This Paul Musgrave deep dive into media consumption is a couple of years old, but I’d guess that it’s still relevant to our conversations about reaching voters and non-voters. Another interesting chart in the piece examines social media usage by age. Instagram has a wide swath of users by age, YouTube and Facebook skew older, TikTok and Twitter (of the time of the survey) skew younger.
In somewhat related news, many in the comments mentioned the resignation of Pulitzer winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes over management pulling her cartoon showing Bezos (and others) sucking up to Trump. Here’s Telnaes’ explanation for her decision. This take by Jamison Foser is interesting to me because he doesn’t categorize Bezos’ actions as “obeying in advance”:
Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post spiking a cartoon that portrayed Jeff Bezos harshly is not an example of Jeff Bezos obeying Donald Trump in advance. It is an example of Jeff Bezos’s malign rule over the Post.9 Bezos is the autocrat in this scenario, not the supplicant.
A whole lot of people — many of them quite powerful, many of them not — are reacting to the rise of autocracy in America not by “obeying in advance” but by gleefully lending a hand, either because they enthusiastically support right-wing autocracy or because they think they can use it for their own ends. Either way, we need a harsher — and more accurate — condemnation for them than “obeying in advance.”
When Bezos bought the Post, I approached it with the same attitude that I use for other realms where big money investors throw money at a product: I’ll enjoy the cheap, good thing, but I’ll keep my eye out for the inevitable moment when the investors start demanding profits, and the thing isn’t cheap and/or good anymore. The first big tell on that score for the Post was Bezos’ hiring of a British tabloid exec. The second was the refusal to endorse. The cartoon is just another step in the inevitable decline of a business that was mainly supported by older liberals, but felt that their viability depended on them shitting on their paying audience. The audience has wised up, and I’m guessing that the dumb decisions made by billionaire owners of outlets like the Post and LA Times have just hastened their long-predicted death spirals.
WaterGirl
What I would love to see is an updated chart with current numbers PLUS separated out by who they voted for: D, R, and 3rd party. Now that would be super interesting, and useful, but i doubt it exists.
KatKapCC
@WaterGirl: Agree. Also, getting news from “social media” can mean a lot of things. Are they following news or reporter accounts? Or are they getting everything second-hand through influencers or celebs or something?
Gin & Tonic
@KatKapCC: B.
hrprogressive
This is kind of why I started using the term “corprofascist” to describe these major institutions.
Because it has been clear to me for a long time that a lot of big corporations – whether it’s Bezos and Amazon/WaPo or the owners of the NYT/LAT
Are either actually, openly, Fascists Themselves – true believers who actually want to support a theoretical Trump Reich
Or, at a bare minimum, they are “Fash For Profit” – Maybe not actual believers in The Cause, but perfectly okay with Fascism so long as the Trump Reich brings them deregulation and soaring profits.
Quite likely Bezos, Et Al, actually do fall into the True Believer category.
Chris
@hrprogressive:
Because we spent half a century with the Communist Bloc using the word “fascist” to refer to any kind of capitalism, analyses of fascism that emphasize the capitalist aspect aren’t as widespread as they ought to be (or used to be, in the twenties and thirties especially).
Which is a shame, because “the rich threw the doors open to fascism because they absolutely refused to accept anything but unquestioning obedience from the workers, the poor, and society in general” is arguably the defining thing that changes fascism from a glorified street gang to a political movement capable of seizing power. (That’s definitely how Paxton views it, though he broadens it to “traditional elites” rather than just capitalists).
Steve LaBonne
Billionaires don’t buy themselves a toy with the intention of not playing with it, by their rules.
Suzanne
I’d also be interested to know with more specificity about podcast listening. Some podcasts are released by mainstream news orgs, but many are not. I see a lot of my colleagues listening to hours of podcasts while they work. I like to listen to them while driving or exercising. Potentially a lot of interesting data there.
