Media

The news media has had a drastic change compared to what it used to be many years ago. Years ago, the media actually told truthful stories and it was not so opinionated. In the 21^st century the American minds are consumed with either Fox news or MSNBC which both lean heavily to one side or the other. People who watch Fox news normally lean more towards being more of a conservative person and people who watch MSNBC tend to be liberal. The news media used to be an outlet for truth and news about what is occurring in the world. Now, there is no such thing as fact checkers. A fact checker is someone who checks the news to make sure everything that is said on a broadcast is solely the truth. Fox and MSNBC have both been caught saying things that are not true at all. This is a major problem because then the people living in our society take this fake news for the truth.

Another problem with our media today is that while watching the news, there is only usually two valuable stories. The rest of the news in a 30 minute broadcast is all fluff stories that may be cute and heartwarming but yet tell us nothing about what is happening in the world. The media veers away from tragic stories because all they are concerned about is ratings. If they have stories about war and stories that are hard to watch, then the viewer will simply just turn the channel and watch something better. The problem with news channels solely being concerned about their ratings is that we as people living in a country are missing out on important stories that we should be exposed to.

Another problem that sparks my mind when I think about our media is the use of polls in the media. Almost every single poll that is used in the media is misleading. The people that actually vote in these polls have an extreme thought on the topic, therefore creating a bias on the poll. Going back to my earlier point about the polarized news stations, it is possible to make a good example. Let’s say that there is a poll on Fox news about abortion. If the question was if viewers thought that abortion should be banned, then there would most likely be an overwhelming amount of viewers that believed that abortion should be illegal. I think that this a big negative about polls because before they are even posted, there is already a noticeable bias for one side or the other. This makes the results seem heavily in favor for one viewpoint. Americans then take these polls for truth. The use of polls should be, in my opinion, stopped all together.

When it comes to environmental issues in our media, I feel like the people that present the information really try to pull in the viewer by his or her emotions. So many people are so fearful of global warming or climate change that they actually live their lives around this fear. Presenters of environmental issues try to fear people about these issues instead of educating them. Another emotion that is easy to bring out in people that are watching a presentation is sadness. A good example of this is the commercials on the television about the dogs that need homes or the very poor living in Africa. If the advertisers can evoke an emotional that makes people act on that emotion, then their advertisement has worked in their favor. Another way that advertisers get their commercials to do well is to use celebrities to talk about these sad circumstances. All of these factors are put into convincing viewers. Citizen’s decisions need to be made on solely facts.

The uses of words by people that talk about these issues also have a big impact. For example, the changes from the word global-warming to climate change. People pay more attention to the world climate change. The word change attracts more attention to the topic and normally spins the meaning to make the subject sound more appealing.

To me, I feel like the talk about sustainable products is always faintly there, but never really acted upon. There has been a talk about sustainable energy ever since I can remember watching the news. Although this talk has been there, I feel like it is always put on the back burner to something that the government feels is a more urgent important topic. The government wants to balance our budget, and I think that there is a possibility out there in order to save money with the type of energy that we are currently using.

I also think that the government sides with big business agricultural companies when it comes to sustainability topics because big business creates trade and money. The entire government legislation comes down to if it can possibly make the most money or not. The big business farmers are receiving subsides and therefore it is a lot easier for trade with other countries. Other countries therefore lose out on sustainable homegrown products because they are buying the U.S. produced goods because they are a lower price. All in all, everything the government does is all related back to the topic of money.

All in all, the media has made a huge shift from what it used to be and the things that it talks about. The topic of sustainability in the media is fueled by triggering emotions from the viewers that watch its advertisements. At the end of the day, the government’s main concern is money and that is what fuels our American society.