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US government and civics
Course: US government and civics > Unit 6
Lesson 12: Changing mediaImpact of media evolution on politics
Discover how media's evolution has impacted politics throughout history. From newspapers to social media, learn about the increasing diversity of media choices and points of view. Explore the positive and negative consequences, including polarization, echo chambers, and skepticism towards news sources and government.
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Video transcript
- [Instructor] In this
video, we're gonna talk about the impact of media on politics, and in particular, we're gonna think about how media has changed over time and how that might change
political discourse over time or how it might change
people's views over time. So if we rewind many hundreds of years, you have the printing
press that was invented in the mid 15th century and
then the early 17th century you have your first printed newspapers. And so, much of early American history, the main form of media was the newspaper. And this is actually a picture
of the New York Tribune from 1864, and you see it doesn't look all that different from some
of the newspapers today. And so you can imagine in
the 18th and 19th century, newspapers were the most powerful way of getting views out. In fact, many of these
historical documents that we study in American history like the Federalists
Papers, these were published in newspapers in order
to affect public opinion. But then as we start to
enter into the 20th century, technology starts to give us more forms of mass communication and mass media that might affect political discourse. So this is a picture of folks listening to a radio broadcast in
the early 20th century. And there would have been entertainment over these broadcasts,
but there would also have been news. And so you can imagine that this affected people's views of politics. Politicians, leaders started
to give speeches over radio. And as you get into the mid 20th century, TV becomes more and more pronounced of an influence on politics. This is a picture of Walter Cronkite, famous for being one of the
most respected journalists in all of television and
the first to broadcast a nightly news in the mid 20th century. Now, as you get to the late 20th century, not only did you have the major
networks broadcasting news, but you start having the
advent of cable news networks, so you start having a
larger diversity of people who are giving news. And then as you get into the
internet age, it explodes. You have blogs and news websites that start more and more
to cater to specific views. And then with the advent of social media, you have a way for leaders
or people who influence other people's thought
to directly influence or directly communicate
with those that follow them, whether we're talking about Twitter, or Facebook, or Instagram. And so an interesting question
is how has this affected political discourse. How has this affected politics? So, many people would view
this as a positive thing, that back in the day it
took a lot of capital, it took a lot of resources to
print and publish a newspaper, it took a lot of resources
to nationally broadcast news, and so it was a limited number of groups that could get the views out, while as you have the
internet and social media, anyone can communicate with anyone else. And so this would have increased
the number of media choices and increased the number
of points of views that are out there. Now, others would argue that, well, that might be
good, but maybe there are negative consequences to it as well. In the days of Walter Cronkite, everyone was kind of operating
with the same information. But with social media,
more and more people fear that we're living in
our own echo chambers, that we tend to follow people who already believe what we believe, that we tend to go to the media sites that reinforce our existing beliefs, and so it is polarizing. And it could also be polarizing
because we have to think about the economics of media. Many of these media outlets
are for-profit businesses, and so they have to think how do we get the maximum viewership, and that might be catering to what people already believe in or increasing the polarization, maybe demonizing the other side. Now, many people would also argue along with that increased polarization and with this increased diversity that more and more
people are just doubtful of any news source, of any media source, and so they just become more skeptical and cynical of not just media,
but the government as well. So it's an interesting phenomenon that we are living in as we speak. As much change as the
newspaper or the radio or television broadcasts happened, we are now in this time
of accelerating change where every few years it feels like there's a new medium coming out and it's interesting to
see how that will continue to evolve and affect
our political discourse.