Chetan Murthy
I would argue that that was the -second- tell; the first was allowing the news pages to be polluted with opinion stories under Marty Baron’s successor, Sally Buzbee. But regardless, yeah, we had to watch and verify that they weren’t gaslighting us.
And at that point, why bother watching at all? Why not send our dollars and eyeballs elsewhere?
Nukular Biskits
It would be interesting to see the addition of paper/dead-wood news sources (newspapers and other news periodicals).
Trivia Man
@KatKapCC: I use social media to curate news sources. Reddit and BJ provide me snippets then links, or at least some key words and context, for finding deeper news coverage.
ThresherK
Well, somebody has shown himself to be a 21st century man.
Steve LaBonne
@Trivia Man: I still visit LGM from time to time for that purpose.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Trivia Man:
I wonder how they’re defining “social media”?
I have a regular rota of 6-8 blogs I read much in the same way you describe Reddit and BJ. Lead pieces or something a commenter might say then has me off to “do my own research” which I guess would fall under the “digital news” category?
Given that many of us have sworn off any regular reading of MSM print media or other corporatized outlets like Totebagger Radio and obviously cable news, it would be interesting to see how many of us fall into that category and a timeline of trends.
Poe Larity.
Mr. Beast will be running for President in 2032. Better start working on the social media 2028 candidate now.
Geo Wilcox
@KatKapCC: The younger males are focused on shit like Andrew Tate and those kinds of places.
Baud
No one really doesn’t rely on mainstream steam media, especially when it comes to national news. A good number of stories talked about in other media come from mainstream sources.
scav
@Baud: Indeed, sometimes it’s almost a case of juggling them all against each other, judging degree of in- or simple coherence.
No dead tree bodies involved, but that’s of long duration.
Baud
My problem with “obeying in advance” is that it quickly became a meme to beat up people with, rather than guidance for people who wanted thoughtful suggestions on how to deal with Trump.
Mememization happens a lot, it seems.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Snyder and Kendzior are good at making people feel guilty.
scav
@Baud: People are looking for simple solutions because everything’s gotten so fraught and complicated. A list of suggested news-sources gets interpreted as a list of only allowed news sources.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
I don’t follow them directly, but I suppose they could be behind the attitude.
I never feel guilty about anything, but I also don’t really care that much anymore about fitting in.
Baud
@scav:
Yeah, there does seem to be a lot of policing going on in general.
I get that anything goes won’t work, and would just let in bad faith actors, but the opposite extreme isn’t very helpful either.
Some things in life can’t be simplified and require some exercise of judgment.
WhatsMyNym
@Baud:
Thinking for yourself is always hard.
KatKapCC
@Gin & Tonic: For many, sure, but I follow a lot of news/reporter accounts on Instagram and such, and I’m sure I’m not alone. Now, I’m not in the “youth” demo, but anecdotally my niece, my neighbor’s teenager, etc, will mention things they saw from Liz Warren or Maddow or someone like that online. I just think a follow-up question should be to ask the social-media heavy users to list the top five accounts they get their news from.
TONYG
@KatKapCC: With all due respect to the Gen-Z Youths of America, I’m going to guess “getting everything second-hand through influencers or celebs” because that’s the stupidest, laziest way to get “information”. I’ve long thought that my own Boomer generation (the generation that brought us Reagan, the Bushes and Trump) is the dumbest, laziest cohort of people, but I think that we’ve managed to invent people who are even worse.
@KatKapCC:
zhena gogolia
@Baud: “obeying in advance” is Snyder
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: This is why I objected to the Guardian getting slagged off for what I feel were specious reasons. It’s certainly not perfect but it’s a major non-US, non-corporate, non-billionaire paper that on the whole does a pretty good job of covering the US. As such I think it’s pretty useful and worth supporting under current circumstances.
Baud
@WhatsMyNym:
I initially read that as “Thinking of yourself is always hard” and thought, I do that all the time.
