traditional print media, the question is often "who owns these papers and what are their aims?" Selling news has meant that news has swung away from objective factual communication (if ever it was) towards infotainment, and I think this is dangerous for society as a whole. We keep hearing about living in a post-truth world, and there is a heck of a lot of truth in that...
Essentially, though, people should really stop reading bile like The Daily Express.
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