The Effect of News Deserts in Today's Society

News deserts stood out to me because I have been all too privy to the effects of misinformation on rural, white American communities. I am from Charleston, WV, and when I heard about news deserts, I related to it immediately because it is a very real problem that I see every day.

Since the 2016 election, the nationalization of media has had a negative effect on areas without robust local media, those who want and need news about their local communities. The slow death of local media has created an epistemic closure in conservative, rural areas. This has lead to the popularization of "fake news" stories being widely spread on Facebook, which are usually untrue and extremely misleading. 

There is no easy solution to solve this problem and contradict the narratives that lots of rural white voters have come to believe are true. It is nearly impossible to combat all of the fake news with "real news," especially because most of the sources offering the real news aren't trusted by those in the small communities.

Local media outlets used to be that trusted news source for those in small communities. They are slowly being economically strangled, however, by today's political environment that requires them to turn to nationally syndicated programs and stories, instead of focusing on local events. These problems would most likely be solved by a more robust local media presence, specifically a larger local media online presence, but they lack the means to pay for that.

How the Internet is Fueling Domestic Abuse

So it is no secret to my friends and those around me that I am a feminist and I am very vocal  with my thoughts on the cowardice behind domestic abuse. Individuals who perpetrate domestic violence are weak and awful people and the internet has provided them with new means to harass the men and women they choose to attack. 

The two TED talks that I have included below really inspired me to speak out against the terrors of domestic abuse. Hearing about these two strong, amazing women and what they went through truly shook me to my core, and they truly changed the term "victim" for me. 


In the second video, Darieth Chisholm, TV personality, author and women's rights advocate, talks about her horrible experience with revenge porn. In her talk, she says that 1 in 25 women have been impacted through cyber domestic violence. And for women under 30, that number changes to 1 out of every 10 women!

When I was researching this topic for this blog post, I had difficulty finding any information on this, despite the staggering number of people affected. I found two articles on the subject that, but that isn't nearly enough considering how popular this method of abuse has become! Legislation has failed to be passed to help these women out of this situation and no one seems to be concerned.

TED Talks:
https://www.ted.com/talks/darieth_chisolm_let_s_call_revenge_porn_what_it_is_digital_domestic_violence

https://www.ted.com/talks/leslie_morgan_steiner_why_domestic_violence_victims_don_t_leave?language=en

The Overton Window and Political Opinion Today

The Overton Window is the range of things that constituents are willing to accept and consider. These ideas are what politicians use to run a successful campaign. This window shifts over time, depending on the trends of social thought and norms.

With the political landscape shifting in sometimes startling ways, the Overton Window theory is becoming more and more relevant. Things that were once just an obscure idea have started to gain broader relevance. 

The Overton Window has become a useful tool to keep up with what's going on in the world around us. Policies that were once dismissed for being too extreme, like "Medicare for all", a 70 % top tax rate, sweeping action on climate change or abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, are now being discussed in mainstream political circles.

But the window is a description, not a tactic for achieving political power. Shifting it doesn't mean proposing extreme ideas to make somewhat less extreme ideas seem more reasonable. Overton came up with the theory to explain that the key shifts begin with the public, and political organizations is not to get politicians to support policies outside the window, but to convince voters that policies outside the window should be in it. If they are successful, an idea that was previously thought of as unthinkable can become so inevitable that it is hard to believe it was ever otherwise.

Joseph P. Overton was an executive at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in the 1990s when he introduced the concept now known as the Overton window. He died in 2003.Creditvia The Mackinac Center for Public Policy

I

My Online Footprint

I have never had a good relationship with social media, but I have always had one because it felt like a necessary evil. I was a popular target for cyber bullying when I was younger because I was the first girl in my small, sheltered Catholic school to ever get a 'boyfriend'. I got slandered with the words "slut" and "whore" in person and on my social media pages from the age of 13-15 and that was traumatizing to me. I just remember thinking, "who is seeing these things, and thinking I was a slut when I hadn't even kissed a boy yet?"

Because of that, I have been an advocate for how important it is to teach young girls the emotional dangers of social media. I don't think its fair or appropriate that we are exposed to that kind of sexist ridicule at such a young age, because it really takes a toll on your self esteem and it has a lasting effect. However, as much as I am an advocate of that, I had never actually practiced what I preached. I kept all of my pages, untouched, expect for once every couple of months when I had some photos I felt needed sharing with family and friends because I was truly proud of them. I just couldn't make the plunge into deleting my pages entirely, until my instagram was hacked a couple of weeks ago.

