The role of the media in a post-truth era

The role of the media in a post-truth era is a topic that I have long been interested in, and, over time, has evolved into something closer to a hobby, a complex subject that I now find fundamentally unsettling. My own position on the matter initially began to change somewhat around the time of the launch of Donald Trump’s presidential bid in the summer of 2015, when politics seemed to resoundingly nosedive into an established, distinct post-truth era. In the last few weeks, this has rapidly evolved further; my dissertation proposal is based on these themes, and the undertaking of my early research has prompted me to realise that the views that I previously held only constituted, at best, a basic understanding of the issue. I used to perceive the role of the media to be multifaceted, but clear-cut; they investigated, they fact checked, and they reported. That role, to me, not only felt like “enough”, but I - naively - presumed that it was effective. I thought that that process ensured that the public - for the most part, or perhaps at least where it most mattered - understood what was factually true and what was demonstrably false. My understanding of the critical role of the media in publicly exposing both the Watergate scandal and the findings of the Pentagon Papers served to reinforce this fallacy in my mind. 

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When the Trump administration came into power in January 2017, Sean Spicer, the then White House Press Secretary, almost immediately began to uphold and parrot Trump’s blatant lies, perhaps most notably insisting in his debut appearance that Trump had drawn “the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe” (Hunt, 2017) despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The media, of course, quickly disproved his claims. Despite this, I was surprised that people (and I suppose that by “people”, I mean ardent Trump supporters) continued to believe him, but I think I sort of wrote that off as them being, well, ardent Trump supporters. However, as that pattern of behaviour - statements from the White House, thoroughly disproved through established facts presented by the media, but still believed by his supporters - has not only endured but intensified, even as the scale of the lies and claims from the administration has escalated, my blind faith in the power and the affect of the media has concurrently diminished.

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This topic is extensive and complex - it forms the basis of my entire dissertation - so I am intending to only collate some introductory themes here. I think it is perhaps important to first define a recurrent key phrase; I had, until recently, taken the term post-truth to be synonymous with the age of the Trump presidency, but have since encountered it used in relation to the aftermath of George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, in a 2004 book titled ‘When Presidents Lie’. Based on this, I think that it’s possible to surmise that the media has therefore been playing a role in this arena for the past fifteen years. I am curious as to how this role might have changed, influenced, and manifested in post-truth themes between now and then, but the limits of my age and relative recent interest in the topic means that, at this time, I know very little about the capacity of the media in a more historical context. I will therefore be using the term in this submission to primarily define the intervening time period since the launch of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign on June 16th, 2015. 

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I think it is equally important to define what I mean when I say “the media”, and perhaps consider what others might mean by that phrase too. I suppose that in this context I am specifically referring to the news media, and therefore it is perhaps important to actively denote this distinction. I once took the term to stand for the mass deliverance of news to the general public by traditional, established outlets, whether that reporting be internet, print, or television based, and generally irrespective of political leaning, individual agenda and journalistic integrity. This would therefore have encompassed broadcasters such as the BBC, Channel 4 News and Daily Mail here in the UK, through to Fox News and CNN in the US. I think that this is perhaps a now dated understanding of the term; whilst traditional news media is certainly not yet headed for complete obsolesce - and in many ways is arguably more valuable now than ever - the Information Age and the rise of digital media has provided an opportunity for the understanding of what constitutes “news media” to expand and morph into something new. I think that online hosting has allowed certain outlets that did not exist prior to the public availability of the World Wide Web in 1991 - and who arguably sit on the fringes or outside the parameters of what we might consider the bounds of “legitimate” news media - to position themselves in the minds of many as an alternative, legitimate counterpart to recognisable, established news sources. A key example that illustrates this idea is InfoWars, the far-right American conspiracy theory and fake news website, founded in 1999 by Alex Jones.

 

 

There are multiple elements to examine in relation to InfoWars, but for the sake of length, I think the fundamental fact that people like Alex Jones are able to position themselves in the minds of a not insignificant number of people as a legitimate source of media is a highly interesting phenomenon. Numerous factors seem to be involved in this; from his ability to reach a large audience and independently broadcast through a private hosting site - both of which would have been impossible on the pre-Web internet - through to the aesthetic design of his studio set up and the pervasive nature of compelling conspiracy theories. For some people, he presumably forms as much of an integral part of their media diet as the BBC or Channel 4 News do mine. This is a topic that I intend to explore in further depth, particularly in both contrast and relation to Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

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A separate factor in relation to the media in the post-truth era — but one that is presumably linked to the in the reach and power of InfoWars - is the concept of “the backfire effect”; one of the most important things that I’ve encountered in my research so far, and certainly the most alarming. It’s a phenomenon first identified in 2006 by American political scientists and indicates that “people who are entirely convinced by a statement, regardless of how incorrect it might be, cannot be persuaded to change their minds by facts to the contrary. Such evidence only reinforces their belief in the fallacy.” (Tillmans, 2018). I think that I found this discovery particularly unnerving, because it was when I realised that the methodology of traditional media - the concept of reporting and fact checking - relies entirely on this process, and I had always assumed it to be effective; how could people hold on to incorrect beliefs if they were confronted by indisputable evidence to the contrary? I had always assumed that the previously mentioned ardent Trump supporters continued to blindly believe anything and everything that he and his administration said because they were not exposed to, or interacting with, any form of news media that would give them reason to do otherwise. I naively assumed that their ignorance stemmed from an exclusive media diet of Fox News or other right-wing outlets, and that any single piece of comprehensive investigate journalism from a source such as the Washington Post would be enough to change their minds. That’s not to say that I thought that that concept was applicable to every Trump supporter; I’ve watched enough conversations in interviews or town hall forums to understand some that the ideology of some individuals borders on fanatical, but I certainly thought that it was a viable option for the vast majority, and was subsequently unsettled to realise that it was not. As such, if “fake news” - taken literally to mean fabricated news, rather than the routine manner in which Donald Trump employs it to discredit any media outlet that portrays him less than favourably - is spreading, how do we stop it? If the traditional processes used by the news media are demonstrably ineffective, where do we go from here? These are also ideas that I intend to explore.

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In summary, my understanding of a lot of the ideas mentioned or discussed here is still very much in a stage of infancy. I’m beginning to explore them, and the dynamics and relationships between them in increasing depth. I am keen to understand how the role of the news media over the course of the last decade might have impacted - or potentially even contributed to - the rise of post-truth that we are experiencing now. It seems abundantly clear that the role of the news media in a post-truth era is not only fundamentally important in the present moment, but in all likelihood will prove to be of increasingly momentous value over the next ten years. What is perhaps less obvious is the form and appearance that that media might take. 

 

Hunt, E. (2017). Trump's inauguration crowd: Sean Spicer's claims versus the evidence. [online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/ca/22/trump-inauguration-crowd-sean-spicers-claims-versus-the-evidence [Accessed 14 Jun. 2019].

 

Tillmans, W. (2018). Wolfgang Tillmans: my two-year investigation into the post-truth era. [online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/feb/28/wolfgang-tillmans-what-is-different-backfire-effect [Accessed 14 Jun. 2019].