The American Media and Our Perspective: A Focus on Donald Trump
I am a pretty confident person, with strong beliefs on the difference between right and wrong- most people are. The majority of people, including myself, will tell you that their decisions are their own. They will tell you that they made a conscience decision based on their own personal beliefs. What if we’re wrong? What if none of our decisions are, in fact, our own, but what we were told to believe?
In an age where technology and the media are almost unavoidable, we are influenced by what we see whether we like it or not. You may say, “no that’s not me!”, but take this as an example: you, personally believe that mustard is doesn’t taste good because you’ve tried it multiple times and you’ve never liked it. However, what would happen if you showed up to school/work one day and everyone was talking about the new mustard our cafeteria just got and asked if you wanted to try? What if you opened up your twitter feed and everyone was tweeting about how much they loved the new mustard? What if you went home and turned on the television to find the new mustard ad displayed in front of your face? And what if your mom texted you asking if you had heard about the new mustard, knowing already, that you’ve hated it your entire life?
Do you think you might try it?
Something so simple as a food you dislike can be influenced by the media. And the most concerning thing about it is it doesn’t just last a day- it’s constant, never-ending, timeless. After awhile you might just learn to love what you once hated, just because that’s what the media told you to do.
Thinking on a more relevant topic, Donald Trump, our recent president elect has an interesting relationship with the media. One that is so different than our past presidents, but maybe it’s because the media is more prevalent now than ever.
You either love him, or you hate him and the media makes that obvious. Scrolling through various news platforms it’s easy to see the difference between who approve of Mr. Trump and those who believe he is a bully that will run our country into the ground. It’s all about perspective, at least that’s what we tell ourselves. The perspectives that we obtain are based on the articles we read.
For example, just this past week, Donald Trump had a very controversial press conference that was covered heavily by a lot of major news platforms. The content each media source included in their articles was different. They chose specific things they wanted to share in order to get their personal message across.
New York Times focused an article on Trumps response to a Jewish reporter when he asked the president a question. Trump dismissed the reporter and claimed that his question wasn’t “simple enough” for him to answer. The article states that Trump commanded the reporter to sit down and continued on to other reporters. The question I want to raise is, why include that the reporter is Jewish? Yes, Trump was disrespectful to a reporter, but the situation in itself had nothing to do with the fact that he was Jewish. This specific article hints that Trump dismissed the reporter just because he is Jewish. The news report won’t say it explicitly, but as media consumers, we need to read between the lines.
CNN talked about the press conference in relation with Donald Trumps relationship with the republican party. Marco Rubio stated, “It’s been four weeks so it’s not like we’re talking about four months — I know it might feel like four months — but it’s been four weeks”. Speaking from the perspective of a republican, they still seem to support the president rather than resent him. Again, this shows how the news source you use will shape the way you see things.
Based on the news platform people read, that’s the opinion they will most likely side with and that’s just because people don’t know any better. That’s why it’s important for us to get our opinions from multiple sources, so we aren’t biased. We have the ability to make our opinions a little more our own.
