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Does Media Cause Groupthink?

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For anyone willing to stay up to date with current events or political news people would use devices such as social media, TV, or the newspaper. It’s essential for people to be informed to make decisions when it comes to election time. The goal of the media is to remain bi-partisan and show not bias towards one political group or another. In today’s world that doesn’t seem to be the case at all. Left-wing individuals and organizations believe the media is right- winged and vice versa. Just how extensive has political bias grown in “mainstream” media?
“Few people make a distinction between news reporting — which attempts to play it straight — and opinion-mongering, which is designed to provoke and persuade” (Farhi). It seems as if more and more overtly partisan media outlets are popping up. The two …show more content…
So what is groupthink? “Groupthink is a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action” (Dellastua). Our ability to reason has deteriorated slowly overtime due to groupthink. On both sides of the spectrum isolating themselves with similar beliefs. “This has created a dangerous lack of thought process involving the interpretation of counterpoint and filtering for credibility” (Mannes). Groupthink is leading to ridiculous circumstances in the almost daily protests following the 2016 presidential election of Donald J. Trump. Over a year of immersing America in the most toxic election resulted in a large swath of college-age Americans who actually believed, despite the most basic knowledge in government and law, that they could somehow reverse the results of a national election by protesting (Mannes). This all ties back into the bias in the media. The partisanship in the media has caused the uproar in

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