TV Shows Are Changing Your Political Opinions Without You Knowing It

Key Takeaways

right now we're living in a super political environment even reading the news is considered political just mentioning a show can start a political argument but is it the media that's political or are we politicizing it we consume a lot of media from news to mindless entertainment television and studies show the media we consume it can't affect our opinions from body image to political leanings our media consumption can affect a lot and there are a lot of variables here but that doesn't mean that we can't apply a bit of science so first we have to think about television not a scripted drama or stage play but as images and messages that are brought into your home in highly produced packages creating a shared and national culture and some research shows that people who consume more light television are more likely to be swayed like television is in contrast to heavy so while heavy might be a documentary or hard-hitting news light might be entertainment TV or a variety TV but while we all see the politicization of news surely light TV is okay right not so much one particular team of researchers looked at Italy as a case study here they focused on areas where the TV network media set was most widely syndicated media set was owned by a guy who ran for and won the office of Prime Minister of Italy beginning in the mid-1980s the network showed light entertainment content and then gradually shifted to biased content in favor of the owners own political party the data science found on average media set turned more voters toward the populist prime minister candidate compared to regions where his network was introduced later this suggests a correlation between long-term exposure to entertainment television and its possible political bias and voting habits back in the United States this is connected to a thing called the Fox News effect this American news network has an extreme right leaning bias that caters to more small-town suburban areas with populist bends its viewers to skew ideologically conservative based on 2012 few studies but other media outlets are also skewed for example well Fox is tough on the 2012 Democratic candidate MSNBC was far tougher on the Republican candidate that year but back to Italy the researchers also found a correlation between TV habits and education on average children exposed to entertainment TV at a young age grew into cognitively disadvantaged adults and it's not just kids people exposed to entertainment TV overtime regardless of age are more likely to be taken in by populist political rhetoric across the board entertainment content was shown to influence political attitudes creating what the researchers call a quote fertile ground for the spread of populist messages though again let's be clear this is a correlation not a causation but still the correlation is there another team of researchers from an apolitical nonprofit looked at data for over 90 200 towns in 2006 and found that areas where Fox News had entered the cable market by the year 2000 had a significant rise in Republican support that suggests a link between the station's bias and its audience Fox News they found reinforce the views of Republican voters and should support among independents look we're not trying to pick on any specific news outlet again skews are everywhere we're looking at the data and the data says that some media is more ideological than others and can possibly affect how people see the world plus that was in 2012 we are far more polarized today than we were then Fox News is currently leading cable news channels for viewership though viewers overall are fewer with the rise of alternatives to cable news online which we actually didn't even talk about here some have gone so far as to say that stations earrings that slanted programming is and I'll paraphrase here like an all meat diet when really you need some variety watching multiple news sources is always recommended it's the best way to have a healthy news diet exactly is there a perfect news source no but there might be a better way to consume the news instead of only watching Fox News or MSNBC watch both and you know what see what's happening out on the internet on Twitter and also read the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and the BBC and if you don't have time to do all that find a source that curates them for you if you're worried about bias don't put all of your eggs in one basket anytime we can consider more sources we gain a broader opinion and a better overall sense of the world for more sciency looks at your daily life subscribe to seeker and it's not just news outlets affecting your voting habits politicians also play mind games to win Julia's got more on that right here and fun facts keep in mind the definition of propaganda is information especially of a biased or misleading nature used or publicize a particular political cause or point of view hmm