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[–] MyBrainHurts@lemmy.ca 1 point 1 year ago (8 children)

You know we just elected a 34-time fraud convict and adjudicated rapist to the Presidency here, right?

Exactly the point. When things are so bad half the country is willing to say "yeah, but we trust him more than the fucking Left" something is seriously wrong.

If we don't work to figure out how to win folks over, things are going to get much much worse.

My life will be fine kind of regardless but I worry for others.

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[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 1 point 1 year ago (7 children)

When things are so bad half the country is willing to say "yeah, but we trust him more than the fucking Left" something is seriously wrong.

The short answer is media. Or as the kids like to say, "propaganda".

Neither of which are arguable. But I appreciate you wanting to talk with people one-to-one. Good luck there.

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[–] MyBrainHurts@lemmy.ca 1 point 1 year ago (6 children)

The short answer is media. Or as the kids like to say, “propaganda”.

Ehhhh, I think blaming a problem happening simultaneously in almost every democracy on "the media" feels a bit like putting our heads in the sand and avoiding the issues. But to each their own.

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[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 1 point 1 year ago (5 children)

There's a ton of scholarship to back it up and it will affect your efforts one way or another but you can also ignore it and hope it doesn't have as much sway as "they" say.

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[–] MyBrainHurts@lemmy.ca 1 point 1 year ago (4 children)

You are free to share some of that scholarship.

Unless you mean something like social media, then I'd probably agree. But any research blaming traditional media would have to answer three large issues that seem to stand in direct contradiction:

Germany has a wildly different media ecosystem than America, which has a wildly different media landscape than the UK, which has a wildly different media ecosystem than Italy, which has a wildly different media landscape than Austria, which has a very different one than France, which is very different from Poland etc. But the same phenomenon is happening across the board.
Traditional media is no longer where most people get their news. So either it's really radicalizing a smaller group or?
Traditional media consumption among age groups seems to indicate quite the opposite happening, ie, in America at least (I can't recall the age related shifts across Europe) younger voters are, relative to historical norms, lurching Right, whereas older voters are moving a bit to the Left. Yet, the younger groups are much less likely to get their news from traditional media than older voters, so if media were the culprit, you'd expect the shift to have happened the other way.

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[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

So media, properly defined, has certain properties that inherently exist regardless of the business or social environment it itself is a part of.

This explains why the phenomenon is similar across different media landscapes. And while traditional media may be fading away, people who have lived their whole lives with it are still in power at various levels and it’s still very much applicable. Also, social media affects those from a traditional media background differently.

This was posted a few days ago and is just interesting though not particularly relevant to your efforts.

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[–] MyBrainHurts@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

To each their own. I agree with Chomsky that yeah, media blinkers people and frames the terms of the debate. But, this has been true for decades. Something has fundamentally changed in the last 10 - 15 years and we're watching those changes ripple across almost every society.

Again, you're free to share any relevant research. But, I think blaming the Rightward swing that we're seeing across the world on just "the media" is, at best, over simplistic.

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[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

Well it is simplistic. Because there’s a lot of complexity to unpack.

But, this has been true for decades. Something has fundamentally changed in the last 10 - 15 years and we're watching those changes ripple across almost every society.

So true! Several things have fundamentally changed:

Democratization / decentralization of creators
Speed to market
Niche demographics
No regulation, no oversight

Just a few things. There’s many more. But we're not talking about clothes, or food, or anything else in our daily lives that have had such an impact, because clothes or food don’t have the same qualities that make media such a pivotal piece of any given person’s worldview.

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[–] MyBrainHurts@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

Like I said earlier, if you mean something like social media, then I agree. When I say social media, I also mean our new ways of ingesting media, eg short form text, memes, podcasts etc (though should probably use a different term.) I think there are a bunch of pernicious effects and incentives which have made seeing the humanity in those with whom we disagree difficult and compromise impossible. We don't need propaganda, people in general are just not able to handle the information landscape that's been created.

But, if you're really talking about even the spread of more independent written media etc, then I just don't see their limited readership being the fundamental game changer that we've seen.