Hating the media and yet being influenced by it
Commenter “kolnai” makes some interesting points about the media and asks some interesting questions:
What I’m questioning, however, is this statistic I’ve seen Caddell and others throwing around stating that only 8% of the public has a favorable view of the media…
…[E]veryone has their social “oomph” for saying they dislike the media.
But we then have to square that with the findings of people like Tim Groseclose (and what we know to be true from simple observation), that a significant chunk of people are swayed to the left by the major media outlets and their framing of the issues. E.g., if NBC, ABC, CBS, the big newspapers and magazines, etc., treat Benghazi like a nothing-burger, a lot of people will swallow it.
That is important to note. They will not be neutral. They will not say, “Hmmm”¦ this is the media I supposedly hate, so let me be skeptical here.” They will swallow it. This must be explained, and it can’t be traced to mere rational ignorance, for, as noted, the logical attitude to take then is skepticism or neutrality until one does one’s own research.
My point is that people swallow it because many, perhaps most, who claim to “hate the media” actually don’t. Democrats love it and get all their info. from the MSM. Independents, or a good deal of them anyway, just swallow what’s fed to them from the surrounding informational aether, so long as it’s spoken in dulcet tones and doesn’t broadcast it’s partisanship.
Only conservatives (and libertarians) truly loathe the media and approach every story with a critical, doubting eye.
Good points. The same polls that ask people whether they trust the media seem to be rather silent on the more important follow-up questions they might ask as to why. Maybe people don’t like the MSM because of too much coverage of the Kardashian family. Maybe they don’t like it because of not enough coverage of the Kardashian family. So we don’t know what so many people don’t like about the MSM, although we pretty much know what conservatives don’t like about the MSM.
But I would submit that the media influences even people who say they don’t like it because propaganda works for a lot of people, in much the way advertising does. One of the most basic principles of advertising is that you don’t have to like an ad—in fact, you can find it quite annoying—for it to work.
There’s still another reason why so many people remain susceptible to the MSM’s propaganda despite not having a favorable view of the press: in order to reject the MSM “narrative” it helps to have a competing one. Yes, a competing one is offered by the press on the right, but most people who are not already at least somewhat to the right don’t ordinarily read or listen to the press on the right. That makes it pretty hard to hear the other side, doesn’t it? One has to seek it out, and if (for example) Fox News has been labeled a lying and biased network by the mainstream MSM, it’s something a person won’t be seeking out unless he/she is exceptionally curious. The more common reaction is probably to listen to the news less, which means that the person is even less likely to hear the right’s version, not more.
It may seem odd to us here, but I’m pretty sure that most liberals and moderates I know (not all, but most) haven’t even heard of the Weekly Standard or Commentary, much less read them. And the liberals I know who have heard of those sources never read them, either.
Take the Benghazi story. I am relatively certain that if I were to poll my friends, the majority of them would be unaware of it at this point, except in some very general way (for example, that the ambassador was murdered, that there was a video, and that something was said in the debate about all this and Candy Crowley pronounced Obama correct). After all, where would they have heard about the rest? Not on NPR, not in the Globe nor in the Times. And if I were to email them the recent Fox News stories on it, they’d most likely say, “Well, it’s Fox, so how do I know it’s true? And why isn’t anyone else reporting on it?”
And yet those very same people might respond to a poll about the MSM by saying they don’t trust it, reflecting a certain general leeriness about it. But that doesn’t mean they’re not highly susceptible to its influence, particularly on the things it chooses to cover versus what it chooses to ignore. If a Benghazi story falls in the forest, does anybody hear it?
My grandmother still reads the NYT and has since the 1920’s I imagine. It’s changed, but she didn’t notice apparently, so she dutifully picks it up to see “What’s news.”
Holmes, I doubt your grandmother is only one who reads the NYT or other liberal rag without realizing how far to the left it has swung over the years. You have to be looking carefully and well-informed to begin with to spot the slant. Often, it’s not what is actually written in the paper, but what is covered in the first place that betrays the bias. Stories that are favorable to 0bama or the Dems will be front-page, above the fold, while those favorable to Romney or the GOP will be buried on A26 or not mentioned at all.
Under its new owners, the WaPo has noticeably and deliberately swung back more to the center (notice I said more, but nobody could ever mistake it for the Wash Times), but as long as the Sulzberger clan controls the NYT, it’s a lost cause.
Two quick points (there’s a lot to all this, but not to the time I have right now).
