Dominating the Medium, Republicans and Democrats

Media is a business, like any other, giving customers what they want. Anyone searching for information, can find a source that presents it in the most appealing way. So I don't attribute biased reporting and analysis to the rich or elite; it's a consequence of supply/demand.

If people were rational, none of this would matter.

Quoting Shawn

So, why is it that Republicans in the US just dominate the airwaves and internet social media sites? I mean Mark Zuckerberg was grilled pretty badly after Russia interfered with the 2016 elections. Now, Elon Musk with X.com has likely interfered with this election cycle. One can wonder how much of a ego-trip these rich billionaires had or have had.

So, is it the case that it is just the ultra-wealthy and elite supporting their own candidates?

Left = legacy media = $$. Right = grassroots media & free speech. Do a quick search on the fundraising and spending numbers from the left and the right in the last election. That Trump won big despite having less money and less favorable press completely undermines your silly thesis.

(Of course, the far-left is largely excluded from the wealth and power of the center-left. It is an uneasy alliance.)

Quoting Shawn

So, why is it that Republicans in the US just dominate the airwaves and internet social media sites?

Americans just absolutely hate the establishment. And they hate to be told what to think especially by the liberal elite. The successful populist always creates this image where he's the outcast, he's the one against the mighty and in favor of the ordinary people who are downtrodden and thus he's the chance for change. That creates the momentum.

Even if it's all bullshit, it still can work just fine.


And btw it worked when after a long time of GOP rule the US had Obama. People back then really wanted change and were hopeful, so it can easily be the other way in the duopoly.

Quoting ssu

Americans just absolutely hate the establishment. And they hate to be told what to think especially by the liberal elite.

Yep. And this has become built-in to culture in a remarkable way. I think of movies like The Matrix. The odd thing is that the DNC hasn't at all figured this out. They depend on superficial cultural currents to overcome deeper cultural currents.

Quoting Shawn

Now, Elon Musk with X.com has likely interfered with this election cycle.

"interfered" is a very strong framing.

I can't really see how that could be the case, other than being an extremely visible and vocal person. That said, he certainly influenced it. This is not at all comparable to Russian assets literally trying to mess with voting locations.

Quoting Shawn

So, why is it that Republicans in the US just dominate the airwaves and internet social media sites?

Because commercial communications media, tv, radio, internet, and print, is privately owned. Owners have control of staffing and content. Owners and sponsors have a lot more to gain under Republican administrations than Democratic ones.
In concert with politically aligned state governments, the owning class can get its own way pretty much all the time - except immediately after it's caused an economic collapse. Then, it has to wait for the little people, under liberal leadership, to build something worth exploiting again.

Quoting Leontiskos

Right = grassroots media & free speech.

When it comes to the airwaves, this is factually wrong. The truth is just the opposite. Fox News is not and never has been grassroots. It was started by Rupert Murdoch and is controlled by the Murdoch family. Sinclair Broadcasting is the second largest television operator in the US. When tuning in to there local TV station many might think that the news is reported by independent anchors, but they are reading from scripts with a conservative bias prepared centrally by Sinclair that goes out to all of their affiliates nationwide. iHeart Media is the largest owner of radio stations. This conservative group is hardly grassroots growing through mergers and accusations.

When it comes to X this is factually wrong. It is neither grassroots or free speech.

When it comes to podcasts this is factually wrong. Right wing shows dominate. It is not even close.

Quoting Fooloso4

Right = grassroots media & free speech.
— Leontiskos

When it comes to the airwaves, this is factually wrong.

But when it comes to the main stream legacy media (three major networks, all major newspapers, oldest cable news company) and their rockstars in Hollywood (99% of movies and TV shows, and the wise and sagacious universities, this is factually accurate. The right has carved out a kid’s table on two cable tv stations, a couple internet sites and AM radio (the kind of radio our grandparents invented).

Dems lose the Make America Great argument because they don’t think America was ever great nor do they really want it to be. The one time Dems are consistently honest is when a sentence has the words “great” and “America” in it - they instinctually insert the word “not” is those sentences.

