I know I keep harping on the subject of our media environment, but as more research becomes available, I become more and more convinced that an enormous amount of political and voting behavior is the result of the fragmentation facilitated by the Internet–a fragmentation enabling people to occupy a chosen bubble of “news” that reinforces their ideological beliefs and prejudices.
That phenomenon in recent U.S. elections has mirrored voter movements elsewhere, and the research was an effort to determine whether those movements had causal commonalities. The scholarship cited was all interesting, and I encourage you to click through and read it in its entirely, but one conclusion stood out. The article noted that Trump’s inroads into the Black and Hispanic communities was tied to the nature of the media sources those voters consulted.
The declining influence of television news, for example, has been stark. As the article noted, Democrats have always done well with U.S. minorities who follow political news on television, and they still won 73 percent of those voters in 2024. But their support among those who didn’t follow the election on TV was only 46 percent.
And, for perhaps the first time, the share of Americans following the presidential election on TV began to fall in 2024. It dropped from 85 percent to 81 percent. We don’t know what’s replacing it, though we do know that the share who got political news on TikTok soared from 22 percent in 2020 to 33 percent in 2024 — and that TikTok is the only medium through which U.S. minorities were more likely to follow politics compared with Whites.
Similarly, a March poll from the Pew Research Center found that 30 percent of minority voters who supported Trump got at least some of their news from “The Joe Rogan Experience” — putting the Trump-endorsing podcast behind only Fox News in that group. (To be sure, other sources were also close enough to be within the margin of error, and Pew’s Elisa Shearer cautioned that our media choice can be an effect of our political views as much as it is a cause of them.)
Minority neighborhoods traditionally tended to coalesce around a given candidate when residents of those neighborhoods got their news from similar, predominantly mainstream, sources. But as the media environment has balkanized, the electorate has split into smaller and less predictable units.
Over the last decades, as culture war has consumed American politics, minority voters who are culturally conservative but economically liberal —a cohort that includes many working-class minorities and immigrants — have begun to base their votes on cultural issues rather than economic ones. That trend has been supercharged by what the article called the “algorithm-driven fragment of the media,” the social media platforms that turn cultural concerns into cultural outrage by constantly amplifying moral- or emotional-based messages, a practice that encourages user commitment to the platform. (Yes, follow the money…or in this case, the business model.)
As one scholar explained it,
“Social media can subtly shape people’s information diet because algorithms are attuned to what people are engaging with online…. “So if someone’s paying attention to content that leans a little more socially conservative, the algorithm will feed you more and more of that. And before you know it, you’re in an informational ecosystem that’s pretty different from what you’d see tuning into mainstream media.”
In other words, the dramatic changes we have experienced in our media environment have fostered ideological, educational and gender divides, splintering communities that were once defined first by racial or cultural identities.
I have no idea what can be done about the balkanization of the media. I am very afraid that we can’t put that genie back in the bottle– allowing government to determine the content of internet sites would be even more dangerous than today’s environment of propaganda and disinformation. Fact-checking sites are only useful for people who care about facts, and that is an unfortunately small percentage of the population.
Perhaps legislation dictating what algorithms can and cannot do would avoid violating the First Amendment, but from where this digital novice sits, it’s unclear how such a law would be framed or how it could be enforced.
We live in a world where people who desperately want to believe clearly untrue things– that climate change is a myth, that vaccines cause autism, that “chemtrails” are poisoning us, that “woke-ism” is the reason they missed out on that promotion–can find confirmation of those beliefs in the Internet’s growing never-never land.
Members of minority communities aren’t exempt.
We are for sure a mighty screwed up society that led to the political situation now threatening the future of our republic.
One piece of evidence of that is big-screen media, and by big screen, I now mean TV. (Big screen used to mean movies, but they are slowly going out of business.) We are addicted to big-screen blather now instead of each other.
It doesn’t take calculus to see our paralysis by entertainment of all kinds. We have too much blank stare time and not enough thinking time. We are advertising-saturated, and advertising is a profession that turns people into robots.
But out in the streets, in public markets, in groups of all kinds, there is an organically growing retreat from blather back to face-to-face and honest discussion.
It’s a sign of our times, a cure for our blues, and a hope in an otherwise hopeless situation.
We got this.
Another excellent piece, Sheila. I just had a provocative conversation with a “youngster” who chuckled and said, “You’re complaining you can’t raise enough money to promote The Indiana Citizen so Hoosiers can find their way to your website. You should be investing in bringing The Citizen to them in bite-size, eye-catching feeds they can’t ignore.” My reply, “Does the term ‘Luddite’ mean anything to you?” It didn’t.
I have a hard time watching any podcast. I’d rather read the transcripts. I don’t care about all the small talk and background noise discussed. No radio either. No TV. No newspaper subscriptions. I use ad-blockers on the internet. I am using AI more and more, which challenges me on certain beliefs.
Sheila assumes the oligarchy wants us to be informed citizens and vote accordingly. They don’t. When I watch a real journalist trying to interview a politician, they dodge and weave and have “people” who block the journalist from asking questions. I just watched Max Blumenthal asking Randy Fine about Israel murdering women and children in Gaza while standing in line for food. His response was, “If you take hostages, you deserve what’s coming to you.” That’s when his people stepped in to tell Max that the representative doesn’t do adversarial interviews. They will only do interviews that allow them to rant about their favorite topic, so they don’t look or sound ignorant. Or sociopathic! 😉
TikTok does reach young people who have short attention spans. They also get to see videos of real people talking about politics (influencers). Like all of us, they decide whether that person is trustworthy or not. If you see videos every single day from Gaza, you know it’s a genocide. When someone tries to tell you it’s about hostages or Hamas, you know it’s bullshit.
