WP op-ed, The REAL Media Divide: "News junkies" and "entertainment fans"

The Real Media Divide
By Markus Prior
Monday, July 16, 2007; Page A15

Today's news world is a political junkie's oyster. Cable TV offers CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and C-SPAN. The Washington Post, BBC online, The Note and many, many more news Web sites are only a click away. But that's where they remain for many Americans. Decades into the "information age," the public is as uninformed as before the rise of cable television and the Internet.

Greater access to media, ironically, has reduced the share of Americans who are politically informed. The most significant effect of more media choice is not the wider dissemination of political news but mounting inequality in political involvement. Some people follow news more closely than in the past, but many others avoid it altogether.

Now that Americans can choose among countless channels and Web sites, the role of motivation is key. Many people's reasons for watching television or surfing the Web do not include learning about politics. Today's media users seek out the content they really like. Unfortunately for a political system that benefits from an informed citizenry, few people really like the news....

The flip side of the entertainment fan who doesn't have to watch the news is the news junkie who now can follow it constantly. A relatively small segment of the population -- my own research indicates it's less than a fifth -- specializes in news content. But such people consume so much of it that the total amount of time Americans spend watching, reading and listening to news has not declined even though many people have tuned out.

The new fault line of civic involvement is between news junkies and entertainment fans....

(Markus Prior is assistant professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. He is the author of "Post-Broadcast Democracy: How Media Choice Increases Inequality in Political Involvement and Polarizes Elections.")

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/15/AR2007071501110.html?nav=most_emailed

:blush:

:rofl: :pals: OK, go for it, my dear heart! It's nice to know/think you're edumacating people; that's how I feel! And I love you and your posts!