Quoting Shawn

What are your thoughts on the matter?

Over the decades we have seen a revolving door which roughly alternates Democratic and Republican administrations. Same for control of congress, state legislatures, and governorships. It isn't altogether predictable who will be ushered in at the next election, but it is going to be one party or the other.

Sometimes there is a clear shift -- an unpopular war like Vietnam can favor the party not in power. Picking a candidate that is too far from the mainstream like McGovern was, may help an otherwise unpopular incumbent stay in power.

Had Biden bowed out of the race in January 2024, thus enabling the Democratic Party to conduct the proper process of candidate selection, the results might have been in the Dem's favor, campaign spending staying the same all round.

At any rate, the equal concern of the Republicans and Democrats is to stay in power. If the party in power can solve problems, great. If they didn't improve life for Americans, they will still want to maintain their hold on power.

Voters are left to guess who will do the most good and the least harm. Often the evidence is nothing better than specious campaign promises and specious campaign attacks mixed in with a little factual information,

Quoting Fire Ologist

Dems lose the Make America Great argument because they don’t think America was ever great nor do they really want it to be. The one time Dems are consistently honest is when a sentence has the words “great” and “America” in it - they instinctually insert the word “not” is those sentences.

But I've never heard them call it a garbage can.

Reply to Fire Ologist

According to Fox News:

FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service and has been the number one network in basic cable for the last eight years and the most-watched television news channel for more than 22 consecutive years, currently attracting nearly 50% of the cable news viewing audience according to Nielsen Media Research. Notably, Nielsen/MRI Fusion has consistently shown FNC to be the network of choice for more Democrat and Independent viewers, with the most politically diverse audience in cable news. Additionally, a 2023 New York Times/Siena College poll found FNC as the leading single source of news for voters across the country. Owned by Fox Corporation, FNC is available in nearly 70 million homes and dominates the cable news landscape, routinely notching the top 10 programs in the genre.

https://press.foxnews.com/2024/10/fox-news-channel-sees-second-highest-rated-october-in-network-history-during-an-election-year#:~:text=FOX%20News%20Channel%20(FNC)%20is,audience%20according%20to%20Nielsen%20Media

Quoting Fire Ologist

wise and sagacious universities

New College of Florida, the small liberal arts college historically ranked among U.S. News and World Report’s top 75 institutions, has fallen 24 places. Now it risks dropping out of the top-100 category entirely.

This double-digit tumble is due in part to Governor Ron DeSantis’ overhaul of the school to transform it into a decidedly right-wing institution—a “Hillsdale of the South,” in reference to the conservative college in Michigan. DeSantis appointed right-wing activists to the board of trustees, replaced the college’s president and other administrators with political allies who have no experience in higher education, and gutted one-third of the faculty along with the diversity and equity department. The board has even relocated students to hotels to accommodate incoming athletes’ use of campus living spaces.

This type of college takeover is a new, more sinister development in a longstanding conservative practice. The right has spent decades creating parallel and competing structures in areas including political news, social media, and even consumer goods. This time, instead of offering students a conservative alternative in higher education, DeSantis and his allies are gutting an existing institution from the inside.

https://time.com/6319108/conservative-universities/

Quoting Leontiskos

Right = grassroots media & free speech.

Free speech?! You are being gaslighted.

America’s right-wing forces would have you believe that they are the courageous entities standing up for free speech.

But, as they try to claim that mantle, many of those same forces in media and politics are behind a disturbing wave of book bans sweeping the nation.
PEN America, a non-profit organization committed to protecting free expression, published an alarming report Tuesday indicating that the “book ban crisis” is only getting worse. The bans are “speeding up,” the organization warned in its report, a troublesome trend that is impacting public school systems from coast-to-coast.

“There were over 4,000 instances of book bans in the first half of this school year—more than all of last school year as a whole. This is a marked increase in comparison to the last spring semester, in which PEN America recorded 1,841 book bans,” the group said in the report, aptly titled “Banned in the USA.”

