Discuss How The News Audience Has Changed Since The 1970s

Discuss how the news audience has changed from the 1970s until now

Since the 1970s, the news audience in the United States has undergone significant transformation driven by technological, social, and cultural shifts. During the 1970s, the primary sources of news were primarily newspapers, radio, and the three major television networks—ABC, CBS, and NBC—offering relatively centralized and homogeneous news content. Audiences were largely passive consumers, with news consumption occurring at scheduled times, fostering a shared national information environment (Fico, 2016). The rise of television as the dominant medium altered how Americans received news, emphasizing visual storytelling and immediacy, which amplified the influence of broadcast journalism (McChesney & Nichols, 2010).

In contrast, today’s news landscape is markedly fragmented and democratized owing to the proliferation of digital platforms, social media, and online news sources. The advent of the internet has allowed consumers to access news anytime and anywhere, creating a highly personalized news environment. This shift has led to an explosion of niche media outlets and citizen journalism, resulting in diverse and sometimes conflicting narratives (Boczkowski & Peer, 2011). However, this fragmentation has also fostered challenges such as misinformation, fake news, and echo chambers, which complicate the pursuit of unbiased information (Tandoc et al., 2018). While traditional journalism aims for objectivity, the current media environment often sees a blending of factual and opinion-based content, making it difficult for Americans to find unbiased news reliably (Baquet & Gollust, 2013).

Furthermore, audience participation has increased through social media, where users are both consumers and producers of news, impacting the dynamics of credibility and accountability (Johnson & Kaye, 2014). Overall, the essence of news consumption has shifted from a passive, consensus-based experience to an active, individualized, and often polarized pursuit. This evolution raises questions about the ability of Americans to access truly unbiased information amid a proliferation of competing often partisan sources (Mitchell et al., 2019). Consequently, the modern news audience is characterized by diversity in preferences, critical engagement, and a heightened susceptibility to misinformation, which fundamentally alters perceptions of transparency, credibility, and objectivity in news today (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017).

References

• Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social media and fake news in the 2016 election. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 31(2), 211–236.
• Baquet, C., & Gollust, S. E. (2013). Learning from the past: Public health journalism and the Ebola outbreak. Journal of Health Communication, 18(2), 147–152.
• Boczkowski, P. J., & Peer, S. (2011). The news gap: When the information medium switches from print to digital. Routledge.
• Fico, F. G. (2016). The media education movement and the commercialization of the news: Reconsidering the role of the media literacy movement. Communication, Culture & Critique, 9(3), 385–402.
• Johnson, T. J., & Kaye, B. K. (2014). Credibility of social network news sources. Communication & Society, 27(2), 47–60.
• McChesney, R. W., & Nichols, J. (2010). The death and life of American journalism. The New Press.
• Mitchell, A., Gottfried, J., Kaye, J., & Shea, M. (2019). The State of the News Media. Pew Research Center.
• Tandoc, E. C., Jr., Lim, Z. W., & Ling, R. (2018). Defining “Fake News”: A typology of scholarly definitions. Digital Journalism, 6(2), 137–153.