I tried desperately to get it back, but to no avail and I had no choice but to just let it all go. It was isolating, freeing and altogether terrifying. It sounds dramatic but thats the kind of power that social media can have on the youth of today. It goes from a fun way to connect to your friends to a nightmare all too quickly.

Snapchat and the Diffusion of Innovations Theory

Everyone on my campus has a Snapchat account, and usually their parents and family do, too. For me, it is a fun way to share snippets of my life with those that I may have lost touch with and see what my friends from high school are doing in college. Snapchat stories, the most public form of communication on the app, are only 24 hours and so it is a fun way to let people know what's going on with you in a less formal manner than any other social media platform. You can also have private conversations with people that "disappear" when you click out of them, so it provides the personal connections that come with texting with the social aspect of other platforms.

According to this Forbes article, Snapchat started gaining popularity in Los Angeles high schools in 2011. This timing was important because Apple came out with their front facing cameras around the same time, so as the "selfie" became popular, so did the app. It's popularity grew as students encouraged their peers to download the app, similar to how Facebook became viral. The biggest key to the app's amazing success was the early team; they were incredible at listening to and understanding users' concerns and they made changes when they felt they were ready to do so.

Finally, Snapchat started making a lot of money when they provided advertisers and other companies with a way to individually target users in a way that no other app had before. It didn't feel invasive because you still had your personal side of the app, that included conversations with your friends and no ads. On the public side of the app, you could view your friends public stories with ads that you can click through, as well as stories from bigger companies like BuzzFeed and Cosmo. The bigger companies stories include ads that you can't just click through so you have to view the ad for a few seconds if you wanted to continue the story.

They have really turned the app into a viral sensation that is part of my everyday life.

The Importance of the 5th Value of Free Expression

5. Check on Governmental Power (watchdog role)           

 As Watergate, Irangate, Clintongate and all the other “gates” demonstrate, freedom of the press enables citizens to learn about abuses of power – and then do something about the abuse at the ballot box if they feel so moved. We, along with the press, are part of the check-and-balance system to restrain government power and abuse of power.  

I am a huge believer in this value of free expression because I believe that everyone should be involved with their government, in order to keep them in check. Our government has a lot of power and if no one is doing anything to keep them from taking advantage of that then things can go horribly wrong. That’s why I could argue that this rule is more important than any other on this list because with unwielded power, the government could take away our right to free expression all together. Now, that is a bit extreme, however, I believe this one is still one of the most important.
I mean come on, of course I do, I’m a political science minor and a communications major, meaning I believe in civil conversation about government actions more than most 20-something-year-olds. I love when my friends get excited about politics; I mean some may call it yelling, but I call it excitement. I think that every young person should be passionate about what they believe is right or wrong, which a lot of them are because we always think we’re right. The important part of having those strong beliefs is also listening to others’ beliefs, having the facts to back up your opinions, and being able to agree to disagree at the end of the day. 

I digress, the point I am trying to make here is we’re never going to all agree on the same thing, and who would want us to. But the one thing everyone can agree on in politics is that they want to know what is going on. That’s why everyone reads the news every morning isn’t it? Why we watch our favorite nightly news network every evening? We, as human beings, are naturally curious creatures. We want to know what’s going on in the world around us and how it may affect us personally and that is why this freedom of expression exists.

How does the Internet empower us?

There is a paradox to our relationship with the internet when it comes to empowerment and agency. Does it empower us or does it enslave us? Perhaps it depends who you ask.
Agency becomes an extension of literacy, and our ability to properly wield the powerful tools that are available to us. For some the empowerment is derived from a confidence that comes through proficiency. For others disempowerment is a consequence of the anxiety that comes through not understanding how the technology can and should be used.

The reason literacy plays such an enabling and empowering role is the requirement for rapid learning in the digital age.

It’s not as if there’s a finish line to the Internet, a point where you can say you’re finished, and you’ve learned it all! On the contrary, lifelong learning is the new norm, and those who embrace their own daily education are empowered and find navigating society a breeze.

Literacy is not just the ability to read, but at a more fundamental level the ability to recognize patterns. The ability to read text and actually comprehend. The ability to surf the web and find that needle in the haystack you sought out to find.
Perhaps it is the attention deficient culture that makes it difficult for many to make that connection, whether with other people, or with the emerging tools and environments that can be empowering.
How do we slow down? How do we take the time to focus when we live in such a fast paced world?