Media & Political Polarization
Introduction
Media & political polarization has intensified exclusion, disconnection among different class of people since last decades. In the United States, people are more divided along party lines than ever before. In the past two decades, the percentage of Americans who consistently hold liberal or conservative beliefs—rather than a mix of the two, which is the case for most people—has jumped from 10 percent to over 20.
Main stakeholders
Impact on stakeholders
Readers
Positive
With the rising of social media and more media channels nowadays, readers are provided with more access to resources and topics they are interested in or share similar opinions on.
Negative
While algorithms are sending a reader more personalized feeds, it could create a filter bubble, which is a state of intellectual isolation.
As a result, people become separated from information that disagrees with their viewpoints, effectively isolating them in their own cultural or ideological bubbles. In more challenging situations, they might feel intimidated/assaulted by news against their standpoint.
Journalist
Positive
Journalists can gain more freedom to explore certain parts of topics and dig into information more in depth. Because there are more media channels besides mass media, journalists now have a broader platform to publish their work and share opinions with the readers.
Negative
Because of the political polarization, journalists' work could be subjective and greatly influenced by political ideology or affiliation to certain parties. To favor certain groups of stakeholders, they might go down the path to be extreme, only focusing on specific aspects of news and mainly advocating one side, which further exacerbates the polarization.
News publishers
Positive
Polarized news is lucrative for news publishers. Because extreme supporters tend to be obsessed with reading polemic topics, media can monetize user engagement. Also, businesses or political parties would financially support the polarized news if they think the news is aligned with their business/political goals.
Negative
Readers will lose credibility on news. As people are losing their trust, they would lose their interest in news as well, and the number of readers would decrease. It would be challenging for new publishers to increase their users.
Tech companies
Positive
Media & Political Polarization could lead to more discussions between the parties on their platforms. As emotionally driven partisans start seeking reinforcement for their views and engage more on social media platforms, the business could monetize their behavior and gain real economic benefits as a result.
Negative
As polarization becomes more severe, companies are getting more attention and blame from society and government, leading to potential legal issues and regulations against them to change.
Politicians
Positive
Inflammatory news would easily catch more public attention. Politicians could use polarized information as a tool to gain more loyal advocates to their party. A large number of supporters help them gain more reputation.
Negative
If supporters are too polarized, politicians would be challenged to convince people who have different opinions. The number of supporters will remain still. In order not to lose their supports, they would stick to the polarized opinions.
Global society
Positive
As media channels increase nowadays, the global society would have more channels to hear different points of view to lead to a richer discussion in a global scale.
Negative
Increased political polarization exacerbates the divide, intolerance and discrimination, diminishes societal trust, and increases violence in the society. "In country-by-country instances of pernicious polarization, it is common to see the winner exclude the loser from positions of power or using means to prevent the loser from becoming a threat in the future. In these situations, the loser typically questions the legitimacy of the institutions allowing the winner to create a hegemony, which causes citizens to grow cynical towards politics."
When people have more freedom and media channels to voice opinions, it could lead to misinformation and disinformation. Rumors could get spread and accepted a lot faster than before.
Key relationships between macro stakeholders
Individual vs Business
People would desire to get more access to different points of views. However, it is difficult for readers to obtain information from diverse perspectives, as new algorithms recommend similar topics and themes only. The limited point of view accelerates the instability and divide in society.
Individual vs Society & Planet
Bipolarized news tends to be stimulating and provocative. It prevents readers from considering diverse aspect of an issue. As some readers are obsessed with the particular aspect of the issues, not everyone would believe that people and society should work on primary global issues such as environmental crisis and virus pandemic.