Lindsie Rappleye

Political Science
Spring 2018, Professor Gutaj
Due April 30, 2018 (+ 1 day extension)

Media Polarization: A Great Threat to Our Democracy

The effects of politicized media polarization have been noticeable for quite a long time,

but it is only recently – thanks to our last election and the inescapability of the internet – that

“polarization” is becoming a common phrase. What is becoming the largest concern for our

country and our democracy is the idea that polarization pushes us apart, potentially to the point

that we, as citizens, may no longer have the capacity to see each other’s’ perspectives as

worthwhile. We then run the risk of becoming entirely trapped by one way of thinking and more

susceptible to our government taking advantage of us – all of us.

Because of our society’s dependence on social media, many of us choose to get most of

our news from sources like Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr. We also feel very comfortable utilizing

these sites, and are perhaps lulled into a “false sense of security” by trusting what we see –

memes, click-baity headlines, and even satirical articles written entirely in jest. It seems that

Americans have gotten lazier with our critical thinking skills, the more accessible social media is

and the more hooked in we are. Since we feel so trusting of the “news” we see on social media,

we choose not to do our own research in order to verify, from a more reputable source, whether

or not the things we read are true, untrue, partially true, or entirely made up. Unfortunately, this

phenomena builds up our political knowledge and affects our mindsets about political figures

and situations.
 If we are filling our minds with pieces of information that aren’t necessarily true, our

views of candidates, issues, platforms and even existing legislation are colored by the snippets

and bite-sized bits of knowledge that we retain, since our brains are more apt to hold onto

“headlines” instead of fleshed out stories. What this means for us, as people, is that we are

becoming dependent on the media to do our work for us, and banking on the idea that what we

see blasted at us from all corners of the internet is “true.” More problems come from the rubber

band effect of people figuring out that all the political memes on Facebook leading up to the

2016 election weren’t entirely accurate and then deciding that nothing they see on the internet

could be true and that everyone that holds an opposing political viewpoint must be consuming

“fake news.”

From a political science perspective, the terms “fake news” and “alternative facts,” which

are so easily tossed around right now, signal a decline in our country’s spirit of democracy.

Making citizens distrustful of each other removes the pressure they might otherwise place on

their government to cultivate a level of transparency and obligation that is integral to true

democracy. This creates a gap wherein the administration is able to potentially get away with

more underhanded situations, while the citizens are engaged in misplaced Facebook comment

battles with each other.

According to Forbes, America is currently experiencing the “most polarized media

environment” in any Western country. The study concludes that those that self-identify as

conservative or “very conservative” are overwhelmingly distrustful of mainstream media outlets,

with the bulk of their news consumption coming from Fox News (2/3s of conservatives pledged

a loyalty to Fox) or, alarmingly, the incredibly neo-conservative (bordering on openly white

nationalist) website Breitbart (19% frequently consume news articles from here). A Pew
Research study concluded that more left-leaning Americans consume news from a wider array of

sources, including CNN, The New York Times, NPR and MSNBC. What is interesting about

these results is that it seems that conservative Americans are boxing themselves into smaller and

smaller outlets and therefore mostly consuming a very concentrated, very tailored version of

events and opinions. What this does is make citizens generally distrustful of news sources

outside of their own current loyalties – liberals don’t want to hear what Fox News has to say, and

conservatives certainly don’t want to hear anything on NPR.

This idea tends to spill over into our self-curated social media worlds, as well. While we

are more likely to follow news pages that already align with our viewpoints, we are also more

likely to share and comment on things that we agree with (and therefore experiencing the results

of the positive reinforcement algorithm that helps create the “echo chamber” of social media), as

well as friend those that share are views – and de-friend those that don’t. We are building

ourselves a version of politics that is entirely unsustainable, unrealistic, and downright

dangerous. If we come to distrust all that doesn’t agree with us, and shut down all of those that

don’t share our views, we separate ourselves from the very society we exist inside of.

In order to lessen the effects of media polarization, there are quite a few deliberate steps

we must take and conscious decisions we must make, for our own sanities, and the health of our

democracy. First, I think we need to extricate ourselves from our reliance on social media –

spending time bickering with each other from behind a screen not wastes our time, gives us

anxiety and limits our learning – it dehumanizes both parties. When engaging in online brawls,

both the instigator and the person being attacked are able to say things to each other that would

be much harder said in person. However, the more we view people as just a name on a screen,

with an opinion we disapprove of, the more likely we are to group everyone with that opinion
into the same box (ie: Joe on Facebook supports abortion and he called me a $#!@#%, so

therefore everyone that supports abortion is just like Joe) and begin to think of them as less than

us – just jerks that we get into “fights” with on the internet.

Perhaps the most important step into a more cohesive and united political landscape

would be for us all to practice intentional kindness, and relearn the ways of interacting with each

other that revolve around face-to-face contact. It sometimes seems like our country’s political

world is blowing up, that we couldn’t possibly come back from this seemingly maniacal

precipice we’ve found ourselves on, but I think with some serious introspection and reminders

that we are all people with thoughts and feelings that are our own, it is possible to help ourselves

before we’re too deep. Allowing room for compassionate, honest communication, with the

understanding that we don’t have to dig our heels in so deeply, would benefit all of us – we are

all in this country together, and democracy means we must work cohesively to flourish.
References:

Edkins, Brett. “Report: U.S. Media Among Most Polarized In The World.” Forbes, Forbes

Magazine, 27 June 2017, www.forbes.com/sites/brettedkins/2017/06/27/u-s-media-

among-most-polarized-in-the-world-study-finds/.

Mitchell, Amy, et al. “Political Polarization & Media Habits.” Pew Research Center's

Journalism Project, 21 Oct. 2014, www.journalism.org/2014/10/21/political-polarization-

media-habits/.