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/17/media/right-wing-book-bans-accelerating/index.html

A link to the PEN report.

In public libraries:

Suddenly book bans and other forms of censorship in schools and libraries are ascendant across the country, led by organized groups and politicians. Last year saw a record-breaking 1,269 efforts to censor books and resources nationwide, nearly twice as many as in 2021, according to the American Library Association (ALA). The ALA used to receive 300 to 400 reports a year of efforts to ban books, says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, “but in 2020 we suddenly began receiving a growing number of reports — from one to two a week, if any, to five or six in a single day.”

https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/ed-magazine/23/11/book-bans-and-librarians-who-wont-be-hushed

Quoting Shawn

So, why is it that Republicans in the US just dominate the airwaves and internet social media sites?

I live in Europe and virtually all the news that I saw being pushed via the local legacy media and via internet media was pro-Harris, so I'm scratching my head at the idea that the Republicans dominated the airwaves.

My impression is that precisely because the Republicans did not dominate the legacy media (since I'm not an American we may have different experiences here) they took it to the alternative media which turned out to be a lot more impactful than people thought possible.

Even the wildly popular Joe Rogan podcasts did not get pushed, even though they should have clearly 'gone viral'. To me, this suggests certain social media sites may have even tampered with the algorithms to suppress Trump's campaign material.

It appears the establishment's former domination of the legacy media is no longer effective, since people have probably tuned out en masse and switched to alternative media. And also, people are wisening up to the ways the establishment tries to control what information reaches them online.

That party’s politics don’t translate well to social media because it’s one large attempt at play-acting. They require studios and actors. Just watch what happened when Harris’ teleprompter stopped working, for example, or clips of Biden’s demented behavior once he’s stumbled away from his handlers.

All of it is so contrived that to try it on social media is to expose them as fakes and frauds. Harris makes a call from a voter but when she shows her phone the camera app is open. Little things like that accumulate in that space and avoiding it is an imperative for a campaign premised on fakery.

Quoting Shawn

So, is it the case that it is just the ultra-wealthy and elite supporting their own candidates? What are your thoughts on the matter of the medium being dominated by conservatives more-so than democrats, and what does this actually mean about having their talking-points heard more than one or the other?

Historically, politics has been reserved by and for the rich & powerful, leaving the masses (hoi polloi) to meekly accept whatever policies are decided at the top. Athens had a brief experiment with Democracy, but only for a minority group of nobles & landowners. Even when the unwashed masses were excluded, Plato was skeptical & sarcastic of such a political mechanism : "Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike". But he later came to view popular rule as inherently "corrupt and unjust"*1 ; hence his imaginary ideal leader was a Philosopher King. Unfortunately, such rational, ethical, and egalitarian leaders have proven to be rare among the opposing interest groups of human politics.

Modern Democracy has been experimenting with allowing the unruly & irrational & gullible mobs of the masses to have a vote in state policy. But even where universal education is established, the majority of self-interested voters have proven to be no more rational & philosophical than the ego-centric minority of ambitious oligarchs. And both groups are easily swayed by clever con-men, who learn what the various vested interests want to hear, and feed their heart's desires back to them in the form of simplistic myths (MAGA), and by making controversial & ambiguous statements that the mass media feel compelled to cover. He dominates unpaid media exposure by playing to their bias toward covering fears and faith. :smile:


*1. What did Plato say about democracy?
At the death of Socrates, Plato concluded that democracy was a corrupt and unjust form of government. He left Athens and traveled for a few years before returning in 387 B.C. to establish a school of philosophy.
https://teachdemocracy.org/online-lessons/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-19-4-c

Reply to Shawn, good point

The Democrats try to get voters to vote in their own interests. They appeal to the voter's rationality (that's why they lost).

The Republicans have to get voters to vote against their own interests. They appeal to emotion (that's why they won).

This is all backed up in a wonderful book I read, by Jonathan Haidt:

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion