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by hehheh
3154 days ago
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If media spin can affect people, why couldn't a corporation or foreign government do the same? I don't understand why the facts that that a large number of people want government reform and that corporate and government forces were spending money to influence the election cannot exist side by side. |
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They can. Media spin includes the spin driven by governments, that's why spin doctors exist:
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/spin-do...
When I say media spin, I'm referring to lies and half-truths spread through the media. I'm not suggesting it has to be the media owners that are doing the spinning.
> "I don't understand why the facts that that a large number of people want government reform and that corporate and government forces were spending money to influence the election cannot exist side by side."
They can. However, what's not commonly considered is that people may have been acting in their own self-interest.
I'm not from the US, and I would never have voted for Trump. However, I can see how the media has portrayed Trump voters, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realise that the media portrayal is missing the wood for the trees. The main options commonly given for why people voted for Trump is that either they were manipulated by the media or they share some of Trump's negative personality traits.
However, if you look at polls about what people care about in an election, the same thing comes out top time and time again. The economy. It seems that many people don't follow politics that closely, but what they do understand is that it has an impact on the economy, and they care about jobs.
So let's look at this from a purely economic perspective. When faced with a choice between Trump and Clinton, putting personality aside, are there any economic reasons why someone might have chosen Trump over Clinton?
The main message I hope to get across is that if the media you consume is conveniently packaging a set of memes about a subject, you can be almost certain they're missing out on details. Real life is messy and chaotic, boiling down the motives of the general population to easy to consume soundbites is unlikely to accurately capture the thoughts of hundreds of millions of people. That's why it's useful to look beyond the headlines, and look to understand those you disagree with. Partisan biases weaken the health of public discourse. Were there people who voted a certain way because they were manipulated into it? I don't doubt it. However, that's not the full picture.