Does Comtemporary Media Service the Public Good

Years ago, I read the book "The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think" by Eli Pariser (www.ted.com... for video on the subject), an intelligent analysis of how 'smart search engines' narrow our field of information and cause many to believe and act upon an ever narrowing personal ideology. These search engines direct us only to sites that reinforce our existing biases and never present differing ideas and (VALID) points of view on any given subject.

From www.journalism.org...:



Most people get their news from TV and Online then only from Radio and Print Media which ‘filter bubbles’ involved in increasing narrow scope.

Print media, periodicals specifically (as books are self-selected) are owned increasingly owed by huge media conglomerates and are not able to print anything that is “not in the corporate interest”. This isn’t to say that more independent media isn’t biased in some manner as well, but, in my experience, most independent print media does present the opposing viewpoint or viewpoints within the body of their work due to conviction to journalistic principles which do, in fact, declare presently differing views and strategies as part of presenting the Facts.

In TV this effect is greatly magnified as you can see with even less presentation of views that oppose the Corporate Agenda. Add to this, the imperitive to ‘entertain’ and metric of viewer share leads to only the most self-centered, loud and disturbing individuals to be presented. People need to look a certain way, behave in outlier manner and be extreme to ‘rate’ time. Examples of corporate blackouts on REAL NEWS are the ongoing protests at Standing Rock and the historic ongoing strike in US prisons.

Now the Internet which will print anything by anyone with the will (good or ill) the electronic filters will present you with ideas that match what you’ve looked at in the past regardless of any veracity of information. Without education about ‘evaluating’ sources the young and average internet user is ill-equipped to judge for themselves. Though in all fairness some of the ‘traditional’ means of evaluating sources are out dated and need modernization.

Hence the ‘Facebook’ scandal:

From conservative (www.sourcewatch.org...)

MRC TV:

www.mrctv.org...

From the Liberal (arguably – Breitbart was a founder!!!) Huffington Post:
www.huffingtonpost.com...

And finally from the dedicated journalists (but transparently leftist) Guardian:

www.theguardian.com...

and

www.theguardian.com...

Note the non-sensationalist prose, fact focused approach which quotes many ‘stakeholders’ with varying views without judgement.

Modern media needs to present us with a variety of viewpoints and is only presenting very narrow views to a narrow audience.

With the eternal Capitalist cry of Caveat Emptor…

(the principle that the buyer alone is responsible for checking the quality and suitability of goods before a purchase is made.) [note: Adam Smith and other early free marketeers assumed that all parties to a transaction would have all relevant data easily available to them)…

they prey on the growing audience of unsophisticated consumers in service to corporate greed.