Fallow's NY Times Article

I was re-reading Fallows' NY Times article and began to think about Starr and what technologies today have been used by politicians to shape media. Starr discussed how certain political choices have changed the media. I think to this day the media does respond to the social and political times, but I also think that politicians are now starting to be more friendly with certain mediums and want to benefit from them. The newspaper industry has of course been used by politicians in this country since the American Revolution. Mainstream media today includes a lot more than newspapers; it involves TV, Facebook, Twitter and the like. We've all seen commercials for politicians exploiting one political party and praising another. Remember those Hilary Clinton 3 am phone call ads and John Kerry's Vietnam War controversy? But these days politicians and the government use media in a different way. They know the media can hurt them, so they reach out to their audience through media instead of trying to restrict the media as the British government did. For example, Barack Obama mobilized his followers and gained popularity because of his outreach on Facebook and Twitter. Other politicians also have Twitter and Facebook pages, so people can follow what they're doing and feel more connected.

However, the media is still regulated by the government even though we have free speech. The FCC censors and regulates what we watch on TV and movies. With the internet though, there is a lot less regulation going on. Just like the telegraph, the telephone, and the radio, the internet is being run by big private companies like Google, Yahoo, and Facebook. There is pressure on the internet to give customers what they want, but this is just pure business unlike the TV companies that must give in to what the FCC wants. The internet allows anyone to say anything they like; it's a true outlet of freedom of speech. Perhaps this stemmed from the dislike of FCC regulations and censorship. On the internet we see a lot of different opinions that millions of people want to share, and I think that this might have come about from the changing political and social times. For instance, since the Afghanistan and Iraq War people have been trying to get their voices heard to either spread support or dislike of the war.

I also would like to point out that a little while after the Iraq War started, we did begin to see changes in the media. Some things that I noticed was that the news became more biased and shows and networks began to take sides. For example, CNN is more liberal and Fox News, well, is not. Even though there was not a very big anti-war movement in America, there were anti-war productions such as Fahrenheit 911, Jarhead, and Stoploss. The media seems to be showing war as the cruel and terrifying thing that it really is, instead of glorifying and supporting it like some parts of the media were during World War II. I think that Starr makes some very good points and shows proper examples of how politics have changed the media, and it has been interesting to look at the media today and how it has responded to political choices. Even when I watch The Daily Show or Colbert Report, they are responding to what's going on in the world. After reading Fallows' article however, I will make sure to pay more attention to how the media reacts to political decisions.