The 21st century is considered to be the century of information. In most countries in the West access to information is unlimited, meaning that everyone has a voice and can broadcast their views and experiences (Harrison 25).
Likewise, the individuals consuming information have access to any source they wish, making their own decisions about what to read and who to listen to. The benefits of such a system are obvious – it becomes incredibly difficult for any one state or company to conduct propaganda by monopolizing information sources (Benkler et al., 57). Plurality of opinions is a core requirement for a functioning democracy. It allows for a competition of ideas, in which the best ones would eventually prevail. Likewise, it allows holding the government and its officials accountable. Without accountability, any democracy will eventually become usurped by the state apparatus working for its own benefit rather than furthering the will of the people.
Another benefit is the accessibility of said information. If before the age of the Internet one had to afford a newspaper or a radio/TV set to be informed, nowadays everyone has cheap and accessible gadgets to access virtually any news outlet. It is the reason why people nowadays are some of the most information-saturated generations in history (Streitmatter 26).
The benefits of such access are manifold – first, it becomes increasingly difficult for a country’s government to control what sources of information the people have access to. Sites can be blocked en masse, but there are multiple of easily-accessible ways to bypass the blockade. It requires a monumental effort, like that of the Great Chinese Firewall, to be able to block access to foreign media with any degree of efficiency (Althaide & Snow 85). Likewise, easy access means that there is no longer a monetary census to what information individuals have access too, breaking up the monopoly of the rich and powerful over news media.
However, there are downsides to the existing ways in which people consume news. Because there are so many outlets, they have started to specialize and zero in on their intended audience. Nowadays it is easy to find an outlet to cater to any kind of pre-existing political beliefs, with information carefully selected to fit a particular narrative (Dunaway and Graber 39). This happens on both sides of the political spectrum – left and right. As a result, there are no sources that can be considered unbiased towards one or the other side. People who read them begin living in their own separate realities, and when these realities clash, the confrontation is often uncompromising. The existing political split between the left and the right in the US is partially the result of mass media polarizing people.
Another issue stems from the evolution of ways in which peoples’ thoughts and preferences are being gouged by media companies. Google, Twitter, Facebook, and so forth, are slowly monopolizing the information market – without a search engine it is nearly impossible to navigate the web properly (Harrison 109). These companies are, indirectly, becoming masters of information flow, putting it upon themselves to decide what is to be considered fake news and what is not. Such curators are a potential threat to freedom of speech and the plurality of opinions everywhere (Bulger and Davison 17). Though there is much in terms of misinformation on the Internet, giving the right of censorship to any organization, be it a private company or a government, is inherently dangerous in the long-term.
Works Cited
Altheide, David L., and Robert P. Snow. Media Worlds in The Postjournalism Era. Routledge, 2019.
Benkler, Yochai, et al. Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, And Radicalization In American Politics. Oxford University Press, 2018.
Bulger, Monica, and Patrick Davison. “The Promises, Challenges, and Futures Of Media Literacy.” Journal of Media Literacy Education, vol. 10, no. 1, 2018, pp. 1-21.
Dunaway, Johanna, and Doris A. Graber. Mass media and American politics. Cq Press, 2022.
Harrison, Brigid C., et al. American Democracy Now. McGraw-Hill Education, 2019.
Streitmatter, Rodger. Mightier Than The Sword: How The News Media Have Shaped American History. Routledge, 2018.