I agree with what you actually said.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Thanks. Didn’t he flesh that idea out in a book? He’s not on social media beating people over the head with it, is he?
I’m not opposed to be general idea behind the phrase.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
I only followed that story loosely, but the charge seemed tenuous. From what I’ve heard, the NYT has done worse.
different-church-lady
* Youngs move towards Trump more than any other group
* Youngs get their “news” mostly from social media.
Just a coincidence, I’m sure….
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: It sure has.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
I saw it on Reddit. Young people were inundated with propaganda.
Shakti
@hrprogressive: @Chris:
There was quite a bit of cooperation between corporations and the Mussolini government and Hitler’s government, IIRC.
Actually a lot of corporations will happily subvert democracy for their profits over and over again. But that doesn’t really get emphasized or taught in schools or the discourse by design. [That would really implicate a lot of American & British & (other) companies going back over a hundred years.]
It’s a matter of deep propaganda that we believe capitalism goes hand in hand with representative government. Or that the citizenship or ownership of a company will predict how they act. They’re agnostic as to government form — at best.
RevRick
@WaterGirl: If voters in 2024 were solely those who read newspapers or watched TV news, Harris would have won handily. Trump’s victory was made possible entirely by those who are completely disconnected from the news. The ones who put him on top are what Paul Campos at LGM calls the Ariana Grande voters. What he means is that they know as much about politics and the larger issues as I do about Ariana Grande. I know she’s a pop singer, but my knowledge stops there.
These voters were entirely responding to vibes, the vague sense that before COVID the economy was doing okay and we weren’t plunging into a war, whereas the Biden years have been unsettling. These voters are completely outside any information universe.
Miss Bianca
@Steve LaBonne: I *don’t* think the Grauniad does a good job covering the US – particularly US politics – but they *do* do a good job covering parts of the world that US journalists can’t be bothered to cover. So, there’s that.
different-church-lady
Just realized something that feel significant: when Fox pulls some shit, it’s right there in front of everyone. It goes out to millions at a time. Even if you don’t watch Fox it gets out there and we can push back on it because we know about it.
But with social media it’s impossible to know exactly which crap is showing up in anyone’s feed, because it’s all so fragmented and customized. There’s no small set of fronts to fight on, it’s just thousands of individual bits of greasiness hardening the mental arteries.
This can easily explain why we’re so mystified by the “failure of messaging” or “Trump’s appeal” and such: we can’t see what they’re seeing, unless it trends huge. And it may no longer be the trending huge things that matter — we’re not getting crushed by one big boulder, we’re getting buried under the millions of small rocks that make up an avalanche.
different-church-lady
Social Media is killing our society. Say it over and over.
BC in Illinois
@Baud:
In addition, “obeying in advance,” is in the first chapter of Timothy Snyder’s book. There are a lot of thoughtful suggestions in the later chapters.
My own suggestion of a call to serious thought comes in chapter seven, “Be Reflective If You Must Be Armed.” Here he speaks to police, the military, or anyone else who may be ordered to use armed force. The last sentence of his summary:
Anyone who has been in the service knows that this is no small step. People need to be talking now, “in advance,” on how to respond to an unlawful order. Are WE ready to ask people to pay the price that will be paid for disobedience to the chain in command?
And yes, if the people at the top don’t have what it takes to say no, then the price will be paid by the people at the bottom. The danger at this point is that Trump’s top appointees will know nothing of Duty, Honor, and Country. His people will know only career advancement, self-protection, and Trump.
What has to happen now? Stop the appointments of TrumpMen.
Suzanne
@different-church-lady:
100%. There’s no monoculture.
scav
@different-church-lady: Well, there was a time when it was fucking talk radio that was the preferred mode of injection, so lets not confuse the message with the mode of transmssion.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne: Which is funny, because I usually consider monocultures to be very bad things.
encephalopath
I would guess that the older people are getting lots more of their news from social media than they realize. They just don’t identify it as news or realize that information is being fed to them by way of meme-ified trash.
