New Media and Old Elements
The internet has emerged as important news and source of information for a considerable part of the population. Due to this emergence, most traditional media outlets have implemented their digital channels to support their news distribution. While most audiences refer to online and new media channels for their information, most individuals seek to use new media aspects that are familiar to them (Coe et al., 2008). This familiarity includes the use of conventional journalism sites that exist in new media. This is because audiences trust conventional journalism at a greater level in comparison to new media platforms. This means that new media is now used to access the range of opinions and beliefs and perspectives through traditional media through the variety that it enables.
Bias and Discrimination in Media
The media business has dramatically changed the political landscape of audiences and political space. This change is evidenced through the considerable outrage that exists in media communications that take part through different platforms. Media platforms are now being increasingly used for the distribution of political commentaries as a result of the increase in the number of competitors in the media environment (Sobieraj et al., 2011). Most of these competitors are focused on the attraction of audience members whose attention can then be directed to advertisers. This results in the creation of discriminative and biased content with the focus on attracting particular points of audience. This has increased the proliferation of explicitly or covertly biased information outlets, which are mainly facilitated by the existence of technological innovations.
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Most broadcast news and newspapers have increased their use of technological platforms to share their perception of political knowledge while providing their audience with the space to provide supporting ideas and beliefs. Social media sites such as Twitter, have acted as crucial channels for increasing the political awareness of different organizations (Lee et al., 2017). These sites act as platforms through which a variety of protests can be organized by supporting the distribution of information. Social media sites also have the power necessary to shape the attitudes and beliefs of different populations.
However, hile these spaces are useful, they can also be adversely transformative. This is through the support of implicit and explicit bias that may exist in the mainstream. This support of bias and discrimination is mainly because all social media users and online sites are provided with the ability to express their political ideas and beliefs and disseminate them whenever they want. This dissemination means that some biased information receives more public attention than they should (Lee et al., 2017). Hence, despite whether the information being distributed is biased or not, it is based on the level of support obtained from the users. This means that accepted truths are the main determiner in whether biased or discriminative information is disseminated across several media platforms.
The perception of bias is the focus of what researchers identify as the hostile media phenomenon. Audiences are identified as perceiving neutral messages to be biased against their position. Most audiences are protective over their groups and may view any ideas against their own beliefs as biased (Coe et al., 2008). Some news sources are observed as being more discriminative than others. Hence, even when a particular news source is disseminating biased information, some audiences may prefer to perceive this as their accepted truth. This shows that while new media has supported the increased dissemination of information and ideas, it has also facilitated the increased distribution or acceptance of biased and discriminative information by specific audiences.
References
Coe, K., Tewksbury, D., Bond, B. J., Drogos, K. L., Porter, R. W., Yahn, A., & Zhang, Y. (2008). Hostile news: Partisan use and perceptions of cable news programming. Journal of communication , 58 (2), 201-219.
Lee, L. A. (2017). Black Twitter: A response to bias in mainstream media. Social Sciences , 6 (1), 26.
Sobieraj, S., & Berry, J. M. (2011). From incivility to outrage: Political discourse in blogs, talk radio, and cable news. Political Communication , 28 (1), 19-41.
