According to politico.com, more than 130million people voted in 2008, breaking the record at that time. In fact, looking at infoplease.com, it is obvious that the percentage of voters have been going up. I interpret this to mean that more and more people are starting to care about politics, about who runs the country. Therefore, the real issue isn’t completely that the voters are more concerned with Jersey Shore (as I believed before), but rather that the information they get from news channels on TV is biased. That was one of the main issues touched upon by the people at the March to Keep Fear Alive/Rally to Restore Sanity (run by Stephen Colbert and John Stewart); people are being blindly led to believe things because the television has told them so, not because they have an opinion of their own. Furthermore, while there are great numbers of people who know more about Jersey Shore than their local politics, there are still great numbers who also care about politics. I believe that the real zeitgeist is that people generally accept what they see on TV as fact, and don’t try to determine fact from fiction, instead going back to watch Jersey Shore after the evening news is over. What can be said about the future of our nation if the people voting for our leaders only have limited knowledge of politics, acquired through media that takes advantage of their naivety and controls their opinions?
Here are photos I took at the March to Keep Fear Alive/Rally to Restore Sanity. I hope that anyone who views this will note that many of the signs are about the government or media controlling us, and/or referencing issues the media has distorted or kept on the headlines. (There are quite a few, so I figured putting them on photobucket would be easier.)
I was actually wondering the same exact thing the other day. Isn't the media a new type of censorship? Censorship is when content is hidden usually in order to support a certain viewpoint. News channels are not going to express fairly all sides of the story. There are definite biases which they abide by. They believe that they're right so they try to indoctrinate others into their beliefs. We the common people of America depend on the news for political opinions. Many do not have time to go searching the highs and lows of politics to form their own opinion. It's much easier if opinions are handed on a platter to us. This in itself isn't right. Our opinions shouldn't come from an outside source. But also, how are we supposed to tell which views are correct?
ReplyDeleteI have thought a lot about this same topic. It is also brought up in White Noise. People have this idea that television is such a bad thing. This is really not the case. Television is only bad when people are too ignorant to know what to believe and what not to believe. When really can really understand what they are seeing, and can take the right things out of it, it can really be a great tool. Still, television is a great danger for those ignorant people. There is a lot on television that is not true and one shouldn't believe, and there is a lot of biased information at well. Thus, when the ignorant people take everything they see at face value, it is not a good thing. People can be influenced to act in certain ways, and to buy certain things, that are really not realistic or good ideas. Plus, in our country, a democracy, where so many people can vote, if people are influenced, they can vote corrupt people into the government.
ReplyDeleteWhat I love about John Stewart and Stephen Colbert is how well they capture politics even as they obviously make fun of our nation's politics. So many criticize these programs as "fake news" but as they humorously confess their bias to all their viewers, in some ways they are a more accurate news source than any "real" news station on TV. The problem with the bias in media is their secrecy of it. I'm not even certain that the media is always aware of their bias or of their role in sending information to the public. The only real information about world events, culture and politics that we can receive is through the media and thus its messages directly correlate to our zeitgeist. If the news withholds information from us or presents us with bias information, how are we supposed to know? As Julie said, this is censorship: censorship unaware to the millions of people who are voting for the future of this nation. Could the news be directly responsible for our "dumbing nation"? Just the possibility of truth in that question is probably the most frightening idea of all.
ReplyDeleteTelevision has destroyed our independence of thinking. Back before television was even a thought, people attended political debates and rallies and heard speeches from potential politicians. Not every one could attend and that would account for the smaller percentage of voters. However, at least those who did vote knew what they were voting for. In the age of television, every one can be active in politics, but like Rebecca says we blindly believe what we see on TV and don't take the time to consider it may not be the truth. Young people are increasingly encouraged to vote and be active in politics, but should they be? It's frightening to think how many voters don't know anything more than a name and a political party about a candidate, but they vote for them anyway because they are a "Democrat" or a "Republican". What have these two words come to mean? Should a son of a Democrat automatically assume it is his God-given right to vote for Democrats? It's not only TV that gives us distorted, biased views of the world but the people around us unavoidably bias us too. So how are we supposed to think for ourselves anymore?
ReplyDelete-- Nicole Schoenbrun
There may be a slight bit of over dramatization in this post/comments. The books 1984 and Brave New World use the image of a "slave" population as a metaphor and though they are created in the human population's likeness, it is more of a literary tool than anything else. Human beings do possess the ability to think for themselves and obtain pure and unbiased information. You have displayed this trait by taking on the role of cultural anthropologist in this exercise. What I think might be a common misconception is that though technology without doubt effects us on many levels, the depth of its penetration is not as profound as some make it out to be. The fact that we have the ability to create this blog and think deeply on this matter is evidence that technology has not morphed us into the "all dancing, all singing crap of the world".
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