There's a prominent issue that I've been following the research on for the past year. I won't tell you what the issue is because I would prefer not to be deplatformed, but let's just say that it's an issue that has affected everyone's lives in a profound way. I noticed that what I was seeing in the research wasn't matching what was being presented in the media, and that people's responses to the issue tended to split along party lines. It occurred to me that if the media was able to create one picture of an issue that didn't correspond to the available research, that they could easily make two. I said so in an internet forum, and one of the responses pointed me to a blog post by Scott Adams:
Good Example of Our Two-Movie Reality
I agree with what's in his post, but it seems to me to not go quite far enough. It is true that each of us looks at new information based on our prior knowledge and beliefs, but there's more going on. The media outlets are not only taking advantage of that tendency, but they are also selectively presenting information. Team Red will be shown things by their preferred media outlets that paints Team Blue in the worst light possible, and Team Blue is shown things that makes Team Red look bad. Team Red will not be shown things that make a Team Red elected official or candidate look bad, unless it's to distract from something even worse the person has done, and the same goes for Team Blue.
It's true that outrage is good for ratings and web traffic, but there's something deeper going on. The mutual hatred between sides makes it less likely for people to get together with people from the other side and compare notes. This is important because neither side is right about everything. If one side was right about everything, that would make the other side wrong about everything, and both sides have some people who do their own research. One of them would find out and tell the others. By the way, this kind of arrangement is trivially easy if one group of people controls both sides' media outlets.
So what do we do? My recommendation is to do what they don't want you to do: find someone from the other team who is willing to talk, and compare notes. Don't try to convert the other person; just compare notes in a search for the whole truth.
