Rohan Week 16: How Media Influences Memory

Every day, you likely consume some form of news media. In the past, this likely meant watching the evening news. Now, it often takes a different shape: Tiktoks, Twitter posts, and online platforms are all used by media companies to expand their reach. 

Recently, I have noticed that the Washington Post has published Tiktoks explaining the news in a comedic and honestly very clear way. It is interesting to see how news companies are changing their approaches to match the interests of their younger audience. In this way, news groups are able to stay prominent with younger audiences, even if their more traditional means of disseminating information are slowly fading away. 


This change ensures that the media will have a strong influence on Americans of all generations. This means that it will continue to influence our memories of all facets of our society, politics, sports, popular figures, historical events, and much more. The way that the media covers an event plays a pivotal role in how we go on to view this event and plays an enormous role in forming our own values, beliefs, and even biases. 


One reason this may be is because of how prominent the news has become in our lives. Unlike earlier when the news could only be digested on TV or through the physical newspaper, it is now present everywhere. Each time that you open your favorite app to scroll through—Tiktok, Instagram, Youtube, or Twitter—you are more likely than not to see some type of content from a news source that shows up on your feed. Rather than only seeing the news when we want to see the news, we are now given much more abundant opportunities to interact with it. Now, more than ever, there is pressure for news and media companies to put out content at a much faster rate.


This results in a situation where the news media plays a powerful role in shaping our opinions. The way a topic is covered, or even slight fluctuations in diction, or careful omission of a certain detail can drastically change the way we view something. 


This phenomenon alters the way we remember important events. We may remember it with a certain bias, or if the news does not cover it as vigorously as other topics, not remember something at all. It’s truly interesting to reflect on how the media we consume impacts the way we remember certain people or events.  Our memory of certain events in history will continue to influence the way we vote and our values and the things we tell the next generation. 


It is an intriguing chain reaction.


The various parts of the media influence our memory (source)

Comments

  1. Peter ShrMay 15, 2024 at 6:31 PM

    Hi Rohan! I love your exploration of the impact of the news on our daily lives. You create a comprehensive analysis of the dynamic relationship between new audiences and the medium in which the news is conveyed. I also appreciate the relatable examples, as I find short clips online of comedians to be a surprising source of information on current events. There is this push and pull, in which these news companies seek to have the audience to be dependent and expand the base of their recurring viewers. Moreover, with a large audience, each viewer would be more inclined to align with the station’s viewpoints. Your article has an objective tone, as demonstrated by the commentary on the factors behind people’s biases. Often, politicians seek the spotlight from news stations through any means. For instance, regardless of one’s opinion of former President Donald Trump, he successfully took advantage of this situation. In his speeches, he gained immense notoriety and stirred controversy, and the media eagerly publicized his candidacy, both to vilify and glorify him. It is this coverage that gave Trump the edge, as he gathered an enormous amount of support to the media’s surprise. I think that this example serves to reinforce the point that you discussed, in which the impact of the media on public opinion is constantly prevalent and evolving.

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  2. Ayush ChaurasiaMay 17, 2024 at 1:53 PM

    Hi Rohan! I like the topic you chose for this week’s blog post, especially since it discusses a phenomenon that will play a major role in the presidential election later this year; the organized structure of this blog post using short, readable paragraphs also makes the blog’s analysis of the evolution of American media more engaging. One idea in this blog that I relate to is the statement that events can be forgotten if the media does not cover it—in these past couple years, a major pandemic and two wars have occurred, but I often forget that the pandemic and the wars are still occurring because I do not see news stories about them. Another effect of the news that I can relate to is a situation in which a “chain reaction” is caused by constant exposure to a limited amount of news sources, eventually leading to a person completely changing their political views. This makes logical sense since almost every major news source in America demonstrates strong biases in their portrayal of certain events, so a person watching news from only one channel would quickly develop all the same biases. As you said, people’s memories determine their political choices, so it is important for voting citizens to be informed by watching the news from various sources—this strategy ensures that the citizens will see a balanced mix of different perspectives instead of the specific mindset of one news channel, ensuring that the biases of any individual channel will not be able to dominate the person’s mindset.

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