Entertainment has historically served as a lighthearted way to boost spirits across all civilizations. The need to be entertained has always been acknowledged, and displays such as gladiator fights or plays were seen as merely an enrichment to the everyday lives of the public. However, what are the implications when the desire for entertainment evolves into an essential need? The demand for entertainment and the prioritization of spectacle in news-media consumption is a virus that has proliferated the life of the American people by spreading rapidly throughout all sources of news. The imprecise and attention-driven news generates polarization and ruins critical thought, and public discourse, due to misinformation and lack of personal research done by contemporary Americans.
Entertainment based culture began to gain notable influence on society in the mid-nineteenth century, with the use of the newly constructed transcontinental railroad, the telegraph, and the intrusion of the photograph as a newfound means of providing information. On page 74 of “Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman, the idea that this “Graphic Revolution” was the catalyst to the deterioration of critical thought and public discourse in American society. With the unprecedented speed of which news was being received by Americans, in-depth context became a thing of the past, as the reader was assumed to be caught up on current events. Postman uses the fact to draw the conclusion that this era in history is precisely when photographs took hold of American news-media, as “the sense of context created by the partnership of a photograph and a headline was, of course, entirely illusionary.” While this claim by Postman is convincing, by focusing on the inadequacy of photographs as context, he fails to touch on one of the key pitfalls regarding the replacement of text for a photograph. Photos are less accurate than words. There can be countless interpretations of one singular picture, as opposed to the written word when there can be 2 or maybe 3 if one is creative enough. The problem that arises from this is that the reader is tricked into thinking that the photograph has given them a clear and precise idea of the topic at hand. The only time a picture could be of benefit to the reader and actually enhance their understanding of the article presented would be as a supplement to a well thought out and text-driven argument, and certainly not used in a headline of an article or as a main piece of evidence. While photographs are no doubt inadequate for providing context, Postman ultimately fails to reach the crux of the problem that picture in place of print poses, which is the fact that the picture is imprecise and can lead to an inadequate grasp on the truth for the reader or viewer while simultaneously causing them to believe that they do in fact understand the topic at hand.
The accelerated rate at which goods and media were able to be transported provided an enormous boon to media outlets and the American economy as a whole. Around this time, monopolies began to develop in all spheres of business, and the media was no exception. Although these companies did not have a true monopoly, like Rockerfeller’s oil or Carnegie’s steel, there were still only a select few news-media outlets that were able to solidify themselves in the space. This created a situation with little competition for profit among the few dominant news companies. This lack of competition was short lived however, as the capitalistic economy of America drove aspiring businessmen to open up their own media companies. The once steady and unflappable news industries of America were now being met with the challenge of emerging media outlets taking away once avid readers from them. The difference in success being that the newer, emerging outlets realized that they were not going to be able to establish market dominance by taking a traditional approach. They began to sensationalize their headlines, shocking the reader and drawing interest in a way that had not been done before. The companies understood that people would rather be entertained than informed, leading to the inception of blatant misinformation and sensationalism to appeal to a certain audience. This also caused more close-mindedness in America, as people were getting their news from a source that feeds into their political stance, keeping them voting the same way every year. As soon as one company starts appealing to a certain demographic by providing politically homogeneous content, all other companies must adopt a similar approach to survive. This inevitably lead to almost every news source in America contracting the virus that is sensationalism.
The government took notice of this, instituting the Radio Act, which eventually became the Fairness Doctrine. According to Matt Stefon, who covered the Fairness Doctrine on Brittanica.com, the strictures placed upon the media in 1949 were to “have the media serve public interest” and not their own, profit driven interests. By mandating that news outlets must present both sides to each issue or topic that is being spoken about, this was able to temporarily extinguish the flames of the misinformation that ran rampant in the years before. The news sources were no longer allowed to make ridiculous and unsupported claims in an effort to appeal to the political opinions of their audience. The best and most reliable news sources rose to the top because of the new well-balanced and informative nature of press, while the profits of sensationalistic news outlets began to tank due to the fact that they could not solely rely on blasphemy to retain readers/viewers. Sadly, these strictures were short-lived and the doctrine was repealed 1987. The standard way of thinking about the cause of repeal falls under what Stefon says in the article, which is the fact that many felt that it violated their First Amendment right of free speech. While Stefon presents the information in a convincing and unbiased way, he does not adequately address who specifically was lobbying against the doctrine. If he were to delve deeply into this question, he would have found that these lobbyists were actually a combination of less recognized news-media companies that needed to have sensationalism and dramatization of crises in order to remain competitive in the space, as well as government officials who were struggling to hold office due to the lack of polarization/radicalization that they relied on in order to get their vote in the years before the doctrine. These groups needed sensationalism as a crutch for their lack of competency, whether it be in the instance of losing readers to more polished news groups or being unable to win an election when audiences are well informed about both sides of an argument. Using the “violation” of the First Amendment as a weapon to take down the doctrine, they were then able to begin relying upon their spectacle-driven narratives once again.
