\n\n“No amount of evidence, on virtually any topic, is likely to move public opinion one way or the other. We can attribute some of this to rank partisanship \u2014 some people simply refuse to acknowledge inconvenient facts about their own side.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there\u2019s another, equally vexing problem. We live in a media ecosystem that overwhelms people with information. Some of that information is accurate, some of it is bogus, and much of it is intentionally misleading. The result is a polity that has increasingly given up on finding out the truth. As Sabrina Tavernise and Aidan Gardiner<\/a> put it in a New York Times piece, \u201cpeople are numb and disoriented, struggling to discern what is real in a sea of slant, fake, and fact.\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “it\u2019s the consequence of a deliberate strategy. It was distilled almost perfectly by Steve Bannon<\/a>, the former head of Breitbart News<\/a> and chief strategist for Donald Trump. \u201cThe Democrats don\u2019t matter,\u201d Bannon reportedly said in 2018. \u201cThe real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “What we\u2019re facing is a new form of propaganda that wasn\u2019t really possible until the digital age. And it works not by creating a consensus around any particular narrative but by muddying the waters so that consensus isn\u2019t achievable.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “creating widespread cynicism about the truth and the institutions charged with unearthing it erodes the very foundation of liberal democracy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The role of \u201cgatekeeping\u201d institutions has also changed significantly. Before the internet and social media, most people got their news from a handful of newspapers and TV networks. These institutions functioned like referees, calling out lies, fact-checking claims, and so on. And they had the ability to control the flow of information and set the terms of the conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, gatekeepers still matter in terms of setting a baseline for political knowledge, but there\u2019s much more competition for clicks and audiences, and that alters the incentives for what\u2019s declared newsworthy in the first place. At the same time, traditional media outlets remain committed to a set of norms that are ill adapted to the modern environment. The preference for objectivity in political coverage, in particular, is a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Joshua Green, who wrote a biography of Bannon, explained<\/a>, Bannon\u2019s lesson from the Clinton impeachment in the 1990s was that to shape the narrative, a story had to move beyond the right-wing echo chamber and into the mainstream media. That\u2019s exactly what happened with the now-debunked Uranium One story<\/a> <\/strong>that dogged Clinton from the beginning of her campaign \u2014 a story Bannon fed to the Times, knowing that the supposedly liberal paper would run with it because that\u2019s what mainstream media news organizations do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this case, Bannon flooded the zone with a ridiculous story not necessarily to persuade the public that it was true (although surely plenty of people bought into it) but to create a cloud of corruption around Clinton. And the mainstream press, merely by reporting a story the way it always has, helped create that cloud.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “This all intersects with political polarization<\/a> in troubling ways. One consequence of pervasive confusion about what\u2019s happening is that people feel more comfortable siding with their political tribe. If everything\u2019s up for grabs, and it\u2019s hard to sift through the competing narratives to find the truth, then there\u2019s nothing left but culture war politics. There\u2019s \u201cus\u201d and \u201cthem,\u201d and the possibility of persuasion is off the table.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It\u2019s worth noting that this polarization is asymmetric. The left overwhelmingly<\/a> receives its news from organizations like the New York Times, the Washington Post, or cable news networks like MSNBC or CNN. Some of the reporting is surely biased, and probably biased in favor of liberals, but it\u2019s still (mostly) anchored to basic journalistic ethics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a recent book<\/a> by three Harvard researchers explains, this just isn\u2019t true of the right. American conservative media functions like a closed system, with Fox News at the center<\/a>. Right-wing outlets are less tethered to conventional journalistic ethics and exist mostly to propagate the bullshit they produce.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “this has created an atmosphere that has helped Trump. The Trump administration has been remarkably successful at muddying the waters on Ukraine and impeachment, and Republicans in Congress<\/a> have helped by parroting the administration\u2019s talking points.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n