'News Deserts' and "Fixing" Journalism (Especially Local News)

In an article I recently discovered, the author first begins by speaking of the future of local news and the rise of digital. They explored the main challenges face by local news and the consequences those difficulties have on our society as a whole. Due to this fact, the decline of print and ad sales has depleted basically all resources for small independent papers and this is leading to a chain of reactions that has caused 'news deserts' in areas across the nation. News deserts are places where there is little to no local media in existence anymore due to the difficulty of having to compete with national news outlets. This lack of local reporting infrastructure is problem for both journalism and can also lead to negative, global consequences as well. One of these consequences is the lack of trust in our current attitude towards the press. This lack of trust that the people have in the press only seems to keep rising.

The author of this article also offered three suggestion at the end of his piece as well:

1. Listen More: Trust with audience is built on communication and transparency. A senior editor gave a suggestion on how we could "fix" journalism and referenced how 'town halls' between the communities and journalists could possibly help bridge this gap of trust.

2. Break Down the Newsroom Walls: Another way journalists could increase trust with audiences is by breaking down walls and lowering the iron curtain between the readers and the newsroom.

3. Don't Write Off Local News: It is suffering because it is not prioritized. Stories produced by local news can get out in the large amount/saturation of content that is now available on media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter.r

*News Article: https://medium.com/uo-super-j-in-nyc-2016/columbia-journalism-review-taking-on-the-year-that-changed-journalism-df4830d09c25

Is Media Consolidation Leading to Even More Agenda Setting?

Agenda setting has become even more prevalent in this day in age due to the consolidation of media that has occurred quite dramatically over the past few decades. In an article and infographic I discovered online, it reveals that 6 media giants now control over 90% of what we read, watch, or listen to. The media has never been more consolidated.

Just only a few decades ago American media was owned by 50 companies 1983, now that number has plummeted to just 6 companies. Theres six companies are:

1.) GE

2.) News-Corp

3.) Disney

4.) Viacom

5.) Time Warner

6.) CBS

This means that only 232 media executives control the information that is fed to 277 million Americans everyday. For ever 850,000 subscribers, there is only ONE media executive in control. These "big six" control 70% of our cable, whole 3,762 businesses contribute to the other 30%.
New Corp, which is one of the “big six”  owns the top newspapers on 3 different continents.  These newspapers are Wall Street Journal, The Sun, and The Australian. The radio is also dominated as well. Clear Channel owns 1,200 stations around the country. Back in 1995, The FCC forbade compares from ever owning even 40 stations at the time. Furthermore, the "big six" also control movie outlets as well. They collectively hit $7 billion in box office sales in 2010, which is two times more in box office sale than the next 140 studios who only made $3.5 billion combined.

*News Article: http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6

Social Media is Leading to Rethinking

In an article on Pew Research Center, the author Monica Anderson describes how social media users occasionally change their minds about political candidates and issues due to the exposure to the range of new ideas and viewpoints that they encounter. The article explains, "overall, 20 percent of social media users say they've modified their stance on social or political issue because of material they saw on social media, and 17 percent say social media has helped to change their views about a specific political candidates." The research shows that liberal democrats in particular are a bit more likely to say they have ever modified their views on political issue compared to republicans.

In addition, the survey described in the article also asked respondents to tell them in their own words about a recent time that they had rethought an issue/idea due to social media in which they found a number of distinct themes that emerged. The most common theme mentioned by respondents was the major presidential candidates as the "political or social issue" they changed their minds on. Around 1-in-5 users mentions either Donald Trump (18%) or Hillary Clinton (21%), and around 1-in-10 referenced Bernie Sanders. A lot of times, the people who said they changed their minds on a candidate revealed that social media pointed their opinion in a negative dictation on that candidate.  Respondents who indicated they had changed their minds about Clinton were more than three times as likely to say that their opinion changed in a negative and respondents who mentioned Trump were nearly five times as likely to say that their opinion became more negative.

 Although, the research does show that only SOME have been swayed by the information the social media sites. The majority of users said they never modified their views on a particular  candidate (82% of respondents) and also they never changed their views on political issue (79% of respondents) based on things they say on social media. 

*News Article: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/07/social-media-causes-some-users-to-rethink-their-views-on-an-issue/