Today, however, this counterforce has been weakened. If the information is to be independent of political and economic pressures, and if the information is not necessary to be popular, but to be fair, then the media structure has instead made it a consumer product, as can fashion. Professional sport, and therefore depends on its success.
Hannah Arendt, the philosopher (and much more) wrote: “Freedom of opinion is a farce if information about facts is not guaranteed and if it is not the facts themselves that make the point of discussion.”
Information should not be present to please anyone; It is there to testify, generalize, and make citizens understand the world better.
It should also resent places of power and point fingers at the failures of society. Information doesn’t always have to be serious and harsh, but that knife has to be playing into the wound. This is her role. Democracy cannot exist without the circulation of free and independent information. Independent of economics, politics, religion, and trends. In an ideal world, you wouldn’t search for information. ” Likes ».
The media crisis, as it is called, is essentially a drain on media revenue for the internet giants (called “GAFAM” for Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft). More than ever, the media must produce content that sells and attracts clicks, or else they shut down.
Often choosing a newspaper’s front page is less about its importance than its ability to drive sales. Sometimes a topic is covered just because it might attract clicks, and is “spreading”. The media sometimes try to find the way to Cheap A bit monotonous topic – which in and of itself is not a bad thing, unless certain topics are dropped just because they are not “chewing”.
This way of doing things is often seen as unavoidable. It’s a bit like taking a job that doesn’t tempt you because you have to pay your bills well, “because you have to live well.” The media sometimes produces the news “because you have to live well”. Everyone does this, in different intensities. Sometimes by assuming it completely, sometimes without acknowledging it, and sometimes by qualifying it with many other commendable factors – for example, enhancing one’s popularity can ensure an individual’s financial health as much as it increases news visibility.
Added to this income crisis False newsFalse news. After a survey conducted in April 2019, researchers noted that “40% of those questioned said they had difficulty distinguishing between factual information and false news.” What has the media done to get people mixed up? Did they say anything too often? Do they lack seriousness? Why do people mistake spelling in the media? Certainly not just for the logo story.
In line with this crisis of fake news, there is a crisis of confidence in the media. Many people do not sympathize with it – a little cultural diversity, the impression of a monopoly of privileged classes, etc.
All this feeds. The lack of presence in the media that is supposed to represent us creates a state of mistrust that in itself opens the door to conspiracy theories or arguments with facts, and hence false news. If Donald Trump and even other less-hot personalities manage to cast doubt in people’s minds, it is because that confidence has diminished. Or the forums have misused it.
Declining confidence is a global trend. If 44% of Canadians trusted the media in 2020 “most of the time,” that number was 52% in 2019. However, Canadians are less suspicious than others, with the global average being 38%.
I went through crises in the last 18 years in the media world. She worked for a weekly newspaper during the Weekly War and at Radio Canada during waves of sales (those from 2009 to 2014). It worked to rebuild CKIA, which is an independent radio station that had just avoided bankruptcy. During the years I worked on We seeI saw him go from a weekly magazine to a monthly magazine and then to an online magazine, but I lose my contract a few months before his activities end. You have seen job combinations on Télé-Québec. I was in Solly During bankruptcy proceedings and its subsequent acquisition by a cooperative formed by workers. My career has been a succession of places of transformation. Or in a tight slip. Or in free fall.
Image provided by the publishing house
Media coverage
Media coverage
Information recovery
Mikael Bergeron
Comprehensive editions, 2020
232 pages
