2021 questions (2/365)

[nanila]

 January 2
Has the media influenced your view on the world?

Of course it has. I can imagine very few circumstances under which the answer to this would be "no"? A more interesting version of the question would be "How do you think the media has influenced your view on the world?" Also it is peculiar to treat "the media" as some kind of monolithic entity. I think it's commonly recognised that it most certainly isn't, especially when social media is included. I still consume a large volume of traditional journalism, and deliberately restrict my exposure to the giants of social media, but I suspect this makes me an exception rather than the rule. That scares me a little.

Comments

[cmcmck]

As you said previously, 'The Economist' is a surprisingly valid source.

There's also a Tory members site which provided some intriguing 'what the enemy is thinking' aspects too!

[nanila]

I'm not sure I can muster the necessary resilience to deal with such a site at the moment, but it does sound useful!

[sunflowerinrain]

These question thingies generally seem to be put together by high-school students or for marketing purposes. Reminds me of that popular-with-goths website that started out with amusing questionnaires and ended up as a money-spinning data-gathering.

It's difficult to create a good survey (I made a few in a previous job, and it does your head in if you take it seriously). People really are diverse, and trying to keep the questions sufficiently comprehensive, but short enough not to discourage respondents, is a nightmare.

I used to be quite keen on market research surveys, thinking "at last a chance to push my wants to suppliers", until I became so disillusioned with needing a None-of-the-Above option for nearly every question. One begins to wonder whether one is really a member of the human race. And then, sometimes, one thinks maybe better not to join the club!

[nanila]

Yes, there's always a "What's your mother's maiden name" type question buried in there somewhere, hahaha.

I almost always participate in surveys, but I'll stop if one takes longer than 10 minutes or if the questions are badly framed or repetitive. If I have an issue with the way a question is framed then I will write down in detail the reasons why I hated it, if given a free-text box anywhere in the survey!

[redbird]

Yeah. I can see a question like "which of these media/sources have influenced your view of the world?" or "which of these have most influenced your view of the world?" being interesting or informative. Possibly narrowed down to "recently" or "in the last X years" or "during the pandemic."

All of that still assumes "directly": I haven't been listening to radio or TV broadcasts, but I used to, and there's plenty of indirect stuff, like "Mom watches the news on the BBC most nights, and reads the NY Times online, and talks to me about some of it."

[nanila]

I find radio and internet/print easier to handle than TV; I tend to get too worked up if there are visuals. I do like a good graph, and honestly the pandemic has probably done wonders to elevate public understanding of the good and bad ways in which to plot data!

[silveradept]

Media outlets that I do not listen to nor give the time of the day still end to influencing my view if the world, because the @#*$%$&%!*@§×¶° people who hold political and economic power do, and so I have to reckon with them, even if such reckoning is fundamentally impossible because they do not acknowledge this reality's primacy.

[nanila]

This is true. Also, very scary. :(

[pbristow]

[THUMBS UP ON ALL POINTS]