Our media is a manipulation tool for the oligarchy that owns it and everything else. I’m not sure why anyone would write for the WaPo, owned by Bezos. The New York Times had an article yesterday about Jeffrey Epstein, and the word “conspiracy” was used dozens of times in the article. Gee, I wonder why they want people to look away from the Israeli intelligence operation of blackmail using underage women as bait? 😉
Do other countries experience the same thing? Is there data on that? Or is the US more heavily targeted? Or are our citizens more susceptible (gullible)?
As you say, we can’t put the genie back in the bottle. This is the world we are swimming in now. But Mamdani got his votes by being in the streets talking to people. And the youngest woman ever running for Congress is gaining. She is a political influencer in Arizona. If people don’t adapt, they can’t survive. And that applies to politics as well as anything else.
Have you seen the Meidas Touch Network of hosts? They’re on all platforms, I tend to watch on YouTube. They get more downloads on their podcasts than the top 4 right wing podcasters together. They just surpassed 7 billion downloads. I’ve been watching them since I found them on Twitter with just a few thousand followers/subscribers. I find them to be the most accurate news out there.
Yesterday while walking in my neighborhood, a young person was walking the other way across the street. I greeted him as I do people I meet on these walks. It is one way to stay connected and engaged. He did not acknowledge my greeting. As we got closer to each other, I noticed he had his earbuds in. So, no surprise.
Later another neighbor was out with his dog walking along with cellphone in hand, completely ignoring the dog and my greeting.
Our constant need and subsequent addiction to infotainment may well be our rapid descent into authoritarian rule.
JD, I think you have a point there. Along those lines, I know a woman who shuns silence, quiet, with a constant background noise of music, in the car, and a good percent of quite mindless TV in the house. She is my wife, and I love her. Neither of us listen to podcasts, anyone’s, nor bother with TikTok, etc.
I suppose I am guilty of living in something of an information bubble, attuned to liberal, “woke” sources, legitimate, peer reviewed, science sources, Public TV, and the like, but none of these have tried to teach, convince, me that Limbaugh deserved that medal that Orange Dirtbag laid on him, for example.
Pete, and Cathy, you give me hope.
A big component as to how we got here is all of the terrestrial “talk” radio over the previous decades. One local example is WIBC once owned by EMMIS Broadcasting.
Emmis means Truth in Hebrew. Really? You mean all of the years when Limbaugh, Katz, et al were broadcast over the airwaves via WIBC ,EMMIS was broadcasting the truth?
Consider me amused.
Elaine, other countries are affected, but with different constitutional systems a little less so. The corrosive effects of social media and “freedom of any speech” has made the US the cesspit of media environments. There is a good reason all of these tech companies are based in the US, and slowly places like the EU are trimming away at the worst of new media systems, but it is a slow painful process.
When I’m in the EU, I can’t even access any of the Gannett (Indy Star is my hometown paper) websites, because they don’t want to bother or can’t comply with EU Privacy laws.
Here’s some Hoosier media doing the job right. Feel free to share with people in the conservative “news” bubble. They won’t know this from any of their sources. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMG-wFRMkWb/?igsh=bm0ybWNoamVwMDd4
Let’s not forget the media channels that put their articles behind a pay wall. As worthy as journalists are to get paid for their profession some of us just can’t afford the extra money they are asking for.
Black Women – have consistently voted for Democratic Politicians – though at times they have Not voted. Black Men – are increasingly identifying with Republican politicians (or No Longer Identifying with Democrats) – related both to the “macho” (Patriarchal) focus, though a significant majority still vote Democratic when they vote. Both Black Women and Men note – quite clearly – that their perspectives and importance are frequently weaponized by the Democrats – with little substantively gained by voting for them.
Latina/Latino voters – are not one single group at all. Increasingly – as such People Identify as “white” or “NOT Black” (Not BIPOC) – they tend to vote significantly more for Republican Candidates.
White Men – are the heart of the core Republican voters. It is far from only “poor” or “uneducated” white men! White Women – are less Republican – but recently a majority vote Republican.
Young voters – have been greatly impacted by Covid, failures in the Economy, challenges in making enough money to be “middle class” – where they aren’t the “stars” – going to Ivy League Schools – going to top law schools, many with MBA’s etc. Oft – times they don’t vote – or only the well off ones vote – and they are often attracted to the Republican Party.
Social Media – is MUCH more influential – and mainstream traditional media – is losing viewing/readership – often impacting most of USians.
RESIGNATION – APATHY – HEADS IN THE SAND – FEELINGS OF HOPELESSNESS – deeply affect far too many of us – helping (indirectly) the push from the Wealthy, often Right – supporting Republicans. The Democrats – try in phony ways commonly – to be “reasonable” – “middle of the road” and similar. Mamdani – in NYC – showed what can be done – and mainstream Dems should learn – but resist, resist, resist!!! Todd – has clearly enunciated how the Mainstream Media – ignore the Genocide in Gaza and beyond – “middle of the road” – and “neutral” and similar is – supporting The Right – Republicans in so many ways! We need to seek the Truths – how we can and Resist!!!
How about having a pop-up that asks the reader “Would you like to see an opposing point of view on this topic?
YES or NO
The internet started as a tool and quickly became a weapon. Who made that possible? Users and people motivated by money and power. There’s no end; it’s the same cycle repeated over and over.