Americans who get their news primarily from cable are the only people who believe that Israel is not committing a genocide in Gaza, according to a new survey that examined the relationship between attitudes toward the war and news consumption habits.
The survey puts numbers on trends that have become increasingly apparent: Cable news viewers are more supportive of Israel’s war effort, less likely to think Israel is committing war crimes, and less interested in the war in general. People who get their news primarily from social media, YouTube, or podcasts, by contrast, generally side with the Palestinians, believe Israel is committing war crimes and genocide, and consider the issue of significant importance.
And yet there are still lots of people on here who tell us that western media is not biased, and trot out nonsense like mediabiasfactcheck to argue why we should only consume information from mainstream western sources.
I talked to a boomer fox news watcher recently, and apparently the current party line is that since the US firebombed dresden, what Israel is doing to Gaza is justified. The US even bombed white europeans, so how can you criticize them for killing middle-easterners?
IE, nothing wrong with murdering civilians as long as the US did it first, and to criticize Israel for doing what the US already did is unpatriotic, and the protesters have no right to protest this genocide.
At least the US right is honest about their values, and make no justifications or apologies for civilian murder.
Indeed, this is the key difference I see between liberals and conservatives in US. Conservatives are just more honest about their support for US hegemony by any means necessary. Meanwhile, liberals will do hand wringing and talk about lesser evils to justify atrocities.
I used to think there wasn’t a conspiracy until I visited the states and heard a neoliberal loudly ranting to themselves about how they’re “not able control people through the media anymore because everyone’s on the internet” There it was, straight out of the horse’s asshole.
That thumbnail hits different all of a sudden.
Ah yes, verified news sources courting genocides.
What a shock. And by shock I also mean indictment of
thetraditional cable media.Edit: Fined tuned some blame.
That seems somewhat surprising, considering how much internet media post bias also exists.
I guess cable users only stick to one or two news channels?
It’s not surprising to me. There is no more “news” anymore, it’s all opinions at this point. Usually not good opinions either, it’s all just a carefully crafted narrative or crafted to generate outrage.
This is why I think things like Tiktok are actually useful. I don’t know another place to easily find 24/7 live video of the protests.
Removed by mod
Well, if you open up Tiktok, Instagram, Twitter and co. you can see the destruction, you can see Palestinians searching through the rubble to find survivors and recover the dead. You can see children starving and you can see crying people holding the bodies of their loved ones. And then you can also see IDF soldiers bragging about the people they killed, filming themselves looting, burning down houses and desecrating peoples belongings. You can see them filming themselves torturing and abusing prisoners and laughing about it all.
When you are exposed to the stream of more or less raw information, it doesn’t take much to understand the situation as what it is. Yes there is bias in there. But when the supposedly “good guys” from the IDF are showing themselves proudly committing atrocities, then the only people to not consider it a genocide are completely brainwashed. And unfortunately that audience exists too, cheering on the atrocities committed in their name.
It does say primary source of news is from cable, that doesn’t mean they don’t use these other platforms.
And you have to believe these people’s social media is an echo chamber of their cable news
you’re going to get that when
a) western media and journalists are deathly afraid of being labeled antisemites for reporting on what the secular government of israel is doing and
b) cable news viewers skew overwhelmingly republican and conservative who are already antimuslim and pro israel to begin with.
these are the people who are keeping the current administration from telling it like it really is. because I honestly don’t believe that bibi would be as empowered to do what he’s been doing in gaza if the us government isn’t actively publicly condemning in plain language what has happened already.
