When a major event occurs, whether it be an international conflict or an urgent national crisis, it is reported immediately across the United States. If you are a college student who has access to a smartphone or a computer, you know almost immediately. You may receive a notification on your phone, or the person next to you did and repeated the headline. Whatever way you receive the news, it’s clear that college students can access the news faster and more efficiently than ever.
It’s hard to imagine, but this ease of access was not always the case. It wasn’t long ago when morning newspapers were delivered to homes and newsstands across the country, and television had only the “Big Three” channels: NBC, CBS, and ABC. These channels did not air 24-hours a day — in fact, they had a finite amount of programming, with news programs scheduled around a typical middle-class white American workday. Now, while these forms of media still exist, newspapers have largely moved online and TV news channels such as CNN and Fox News broadcast on the 24/7 news cycle, each of them constantly vying for the attention of a wide audience. To quote comedian Jon Stewart: “Twenty-four-hour news networks are built for one thing, and that’s 9/11. There are very few events that would justify being covered 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So in the absence of urgency, they have to create it.”
In my opinion, this constant cycle of news can be extremely exhausting and sometimes do more harm than good. To Jon Stewart's point, the constant sense of urgency that the modern news media creates by constantly declaring any event as “breaking news” can make nuanced and complicated issues appear more urgent and contentious than they really are. When everything is “breaking news,” it becomes difficult to sort out what is truly an urgent event and what is not. This phenomenon was especially apparent during the years in which Donald Trump was president. News channels constantly reported on anything that Trump did, said, or tweeted — often to an obsessive extreme. While some of the reporting was necessary, such as when former President Trump made a false claim, or when his behavior warranted scrutiny This constant reportage, however, allowed Trump to control the conversation and capture the attention of the entire media at all times. All the while, his administration was putting in place policies that were doing real harm to people, but the media fixated on a ridiculous statement or an insult rather than… This is where I think the media missed the forest for the trees, and the constant inundation certainly made me reluctant to watch TV news — any sense of nuance or seeing the wider picture was lost.
Today, college students consume the news in an entirely different way than previous generations. According to a 2019 study, students engage with news through various avenues, such as posts on social media, discussions with peers, online news feeds, discussions with their professors, and online news sites. Getting news from social media has its advantages and disadvantages. As someone who uses social media, the headlines from news accounts that appear in an Instagram feed can be good ways to get an idea of what the major news stories of the day are and what to read about further. These headlines can also enhance interest in a complex issue and encourage readers to look further. However, due to the incentives on the part of online news accounts to get as many clicks as possible, the headlines can often be sensationalized or misleading in order to get clicks. I find online news headlines extremely frustrating, as I see them often in social media feeds, and they are often purposely misleading or unnecessary. Not only do they lead to fewer people reading the actual article and instead just reading the headline, but they can also stoke unnecessary anger, often in a calculated way. While in general online written news is a better space for more nuanced articles in my opinion, they lack the immediacy of TV news or a social media post, and this can make it difficult for them to correct a narrative that forms about an issue. I prefer podcasts or even news radio as a source of clear and direct news, organizations like NPR not only broadcast the news over the radio but have podcast forms of their programs that are often high quality.
Social media journalism, whether it be a YouTube video, a Tweet, or a TikTok clip, can also fall victim to the same incentive structures as online newspapers. They are incentivized to incite conflict and anger because those emotions increase engagement, whether it be positive or negative. This model extends to algorithms, which are designed to record social media interactions and push users into seeing more of what they like to see and keep them engaged. This can lead to users being put in echo chambers, away from other perspectives, and only reinforcing their own opinions and beliefs. These algorithms on social media such as Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter can lead to further radicalization and polarization through the recommendation of more extreme content and viewpoints, called Algorithmic radicalization.
In order to better understand how Skidmore students in particular get their news, I interviewed some of my fellow students about how they engaged with the news and what they thought of the state of journalism today. Lucy Allman-Coe ‘26 spoke to me about the pros and cons of using social media as a source of news. “A lot of major news stories I hear about on TikTok, and then I'll go do a Google search and look at a more in-depth article.” While TikTok is often the target of scrutiny for its addictive business model, Allman-Coe points out some advantages. “One thing I think TikTok does that is completely unique to any other medium is the ability of users to create jokes about situations and make people more aware of them or use typical TikTok trends to give commentary. When the OceanGate submarine was trapped, the way I became aware of it was through someone using a TikTok audio to make fun of OceanGate.” Allman-Coe also points to concerns about the dubious credibility of news sources online. “Many news sites have started pulling to one side of the political spectrum and many sites will exaggerate or omit information to dramatic effect. Knowing who and what to trust is a skill that is difficult to develop.”
I also spoke to Noah Katz ’24 who spoke to the effect social media has on students through its relentless models. “Social media really has changed everything about how people of a certain age group exchange information. TikTok, and other short-form video platforms like it have created highly addictive feedback loops in which users are able to watch dozens (if not hundreds) of second long user submitted videos in one sitting. The amount of information that one can ingest this way is unfathomable.” Katz shares concerns about how social media has changed how we think and how it has affected journalism broadly. “Sensationalism has deeply harmed our ability as a culture to trust science and our world leaders. The internet has done very little to bolster the institution of journalism and the dissemination of factual information and well-researched opinions…if the failure of the newspaper as a product means journalists can no longer make a living from speaking truth to power…we will only be more indebted to social media/ tech oligarchs, and corrupt politicians who demonstrably benefit from voter disenfranchisement/ disinterest.”
As for how we can overcome the division and sensationalism that seems to drive the discourse of social media, Allman-Coe does share some hope about how Skidmore students can increase the visibility of news and make a positive impact. “I think Skidmore students are very open about political views, and often make current news items and their opinions on them very visible, whether that is through posters, writing on walls, or social media.” Allman-Coe also emphasizes the importance of vigilance when sorting through the massive amount of news that is available to students. “Knowing how to find accurate information, and where to draw the line in order to not overwhelm yourself, is important to learn…If you feel like you should know about something and you are completely in the dark, taking five or ten minutes to dig through some news articles until you can get at least a surface understanding of something can be greatly worth it.” This advice goes against the incentives of TikTok, and it is a better way to get a more in-depth understanding of a topic than a short TikTok clips.
This is an important point — news and social media may throw a lot of information at us, but we still have the agency to decide what we do with that information and how we consume it. We can break from the algorithms and be more considerate about what media we consume. The rise of fact-checkers in the 21st century is a positive example of how the spread of information can be more deeply scrutinized. The ignorance that can surround discourse about news and the news itself is not an incurable phenomenon, it can be cured through more communication between people and a greater push to inscribe nuance into any complicated event or discussion. The news is not black-and-white, but many shades of grey, because it's driven by people, who are complex.
Social media is not going away, but if we continue to educate students to think critically, they will continue to have a greater amount of control over how social media disseminates information.