234234 Chapter 7 | The Mediamass media
Sources that provide information
to the average citizen, such as
newspapers, television networks,
radio stations, podcasts, and
websites.with the good that social media facilitates comes the bad.^2 If anything, citizens are
more polarized and more suspicious of media coverage than they were even 10 or 20
years ago, in part because of social media. Average citizens do not take the time to
conscientiously consult different information presented by social media: as we saw in
Chapter 6, they form beliefs only when necessary, and on the basis of relatively little
information. The idea that social media would make our politics better also assumed
that the producers of media content, from mainstream sources like the New York
Times to anonymous Twitter users who post insider information about government
agency decisions, would all work toward the goal of empowering the American public.
The reality is that the media is a business, in which the goal of attracting an audience
often conflicts with more idealistic goals of telling people what they need to know
to make good decisions and acting as a watchdog to monitor government actions.
President Trump’s tweets about “fake news” are a symptom rather than a cause of this
transformation.
The disconnect between expectations about social media and the actual effects
that social media has had on American politics highlights a larger question about
the role of the media in American politics. For democracy to work well, citizens need
information about what government is doing or could do: they need the media to
function as a watchdog, keeping track of politicians and public policy, deconstructing
complex issues, and helping to inform the citizenry. However, many Americans are
uninformed or misinformed about many aspects of politics and are highly suspicious
of both mainstream and social media, the principle mechanism by which they might
learn what they need to know. Social media was supposed to inform us and bring us
together—what went wrong? Why don’t Americans trust the media as a watchdog?Political Media Today
This section describes the mass media, the many sources of political information
available to Americans, and how people use (or don’t use) this information. The
development of the Internet and the expansion of social media over the last generation
has dramatically increased the number of media sources and the range of information
available to the average American. This changing media landscape means that it is less
important to describe each media source and what kinds of information it can (and
cannot) provide. In contemporary America, there are so many sources and so much
information that Americans can become experts on virtually any aspect of politics or
public policy—if they are willing to search for information and put together what they find.Historical Overview: How Did We Get Here?
The role of the media as an information source and the controversy over how the media
report about politics are nothing new. Since the Founding, politicians have understood
that Americans learn about politics largely from the media, have complained about
coverage, and have sought to influence both the stories the media selects and the way
they report on them.The Media as Watchdog and Business From the beginnings of the United States,
mass media has served as a reporter of political events and as a watchdog: keeping
track of what politicians are doing and offering insight about their policy successesDESCRIBE THE ROLE OF THE
MEDIA IN AMERICAN POLITICS
AND HOW PEOPLE GET
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