Political media today 239While there is much more information available today than there was a generation
ago, media sources are constantly in flux. Websites and Web pages come and go.
Individuals who post detailed analyses of one political event may be too busy to
comment on another. Even well-established media sources can quickly change.
For example, in recent years companies that once owned newspapers in Chicago,
Philadelphia, and Minneapolis have gone bankrupt, whereas several major U.S. cities,
including Seattle, Birmingham, and New Orleans, have a hometown daily newspaper
that appears only in digital form. Other newspapers have cut foreign bureaus, reduced
their staff, and thinned the amount of news in every edition. At the same time, the
major television networks and cable television sources have seen declines in budgets
and viewership. At one level, these declines do not present a fundamental barrier to
viewers and readers who seek to become well informed about major events, since there
are so many alternative news sources to consult. However, information about past
events is often difficult to find because it is not archived or because the source of the
information goes out of business (this is particularly true for Internet-only sources such
as podcasts). And as the budgets for media sources become tighter and tighter, stories
that require extensive research (particularly investigative journalism) are less likely to
be reported in the first place.
Moreover, as we discussed earlier, the quality of information available on the
Internet varies considerably—probably more than it did for the relatively small number
of media sources that were available a generation ago. For example, it is easy to find
fake photographs of all kinds on the Internet, such as George W. Bush talking into an
upside-down phone, Hillary Clinton posing in front of a bookshelf that displays the
Confederate flag, Barack Obama shaking hands with Osama bin Laden, or Donald
Trump carrying two cats to safety during relief operations for Hurricane Harvey in- As you have no doubt heard your professors say, just because a website publishes
a report or news item doesn’t mean it’s true. The problem is, in a world where websites
come and go and where citizens often do not take the time to investigate what they see
or read, false information may easily be accepted as true.
A related problem is that the Internet has made it easier for partisan groups to publish
biased or inaccurate information under the guise of investigative journalism, with the
supposed goal of informing the public. For example, the conservative group Project
Veritas recorded undercover encounters with employees of organizations from Planned
Parenthood to the Washington Post, using leading questions, hidden video cameras,
and selective editing to portray these individuals in politically embarrassing situations.
These efforts can backfire: during the 2017 Alabama Senate special election, in which
Republican candidate Roy Moore was accused by multiple women of past sexual
harassment, a Project Veritas worker tried to convince a Washington Post reporter that she
had had an affair with Moore. Rather than exposing the Post’s supposed bias and corrupt
motives in reporting on the Moore story (which was Project Veritas’ goal), the operation
ended when the Post investigated her claim, discovered her link to Project Veritas, and
published several stories on the organization’s attempt to deceive and entrap the Post.
Where Do People Get Political Information?
While there is a vast amount of information available about politics, very few Americans
make it a priority to be well informed about politics—which would require them to
systematically consult, evaluate, and integrate information from a range of different
sources. Rather, most Americans acquire political information accidentally through a
process known as the by-product theory.^14 As an example, you may log in to Facebook or
some other social media site to see what your friends are doing, and happen to take a lookDoctored photos of elected officials,
such as this image of President Trump
assisting rescuers after Hurricane
Harvey, are widely available on
the Internet. Such images highlight
the danger of depending on unreliable
websites as primary sources of
political information.by-product theory
The idea that many Americans
acquire political information
unintentionally rather than by
seeking it out.Full_08_APT_64431_ch07_232-261.indd 239 16/11/18 1:38 PM