Simon Wren-Lewis is a British economist who has a blog called Mainly Macro. Recently he blamed the British tabloids for the Brexit vote, among other things:
My post ‘The triumph of the tabloids’ is now easily my most read post in the four and a half years I have been writing a blog. I suspect that partly reflects readers from overseas trying to understand how on earth British voters could have chosen to do something so obviously harmful to the economy. I have subsequently been pleased to see others picking up the same idea: Maria Kyriakidou here and Charles Grant here. As Grant says, the tabloids “became propaganda sheets” for Leave. He goes on : “as I discovered while knocking on doors during the campaign, many Britons believe all sort of bizarre things about the EU that have no basis in fact, and the source of which is ultimately newspapers”. Of course the media cannot alone win a referendum like this, and Charles Grant also focuses on other factors, but in many of the accounts of how Brexit happened that I have read the media often does not figure at all. The idea that the media does not matter, or just reflects public opinion, is simply wrong.
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It is not just the Brexit vote that the tabloids are partly responsible for. It is the racism and intolerance that they have helped legitimise. Of course politicians must take most responsibility for this, but the tabloids play an important role. This will only become worse as those who voted Leave become disillusioned that nothing has improved, and of course no tabloid will ever apologise for getting it wrong. They are the epitome of power without responsibility. And because of the power these newspapers have, politicians dare not criticise them for it. One did, and he paid a heavy price.
via Mainly Macro
Here in the USA, the newspapers don’t have enough influence to sway a local election. Here, we’re far more techologically advanced. Our disinformation is spewed out by television “news” networks and Internet sites. We all know that Fox viewers believe all sorts of demonstrably false things, and that it’s from Fox they are getting their information. If you substituted the word “television” for “newspapers” and “tabloids” in the above quote, it would apply perfectly to this country. If Marshall McLuhas was right, it’s worse here, because television as a form of media discourages intellectual engagement and skepticism. You just tend to soak it in.
One thing the Brits have on us, perhaps to make up for their lack of technological progress, is the fact that in order to get their disinformation, they actually have to do some reading.
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