1. Kahneman notes that we are swayed by biases, even when we are aware of them and try to account for them. Broader lesson — we are influenced by all kinds of information despite knowing that we may not be getting a straight story.
2. If we don’t know a story exists, why would it even occur to us to question whether we were getting a balanced account of it. The media’s most profound influence on public perceptions is the attention given (or not) to stories, not the slant of the coverage. If they beat a story to death, those in the uninformed mushy middle become convinced it must be important. If the MSM stonewalls it, it doesn’t exist as an issue.
I have been a critical viewer of the MSM since the 80’s as a conservative, and I’m still surprised how lies will permeate the background of my thoughts. For example, when I read an Ann Coulter book, I am surprised by the feeling “everything I knew was wrong”, even though most of the material she presents I knew, but didn’t construct it into a counter-narrative of the official history, whether it is about race relations or Joe McCarthy or whatever. In the same way, any lie or any information is often worse than ignorance, because bad information is still deposited.
I remember too, when I was a Democrat, how painful it could be to read a conservative opinion, and the more compelling the argument, the more it pained my beliefs. At one point i began transitioning from the Washington Post to the Wall Street Journal because I was impressed by the adult, realistic tone of WSJ vs the Post’s deliberate mischaracterization of conservative opinion. The Post began to seem shrill and hysterical in comparison.
Even if one doesn’t trust the source, what they say can have an impact. I find this happens to me all the time, that my opinions are prejudiced by things I hear even when there is little basis for belief. It takes work to step back and consciously throw things into the ‘maybe’ or ‘unlikely’ bin. It makes me appreciate the usefulness of blind prejudice in weeding out such things, but blind prejudice is, after all, blind and can be take advantage of. All the mental plumbing needs to be rearranged in order to escape it.
This discrepancy between negative opinion about official propaganda and swallowing its talking points was glaringly evident in waning days of Soviet Union. Almost nobody with whom I discussed political matters these days believed what “Pravda” wrote but on a lot of points they were deeply brainwashed and were seeing me as extremist and rabid anti-communist. Many of liberals who were active in dismantling communist rule still believe in some “virtues” of this rule and are nostalgic about some aspects of it.
This is the same phenomenon as the public’s general attitude toward Congress. Congress’ approval ratings are in the toilet, but about 80% of congressional incumbents can be expected to win their elections.
We all hate Congess, but we like *our* representative or senator. We hate the media, but we love *our* network or the paper we read.
People believe what they see but only half of what they hear. Perhaps 65-75% of Americans only see what the MSM wants them to see. That indoctrination builds up a set of ‘belief filters’ that only allows through data consistent with the premises out of which those filters are constructed.
No one wants to think that they’re a fool, easily manipulated by others. No American unaware of media bias, wants to think that Diane Sawyer et al is complicit in that manipulation.
Few are open to Pat Caddell’s conclusion that the MSM is now effectively the enemy of the American people.
Many in the media are just as indoctrinated as their viewers. Academia, peers, and the insular world of left wing politics and the unthinking acceptance of liberal ‘useful idiots’ ensure that reality.
It’s a tapestry of factors.
The answer is in controlling the parent companies of the major media outlets. All parent corporations are public companies. Gather a controlling interest and we can replace the boards of directors, upper/middle management, editors and anchors, columnists and pundits. No purge, just fair and balanced reportage will spell the death knell for the left’s control of the MSM.
sergey
Is there any other kind?
🙂
[I knew a fair number of Iron Curtain refugees in my hometown, so my above comment is made in jest.]
rabid anti-communist
To update the famous phrase, rabidity in opposition to communism is no vice, and tepidity in opposition to communism is no virtue.
“rabidity” is an obstacle to clear thought. 😉
Retaliation, like revenge is a “dish best served cold”…
Stan, Bill, and Chuck above nailed it. Yes, we believe the msm even when we know we shouldn’t. We succumb to our biases despite our awareness of them. Then there is cognitive dissonance. When the press covers a story in a field that we happen know well, from the inside out, we are astonished and dismissive of just how ignorant and slanted the reporters are — yet we turn the page and digest the next story as gospel truth.
The internet is a godsend for disintermediating the news business. It enables one to go straight to the sources and then tap the distributed intelligence of the net. However, it takes time and some work.
But, to paraphrase A.E. Housman, “A moment’s thought would suffice to clear it up. But a minute is a long time and thinking is hard work.”
