media studies
The Bachelor got cancelled... what does it say about us?: Cultural diagnosticians
The mirror we don’t want Here’s the question nobody in Bachelor Nation is asking: what does it mean that 5 million people watched Season 25 and didn’t flinch, but a TMZ video made the same audience recoil?... The Bachelor got cancelled... what does it say about us?: Franchise faithful
Twenty-four years Look, I watched Trista and Ryan’s wedding. I watched Sean and Catherine. I watched Jason Mesnick change his mind on live television and somehow it worked out. This franchise produced real marriages, real families, real love stories that survived the cameras.... What actually happened on January 6th?: Symptom readers
The groundwater In 1964, 77 percent of Americans told Gallup they trusted the federal government to do the right thing most of the time. By 2019, that number was 17 percent. The decline was not sudden.... Open Question March 11: Free Speech, but who draws the lines? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdx9n317Wpw
Free speech rules and culture today have a huge impact on the future:
Tech companies + algorithms determine who gets heard in 'public'... so government vs citizen doesn't touch today's real power struggles
AI: when you can clone anyone’s voice or face, what’s protected and what’s harm?
Political shifts: old arguments on who's defending or restricting speech (and why) don't hold, making it a topic where fresh thinking actually matters. Eg: The political left (eg ACLU defending neo-Nazis' right to march) used to be standard bearers, where now, the left is more likely to argue that unregulated speech causes real harm to marginalized communities.
This conversation will inform a live interview tomorrow with Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), the leading free speech advocacy and litigation organization in the United States. A graduate of Stanford Law School, he has led FIRE since 2001, growing it from a six-person operation to a 120-person powerhouse, and is the co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind (with Jonathan Haidt)
#openquestion
Free speech in the current era seems related to the Media. Do we have a Free Press anymore? Does the Media have free speech? Are they beholden to an employer who is beholden to someone else?... Engage or Enrage. It is likely that we have family members or friends that we differ with greatly when it comes to politics, healthcare, etc. I am no different. When the inevitable hot topic arises, do you recommend flight or fight, engage or enrage? How do you respond when this occurs?
Unfortunately, I find it literally impossible to hold my tongue when confronted with lies, propaganda, mis- or disinformation or any of the myriad ways currently being used to rip this country apart..... Left Media Bias bigger than i realized. No matter how you measure (print media, online, page views, paid subscribers, followers, etc) US media leans heavily left, to an extent that surprised me. Most ways I tried back-of-the napkin math have right + right-leaning news sources being below 10%… and even the most generous assessments that include lost of neutral/other outlets still have left + left-leaning above 50% (meaning 5:1 liberal to conservative is the lowest estimate i could find).
Context
The US is pretty evenly split in terms of the two major parties:
> 45% of U.S. adults Republican-ish, 44% Democrat-ish Gallup 2022Some sources
- Allsides Here’s Allsides review
their media bias on Allsides.com here’s the site’s own assessment of its own bias - Googling the top 25 most-subscribed news channels in the United States, and
- Even the more left leaning LLMS can’t help but point out this as a fact of modern media.
Takeaways
First, this gives me empathy for Republicans. Many American conservatives feel like the underdog, regardless of how much power or influence they yield, because in a very real way, they’re not represented in a substantial part of the public narrative making machine—the media—proportionally. The perception of bias is true despite their being popular conservative outlets with sizable audiences, and as a result the left has influence on public opinion.Impact on Public Trust (but also how come Republicans aren’t better at getting media subscribers?)
Second, how come Republicans, who are stereotypically thought of us as having more business acumen or money or something, are getting so handily beaten in the media?
Third, I try not to get involved in politics because I’m scared of loosing connection or turning people off of the value of relatefulness because of my takes, even if they’re nuanced. We’re very good at otherizing people and forgetting to look at nuances. I’m certain I lack nuance. I don’t want a difference of political opinion to get in the way of our connecting. I started writing up this for the TTT email (which I ended up deciding not to send) but I realized others are deeply esconced in politics and way smarter and more educated in the field than I, so I decided to not go there. But here on uptrusting.com I think it’s a cool opporutnity to test; could also be a nice road to empathy, or self-empathy, depending on our identifications.
This is part of what surprised me, the numbers didn't back this up. From my (admittedly very crappy research), Fox was #1 in cable news for the past 24 years with average of ~2 million primetime views, but CNN and MSNBC combined were roughly equal to it (and also 24/7), and that... Like is different than trust. I think Jordan said at an uptrust session that he misses the like button. I’m having the same feeling lately, there are posts I like that I wouldn’t necessarily say I trust. Or I want to give it some sort of
that was cool
but I don’t want that statement in my trust algorithm.But maybe that’s all for the best? Surely some not-insignificant portion of my trust isn’t in my conscious awareness, maybe feeling a sense of
yes
to something is functionally the same as trust.Perhaps it could be emphasized that trust, in context of posts, would be applicable and limited to the message itself, and so not to imply any further scope, which can't honestly be qualified anyway!... “I’m out. Along with hundreds of others”. Is this a Washington Post problem, or are newspapers just too expensive to operate?