KatKapCC
@TONYG: Congrats, you are continuing the trend of “older generation thinks the current younger generation is stupid and vapid”. Tale as old as time, my friend.
RevRick
@Shakti: There are limits to this. A dynamic capitalist system is utterly dependent on the rule of law. Moreover, even though they shriek about it, healthy capitalism requires the regulation of business. No lesser an authority than Adam Smith was firm on this point. Fascist corporatism will inevitably lead to economic distortions and sclerosis.
Suzanne
@different-church-lady: In this case, a lack of monoculture means there’s not a shared set of facts. There’s not even a shared set of images.
NeenerNeener
@Poe Larity.: Mr. Beast. What a horrible thought.
RevRick
@Chris: Fascism is, first and foremost, about blood. It begins with the assertion that our people are inherently superior. Mussolini boasted he would make Italy great again, hence his use of the fasces, the symbol of Rome. Hitler sneered that he would make Germany great again by punishing its enemies. The Japanese militarists snarled that they would claim Japan’s rightful place in the sun. And all these blood movements were powered by the petit bourgeoisie, who had been rocked by the War and resented their treatment by the Allied Powers.
Bulgakov
My favorite visualization for the bad behavior of unbridled billionaires is “Buying a ticket for the guillotine lottery”. Reminds them there can be unforeseen consequences to their behavior.
DougL
@Chris: Every bit of this. It’s the rich that are making fascism possible. Because they want it ALL.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Kendzior is a loon.
dr. luba
I’m an outlier for my demographic (65+). Cut the cable cord more than 6 years ago, and, even then, didn’t watch much besides Rachel Maddow for news.
I read on line newspapers and other websites.
I do not rely on social media for US news, but do use them somewhat for Ukrainian news (mostly Twitter/Bluesky)
Also, too: why do the numbers add up to far less than 100 for each group? Did the graph ignore other sources (e.g. actual newspapers)? Or do many people simply consume no political news?
TONYG
@zhena gogolia: Yes. I think that this is a mis-application of Snyder’s “obeying in advance” phrase. People like Bezos and Musk who have hundreds of billions of dollars are not the obsequious sycophants trying to curry favor with Trump. Bezos, Musk, et. al. are the people who really own this country. Trump is basically their employee; their figurehead.
Shakti
@RevRick: Of course. But the limits are not where we think they are. Rule of law for capitalists is just “law made and predictably enforced in their favor” not “this form of government is the best.”
Otherwise…why back a guy who had a history of flouting rules and doing all the white collar crime? And who installed justices who play by calvinball rules? Or go full in on AI when a lot of business models rely on copyright and IP law to stay competitive? Or push cryptobitcoin shit — because that’s an unstable means of exchange of goods and services if there was one.
Networking is just budget nepotism. Cronyism is just a matter of scale.
I get the sense as long as there isn’t outright brigandism most large corporate interests don’t care. A lot of corporate interests will tolerate a certain amount economic distortions and sclerosis because it benefits them.
RevRick
@encephalopath: The over 65 demographic went for Harris. The only demographic that went for Trump is the 45-64 year olds.
Another Scott
Thanks for the pointer.
Graphs like the one you show drive me nuts. Looking at the oldest group, I get a total of roughly 33%. What about the other 2/3 of the oldsters??! Am I missing something??
Yes, humans are creatures of habit so more oldsters consume old media than youngsters. It would be surprising if that were not the case, wouldn’t it?
I clicked over to Musgrave’s article. He makes a big deal in another graph about kids not reading for “personal interest” any more, when just about every group is the same except for the oldsters (who are most likely retired so just about anything they read is for “personal interest” rather than, say, work or school). Isn’t that the explanation? Just about everyone has too little time for pleasure reading, unless they’re retired? Am I missing something there, too?
