News Deserts & the Future of Democracy
A Food desert is a place where its difficult to find good quality, affordable fresh foods. Imagine
In the U.S. 39.5 million people, or 12.8% of the U.S. population do their grocery shopping at a convenience store like 7–11.
A diet of processed foods leads to high levels of obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes.
A News Desert exists where people don’t have access to good variety of information from credible sources. In the U.S. 200 counties do not have a local newspaper.
People now rely on social media as their primary news source, The result is democracy is on the decline.
Why?
Lack of Participation in Decision Making: To participate in decisions you need to know what decisions are being made. You can’t exercise choice if you don’t know you have a say. You can’t form an opinion about something you have no knowledge is happening.
Disinformation: Lack of information from trustworthy local sources creates a void filled by here disinformation from pundits, conspiracy theories, goes unchallenged.
Confirmation Bias: Search engine algorithms are programmed to give us more of what we like and already believe. The news we find on social media, even from credible sources tends to reinforces their previously held- beliefs. In a debate, everyone cherry picks the evidence that supports their position and discounts evidence which challenges their position.
Corporate Ownership: Most newspapers are now owned by a corporations disconnected and not accountable to the communities that they serve.
A locally owned newspaper may be the key to creating a healthy democracy.
Read this post and more on my Typeshare Social Blog
