“We criticize yet we consume"

“Gallup Poll (Jones, 2004) reported that
54% of Americans had even a ‘fair amount of trust and confidence in the media’
49% think media news organizations are ‘highly professional’
39% think the media are ‘moral’


Media consumption is a two way street. The media can produce all the irrelevant or inaccurate content they want, but we can’t lay the blame entirely on them if we keep watching. If a cable news channel airs a story about Celebrity X and it gets good ratings, then we are in effect giving them permission—even encouragement—to keep more similar stories coming. Is it the fault of the news stations as the suppliers? Yes, to a large degree. But we are also culpable because our choices create the demand.

Many people counted in the 54% of Americans who don’t even have a “fair amount of trust and confidence in the media” are still media consumers. I would bet most of the people polled who don’t trust the media are not worried about they themselves being corrupted by the media. This appears to be an instance of the “third-person” effect Stanley Baran writes about in Mass Communication: Media Literacy and Culture.

Baran says that we “disregard media’s power through the third-person effect—the common attitude that others are influenced by media messages but that we are not. That is, we are media literate enough to understand the influence of mass communication on the attitudes, behaviors, and values of others, but not self-aware or honest enough to see its influence on our lives." (p30) Most people seem to be wary of the morality of the news, but don’t see how it affects their own morality.

If we keep seeing stories about Muslim extremists, that may affect our attitudes towards Muslims in general, albeit slowly and subtly. If you ask someone, they’ll probably say that they know not all Muslims are terrorists, but who can say if their opinions haven’t been subconsciously affected by what they’ve seen on TV. So while people may decry the media as morally derisive, until we admit that it may be affecting ourselves as well, and start altering our behavior accordingly, we’ll continue to give tacit approval to the news media.

By continuing to watch, we’re saying “we like this, give us more”. If we continue to “criticize yet consume” we are no better than political dissenters who don’t vote. It’s the basic economic principle of supply and demand; our end of the bargain is simple enough: decrease demand. Turn the channel. Or turn the TV off. I have a “fair amount of confidence” that that would send the message.