Only a few short years after the doctrine was repealed, the old way of presenting entertainment was fully restored. Second rate news companies and political figures took a sigh of relief, and began to propagate the media with their brash headlines, which in turn drove their profits and power in the news-media or political space back to where they once were. In John Vanderwicken’s 1994 article from Harvard Business Review titled Why the News is Not the Truth, Vanderwicken highlights the effect that the return of sensationalism had on American Society. From the outset of the article, the claim is made that “The news-media and the government are entwined in a vicious circle of mutual manipulation, mythmaking, and self-interest.” Following the quote, he asserts that this manipulation by the press, aimed at the American people, had a direct cause and effect with the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine. The article continues to focus on the idea that the press and government work together to create false yet believable narratives that kill critical thought among Americans and re-radicalize entire communities. This supports the claim that news-media now resembled that of which was before the Fairness Doctrine, where misinformation/manipulation presented in the form of entertainment caused a sharp decline of critical thought within the American people. This would also explain the increasing polarization/radicalization of political parties, as they no longer stop to think about if what they are hearing on the news is true, and are merely being presented news that affirms their current political standpoint. Although Vanderwick perfectly relates the consumption of news before and after the Fairness Doctrine and how it affects critical thought among the public, he completely fails to mention the one, glaring, difference between the two. In the newer, more technologically-advanced state of the country in 1994, it was now the cheapest it had ever been to make one’s own news source. With the budding internet, blogs and opinions could be posted freely by anyone with access to a computer. This was a whole new facet to misinformation that had never been seen before.
In today’s America, the internet has permeated into every aspect of our lives, especially news consumption. The most notable development being the prevalence of social media on the internet. In a Pew Research study, it was found that 53% of Americans obtain their news from social media “often” or “sometimes”. This is an enormous problem within our society today, and is akin to the “Graphic Revolution” that was addressed earlier in the article due to the proliferation of a newer, more harmful way of presenting news becoming prominent in the news-media sphere. We are now in a “Digital Revolution” with people blindly believing Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter when it comes to their news. This causes unprecedented levels of misinformation because anyone on these sites is able to post their own, uncensored opinion with an outrageous, attention-seeking headline for the world to see. This new phenomenon has been brought up in presidential debates, caused extreme polarization of political parties, and incited mass hysteria within entire American communities. The need for entertainment has regrettably surpassed the journey for knowledge, public discourse, and critical thought in American society. By choosing to blindly believe social media sites that aggressively feed into one’s own partisan views and not doing personal research, the recipient has made an active choice to exercise absolutely zero critical thought, and this is a virus that has spread across the nation as we know it.
However, our nation does not have to remain in this state forever. Although it is the undeniable and sad truth that entertainment has replaced text-driven, informative media for this generation of Americans, it is plausible that we can learn to overcome the tsunami of misinformation that washes over us every day. In a promising article published by an Education Kathleen Kennedy-Marzo titled Fair-Use Help for the Internet on Its Way, Kennedy-Marzo states that many American schools are instituting media literacy training, from middle school all the way up to high school. This is an auspicious sign for future generations of Americans, as they will be taught to tune out misinformation the same way the earlier generations were taught to tune out infomercials on the television. The younger generation will undoubtedly be more accustomed to navigating the sensationalistic digital world than Americans today, preventing misinformation from spreading as easily, and providing a beacon of hope to those worried about the future of our nation.
Although the arguments presented in the paper all have undertones of pessimism, the idea that media literacy will continue to rise is the most promising counterargument against these claims, and the most hopeful one as well. But why wait for the future generations to start making changes? Today, every American must take action against the reign of terror that entertainment- based media holds over us. We can do this by conducting our own personal research, taking in a plethora or variegated news sources, and coming together as a community. In the time of uncertainty that we are living through right now, it is important for the American people to unite against the common enemy that all of us have, which is the proliferation of entertainment and sensationalism into the sphere of news-media.