A contributing aspect:
our culture is inundated with the leftist narrative:
in school
on television
in movies
on radio
in media
in some churches
sometimes, maybe, in all churches
on the street
at the watercooler.
Everywhere. The damnable leftists narratives are EVERYWHERE. Inescapable.
Modern American parents must do a thing which American parents never before had to worry about: protect their children from exposure to American culture. Which actually means: protect their children from a culture which is inundated with leftist narratives which are inconsistent with what history tells us about human nature and truth. Think about the tragedy of that: current American culture (i.e. culture which is heavily influenced by leftist narratives) is poisonous to children; parents are burdened with shielding children from it. An unfathomably ridiculous state of play.
Back to the original point: b/c we in the culture are constantly assaulted by leftist narrative, therefore when media presents “news” which is consistent with leftist narrative, we in the culture tend to assume the news is true.
“And if I were to email them the recent Fox News stories on it, they’d most likely say, “Well, it’s Fox, so how do I know it’s true? And why isn’t anyone else reporting on it?”
Funny coincidence: I saw very nearly that exact exchange on Facebook about ten minutes ago. The Fox skeptic said he was neutral, but I doubt if he would have had the same reaction if the link had been to CBS.
This phenomenon really struck home for me in 2008. I was trying to educate my sister about Obama and her response was, “Oh, he can’t be that bad or the media would be telling us about it”.
waltj: agree with your comments except about Wapo. Heartily disagree. They are just as liberal as ever, even though they allow Krauthammer & Will to appear on the op-ed page. Also wasn’t aware they’ve changed ownership. Sure you don’t mean editor?
The MSM is ubiquitous. I listen to conservative talk radio daily but the twice hourly news updates are provided by CNN or ABC news. And if their message isn’t coordinated they certainly parrot each other.
So at the end of the day I hear the message Du jour about 10 to 15 times.
My apologies to you Kolnai for my remarks on yesterday’s post. I must have been in my “dark” place. Other people have happy places to go to. I have a dark place.
Seriously, I do apologize. The remarks were stupid and vapid and without merit.
I can see why people refuse to accept reality as it is: this would inevitably shatter into pieces the whole idea of moral order of universe. Only rare individuals are brave enough to cope with this. To most people the suffering of seeing this truth is unbearable.
@KLSmith: I thought the WaPo’s Graham-Bradlee family sold its interest in the paper a few years back following Katharine Graham’s death. If not, I stand corrected. But it’s true that they did change editors. I’ll have to disagree with you on the paper’s slant, however. I’ve noticed the Post becoming more willing to challenge the liberal narrative, particularly on foreign policy. Again, it’s not a conservative paper by any stretch, but I’ve seen a healthy tendency for it to be less of a left-wing amen chorus than it was 10 years ago. And its endorsement of 0bama this election seemed downright tortured in places.
I’m always amazed at the extent to which even MSM-hating conservatives accept the MSM narrative at face value.
The point really struck me in 2003 hearing liberals scream “Iraq is a quagmire, quagmire, quagmire, and it’s all Bush’s fault!” only to hear conservatives reply “Iraq is a quagmire, quagmire, quagmire, and it’s all Democrats’ fault!” Meanwhile I’m reading on The Fourth Rail about how coalition forces are systematically rolling up the insurgency village by village.
No matter how vocal the conservatives were in opposition to the MSM, they bought the core of the Narrative hook, line, and sinker.
Curtis –
It was forgotten as soon as you wrote it. Brothers often get snippy with each other. Your intentions aren’t malign, so I don’t take it personally.
And as someone who also goes to dark places, I fully understand. Far be it from me to cast the first stone on that score.
waltj: You probably know better than me because I cancelled my subscription in 2008. Just going by what I read about them from other sources. They aren’t as bad as NYT but, that isn’t saying much.
I supported (paid for their paper) longer than I should have.
Kolnia, too kind of you to say.
I sound my barbaric YAWP for you tonight, Although I fear it has become quite tame.
Since the fulsome highway to your fire light
Passes o’er but does not stop the fiery flame.
This one’s for you, Kolniai.
The music and pictures are great. The words I find ironic as they are a little bit off Scotish, at least ancestral Scotish. Too PC. Too baby country. Too much hippie. But, at our roots, we are all tree huggers and nature lovers.
Am I right in that you have some Scotish or Welsh or something like that. Irish?
Anyway, for what it’s worth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kehTezsH2fE