Cultural Schizophrenia: US Media No Longer Reports Facts, But Appeals To Emotion

The mainstream media in the United States has made a shift in the past few decades.  Now, they appeal to emotions as opposed to reporting the facts. This "cultural schizophrenia" is tearing the U.S. apart at the seams.

Based on the conclusions to a RAND Corporation study, the mainstream media is actively sowing discord in American society, award-winning journalist Chris Hedges tells RT. 

The media is focusing on making two sides hate each other instead of reporting on the facts, and the majority of the public is unaware and doesn't care that their minds are being manipulated by their own emotional responses.

The study, which was released by RAND earlier this week, states that between 1987 and 2017, news content has shifted from event- and context-based reporting to coverage that is "more subjective, relies more heavily on argumentation and advocacy, and includes more emotional appeals." 

According to RT,  prime-time cable news shows and online journalism lead the way in this shift to emotional and hate-based rhetoric. It has been noticed in print journalism as well, the government-funded think tank concluded. This is contributing to what RAND termed "Truth Decay." This is described as a shift away from facts and analysis in public discourse.

Hedges claims that the deterioration of the mainstream media is "far worse" than the RAND report suggests. And he isn't alone in that assessment.

American journalist Matt Taibbi says that the result of this journalistic decay and emotional fear mongering is a public addicted to hating each other. Americans have become addicted to the news that agrees with their bias, and it was set up that way on purpose. The only thing anyone will hear when they turn on the news are stories specifically crafted to manufacture outrage, make you hate the other side, and fuel the addiction to anger. 

The mainstream media has succeeded in addicting the average American to anger and hatred. The idea that the media could profit off of facts was lost long ago. "Commercial structure that created the old media is gone and it has eviscerated journalism within the country because it is not sustainable. We saw it with the collapse of the classified advertising, which was 40 percent of the newspapers' revenues. It is not sustainable economically anymore," Hedges said.

It is becoming difficult to tell apart facts and opinion now, and people believe whatever they want to believe, Hedges explained. "We spent years watching CNN and MSNBC promoting this conspiracy theory that Trump was a Kremlin agent... It was all garbage but it attracted viewers," Hedges added as an example. And, if you don't mind your IQ dropping, turn on MSNBC for just a few minutes. It's likely you'll still hear something about Russiagate to keep the public ticked off beyond comprehension.

Now people can claim their emotions as facts and never have to actually view anyone who disagrees with them as a fellow human being.  This will be successful at keeping the fighting amongst the public as the politicians steal more of their money, take away more of their freedom, and get away with it.

"It creates cultural schizophrenia," Hedges said, noting that he observed this during the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. At that time, the media drove antagonisms and hatreds between ethnic groups. 

Similar things are happening in the US right now, as the left-wing media label all Trump supporters as racists and deplorables," Hedges said. "It all creates societal fragmentation and discord," Hedges told RT. "These schisms could lead to civil unrest - that is what happens here."

"You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic."

The good news is that many are now waking up to this reality with the publication of a new poll this week.  Conducted by the Pew Research Center, the poll found that 64 percent of Americans believe that the media has a damaging effect on the United States – making them more loathed than other often-demonized institutions such as banks (39 percent) and large corporations (53 percent).

Originally published at SHTFplan.com - reposted with permission.