Consider the sea of youths rioting in the streets, often about an event for which they have few actual facts. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the Left has a large percentage of today’s youth in its clutches. To understand why so many young people are hopelessly deluded by a Leftist media onslaught, which invariably depicts America as evil, it’s useful to step back.
In November 1990, 25 leading academics and media researchers gathered for a conference on, "The Impact of the Media on Children and the Family." One of the organizers commented, "Given the diversity of participants, the conference reached a surprising consensus that values in much of the mass media, especially in violent and sexually explicit materials, are on a collision course with traditional family values and the protection of children."
Following the conference, the coordinators reviewed available literature on the impact of the brutal and graphic elements in the media. "This review found harmful effects in 86% of the studies and ends the debate about whether or not there is harm."
A Deficit of Reality
The issue isn't merely the prominence of anti-social messages, it is also the glaring deficit of opposing more-socially supporting messages that could promote unselfishness, patriotism, deferred gratification, support fro the U.S. Constitution, and even respect for authority. As former Secretary of Education William Bennett noted, there are many influences on the life of a young person. He felt that we could handle TV in popular culture to a greater degree if other institutions are doing their job.
On some level, virtually every adult knows that because we see something in the news or on the web doesn’t mean we ought to believe it. The media can be, and increasingly is, guilty of intentional misrepresentations. With any news you glean from the big three TV networks, cable news outlets, online media giants, The Washington Post, and The New York Times – especially The New York Times – it is vital to be able to distinguish real information from the barrage of Leftist misinformation.
More Intact than Depicted
Consider the media machine’s long-running assertions about the state of the American family. In his now classic book, Hollywood Versus America, Michael Medved observed that Hollywood’s perspective on the American family reflects novelty-seeking, eccentricity, and nonconformity.
Hollywood highlights people running to sperm banks, single mothers, and absent, hostile fathers. Contrary to all this, traditional patterns of family life remain surprisingly intact. Within the last generation, the U.S. Bureau of the Census figures indicated that most children in America under 18 lived with both parents.
"While out of wedlock child rearing is given inordinate attention on TV, evidence is overwhelming that such arrangements are disastrous for the children involved," Medved noted.
Stanford University's Center for the Study of Youth Development showed that compared to their peers who live with both parents, and independent of income, race, or ethnicity, children in single-parent families have:
-- higher arrest rates
-- more disciplinary problems in school
-- a greater tendency to smoke, and
-- a greater tendency to run away from home.
Children raised by never-married mothers are nearly three times more likely to spend more than 10 years on welfare than children raised by divorced single mothers. Television producers don't care about these numbers and don't read books that contain them – unless, of course, they have to testify before Congress.
On a Collision Course: Google Leads the Charge
The nature of your own life can be altered as a result of the misinformation and unreality that has glutted society's information channels. A sizable chunk of what it means to live in a democracy and to be a citizen has eroded because of deliberate media manipulation and, increasingly, web misinformation dissemination.
Liberal Harvard professor, Dr. Robert Epstein, conducted a study of Google’s 2016 election algorithm searches. He determined that the results markedly favored Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. Epstein, now vigorously smeared by Google and major news sites, found that the monopolistic search engine “bias-steered” 2.6 million more votes to Clinton. This was achieved primarily by accenting affirming news about Hillary and disaffirming news about Trump.
Epstein’s research indicated that, nationwide, Google’s biased search algorithms steered a total of 78 million votes in 2016 to Democrat candidates, across all U.S. elections. A documentary film, “The Creepy Line,” offers details about the work of Epstein and others in this inquiry.
We are intentionally, unceasingly manipulated by today’s web monopoly giants, who control what we’re allowed to see. Let the news and information consumer beware because this trend might not fade soon.