The Majority and the Mass Media
I kept delaying writing this blog post, as I was finding it hard to decide what topic to write about. Just now, I was browsing the online newspapers and there was my topic. A topic that was hard to overlook. Because today the world was shocked by the outcome of the US presidential election.
When I woke up, I instantly reached for my phone to check the current results. I would have never thought that it would actually come to this — Trump was leading. In the course of the morning it became clearer and clearer that he will be the 45th President of the United States of America.
It was certainly one of the most polarizing elections and Trump the most opposed candidate. Everybody was making fun of this TV celebrity/producer/business tycoon/mogul trying to become the new American leader. Already during the campaigning the media was full of him, bur most contributions were negative or ridiculing Trump. But the surprises kept coming and Trump kept fighting and finally made it to the last two.
And even now the newspaper headlines are still not overly positive. Here are some that pop up on the front page or are at least at the top:
- “‘NOT OUR PRESIDENT’: Protests break out across the country shortly after Donald Trump wins election.” (The Guardian),
- “Total Global Disbelief as Trump is elected President” (USA Today),
- “Donald Trump’s victory is a dark day for the world” (The Guardian)
- “A traumatic campaign produces a shocking ending” (The Washington Post)
Only little can be read about Trump’s ‘success’ and that is exactly the thing that made me wonder: the newspapers basically tell us that the majority voted wrong, that they dug their own graves. But if the majority voted for Trump, isn’t that the mass? And should the so-called mass media then not report at least 50% about the victory in a positive/neutral way? Where are the congratulations, the celebrations, the voices of the supporters? They are somewhere down at the bottom, only a miniature section, easy to scroll over.
Even though I am not a Trump supporter, what does that tell us about the news and important topics? It tells us that the news are not neutral, that news are perspectives and that they influence us to go into a direction.
We should always scroll down to the bottom and read the smaller headlines.
Dear God, America what have you done?’: How the world and its media reacted as Donald Trump became US President-elect http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/09/us-election-the-world-holds-its-breath-as-polls-close-in-america/