Photo above - Washington Post reporters, transfixed upon hearing the news that 300 staffers are being fired . . . When I was growing up, my parents had 3 newspaper subscriptions: The Washington Post, The New York Times, and a weekly for our local community.... Has the Left changed that much? During the Obama administration ICE used the exact tactics they are using today. There were no riots or protests. What changed?
There were no riots or protests because the majority of news outlets are controlled by left wing officials and they were telling everyone that he was doing good work.... AI and the Truth
Various arts and media are becoming overrun with AI generated content. Some are so good that it is becoming difficult to discern the validity. What are your thoughts on legislation that would require AI generated material to be watermarked and tagged as such by AI content... The Cost of Letting main stream media and social media Do Our Thinking. Lately I’ve been thinking about how both the political left and right are pushing narratives through social media, and a lot of what’s being shared is made up of half-truths or no truth at all. It feels like emotions are being intentionally poked and prodded to build followers around ideologies, not facts.
Honestly, you can’t even scroll social media anymore without stopping to ask yourself, “Is this actually true?” And that the norm now.
Before you can even consider the message, you have to research it just to figure out if it’s real. That alone tells me things are out of control.
What worries me most is how much of this stuff gets absorbed emotionally. A lot of people don’t consciously assess what they believe or take the time to verify it. If something aligns with how they feel, it gets accepted and then repeated.
Sometimes something goes viral almost instantly and gets accepted as truth, whether it’s fact or fiction, simply because it hits people emotionally.
And I get it. When something hits you emotionally and connects to a belief you already have, human nature is to accept it as truth, because our own biases want us to believe it.
If this keeps going, I really think it damages our ability to function as a country, because we lose a shared understanding of what’s real and what isn’t. Everything becomes narrative instead of truth.
I think part of the problem is that we’re becoming mentally lazy. We stop thinking critically and let confirmation bias run unchecked, and it just keeps building on itself.
The solution is simple, even if it’s not easy. Slow down. Question what we’re seeing. Separate facts from feelings. Think logically before reacting emotionally. Truth shouldn’t depend on which side it benefits.
Just something I’ve been thinking about.
v/r Russ
www.linkedin.com/in/russellclarkwyWhen you have a lot of uninformed, and many Maga low IQ voters as Trump has attracted you can see the personification and power of radical right wing propaganda which is controlling any political debate now in America.... Looking for bridges in views about the second Trump administration. I'm currently aware of four views:
- This is the worst thing ever, I'm terrified
- This is the best thing ever, I'm thrilled
- I don't pay attention to politics, so far my life feels exactly the same
- Some of the changes seem pretty cool so far, but we'll see
Where are the middle grounds? I want to know how to build bridges in my personal connections when politics comes up these days.
I won't belong to either party, although I voted for Mr. Trump based on the binary choice offered. My approval is for about %50-60 of what he does. Obviously, that means he does plenty I do not like.... The Cost of Letting main stream media and social media Do Our Thinking. Lately I’ve been thinking about how both the political left and right are pushing narratives through social media, and a lot of what’s being shared is made up of half-truths or no truth at all. It feels like emotions are being intentionally poked and prodded to build followers around ideologies, not facts.
Honestly, you can’t even scroll social media anymore without stopping to ask yourself, “Is this actually true?” And that the norm now.
Before you can even consider the message, you have to research it just to figure out if it’s real. That alone tells me things are out of control.
What worries me most is how much of this stuff gets absorbed emotionally. A lot of people don’t consciously assess what they believe or take the time to verify it. If something aligns with how they feel, it gets accepted and then repeated.
Sometimes something goes viral almost instantly and gets accepted as truth, whether it’s fact or fiction, simply because it hits people emotionally.
And I get it. When something hits you emotionally and connects to a belief you already have, human nature is to accept it as truth, because our own biases want us to believe it.
If this keeps going, I really think it damages our ability to function as a country, because we lose a shared understanding of what’s real and what isn’t. Everything becomes narrative instead of truth.
I think part of the problem is that we’re becoming mentally lazy. We stop thinking critically and let confirmation bias run unchecked, and it just keeps building on itself.
The solution is simple, even if it’s not easy. Slow down. Question what we’re seeing. Separate facts from feelings. Think logically before reacting emotionally. Truth shouldn’t depend on which side it benefits.
Just something I’ve been thinking about.
v/r Russ
www.linkedin.com/in/russellclarkwyThis connects to something I think we underestimate: attention is a finite resource, and systems exploit that. People cannot fight on ten fronts at once. They cannot fact-check nonstop, stay outraged nonstop, and still build anything durable.... I'm wondering how many of you have backed away from "fame." It comes in all sizes. The joke about people in radio broadcasting is that it is "the lowest wrung of the entertainment ladder." Even if true, it is still brutal.... Anyone watching the Pluribus TV show?
Only saw the first two episodes, will keep it spoiler-free. I was really wowed by the pilot that it felt like I was watching an entirely new experience that's never been done before. It feels like a horror zombie film but subverts itself....