THE MEDIA AND CRITICAL THINKING A n o p i n i o n p i e c e b y S a r a h D e l o i s o n
For the last edition of the newsletter, I have decided to share my opinion on a topic I believe to be of critical importance: the news media’ s influence on our perception of reality. We use the media as a primary source to obtain information about the world. News outlets keep us informed of what is happening thousands of kilometers away and act as intermediaries between governments and people. In general, the knowledge we gather on current events is dependent upon what we have read, watched or listened to in the media. News outlets therefore have a critical role in regards to shaping our perceptions of the world surrounding us. But such perceptions, internalized by the audience as depicting reality, can actually be misleading. The media, in democratic countries, embodies the principles of freedom of expression and information and have been referred to as pillars of representative democracies. But news media also bureaucratizes our understanding of reality through getting us used to certain formats, voices and interviews. Such formats can be problematic. Indeed, most news outlets today seem to be concerned with an imperative for immediacy, constant diffusion of information, live reports and are thus often framing, categorizing and over simplifying complex issues for the sake of volume, quantity and a race against the clock( and their competitors!). Accuracy, reflection, and hindsight seem to be of secondary interest. Though there are many serious journalists exercising their profession ethically and professionally, the general trend of where the news media is going is, in my opinion, rather worrying for the following reasons.
First, we should remind ourselves that news media operate like any other businesses racing for profit. Media outlets compete to enlarge their audience and ensure they will make enough money to sustain their activity. They therefore strongly care about immediacy, dramatic headlines, human fears, and the use of click baits to attract a large audience. An article’ s quality therefore loses in the face of competition for most likes and views. Second, we should understand that news media often use sensationalistic techniques to attract a large number of clients. If the general public is indeed sensitive and responsive to sensationalist news, it is because of the embedded culture of fear driving people’ s way of conceiving reality. It is this perception of reality through sensationalist news that provides a platform for mass media to place fear as the dominant discourse in news reports. News outlets will therefore have an economic interest in feeding the public a feast of events that seem out of the ordinary. This means that such coverage does not realistically depict reality. It only partially does so by selecting what will be of interest to an audience fascinated with what is spectacular and shocking. Furthermore, the news media have a real impact on agenda-setting, priming and decision making at the highest level of the state. Are you aware that people’ s reactions to military interventions can vary according to the media framing of the issue at hand? For example, in John Side’ s article " Mentioning Hitler makes Americans more willing to intervene in Ukraine," in the Washington Post it was demonstrated that Americans were more willing to support a military intervention in Ukraine when Hitler was mentioned in the questions of the survey.
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