I haven’t looked into this stuff deeply, but I’m reminded (via some other threads in the last day or so) that kids are working harder in school than many/most of us oldsters did (I know I didn’t have homework in kindergarten). It’s kinda hard to reconcile that with stories that kids don’t read anymore (which, despite his protestations, sounds suspiciously close to the usual kids these days are behaving badly trope).
To be clear, I’m not saying that him attempting to teach students isn’t a challenging job – especially in times of rapid change. I’m sure it is. I think it almost always is (when I was in middle and high school, lots of kids would get fidgety because they needed to run outside and get a hit of nicotine). But I think he could make a better case.
FWIW.
Thanks again.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Shakti
@RevRick: Does this correlate with being less diverse than other demos that are younger?
The trumpers I know that in that age group and vocal about it are having unpretty Menty Bs. Or y’know something is happening to their logic and emotional reasoning which is super reactionary.
Like I’m sorry andropause and menopause is difficult but please stop taking it out on other people and ranting about their “lifestyle choices.”
Steve LaBonne
@Miss Bianca: I distinguish between their straight news coverage and their political commentary. The latter is bad but at least in a different way (very online left rather than 1% friendly center-right) from US based “liberal” corporate media.
RevRick
@Shakti: undoubtedly
TONYG
@KatKapCC: Yup. Though, in fairness, I recognize that my own Boomer generation is also pretty stupid and vapid!
TONYG
@KatKapCC: I was 39 years old (not young but not yet a geezer) when the internet with search engines started to become a widespread phenomenon (no longer something limited to engineers and other geeks) in 1995. For a brief period of time there were articles touting how this easy access to all of the world’s information would be great for the world. Instead, for the most part, this tool has been used to spread lies and misinformation — because that’s what most people seem to want. “Gen Z” hadn’t even been born yet, and the Millennials were kids, so it’s not their fault. Blame the Boomers and Gen X for what happened. Trump’s “career” as a politician has occurred because of this (and because of the older medium of cable TV). Sort of like the way that Hitler exploited the new medium of radio. Most humans just seem to be too dumb to handle these powerful tools.
TONYG
@RevRick: Yup. “resented their treatment by the Allied Powers” was certainly true of Germany — but Italy was actually on the “winning” side of World War One (gaining some territory at the cost of more than a million casualties), and Japan took advantage of the war to grab some islands from the German Empire. It’s hard to quantify, but I think that the mass slaughter of the First World War showed the public in all countries that human life was cheap and expendable, a lesson that exploited by all of the countries that embraced different flavors of fascism.
PIGL
@hrprogressive: “corprofascist” is nice…It sorta rhymes with “copraphagist” which I suppose was your intent.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne: The bigger point is there’s not even a shared set of disinformation.
WaterGirl
@TONYG:
I don’t know that that’s what most people want. But many people are susceptible to it, that’s for sure.
XeckyGilchrist
“Here is the News, Coming to You Every Hour on the Hour”
…ELO reference? Don’t see those every day, especially not to their 80s stuff. youtu.be/Bzehb_yeZtU?si=ZhivDMFRklggjWfF&t=22
TONYG
@WaterGirl: Yes, “most people” is probably an exaggeration on my part, but certainly a large minority likes — and seeks out — this right-wing propaganda. “Social Media” and the internet in general has been an accelerant for the right-wing — but this propaganda has been successful and popular long before the mid-nineties advent of the widespread internet because it’s telling a substantial segment of the population what they want to hear. There’s a big segment of the population who have been angry for sixty years about the social and political changes of the sixties (including many white men who weren’t even alive then). Media (including cable TV, talk-radio and, originally, direct mail) that tells these angry white men what they want to hear has been successful and popular since the sixties.
TONYG
@TONYG: An interesting (to me) case was one of my uncles (who passed away two years ago at age 91). He was a genuinely nice guy who displayed none of the bigoted views that were common in his generation. But he had been a young man in the fifties and was a military veteran, so he had a certain view of the world. He loved watching Fox News. I guess it was a combination of the flag-waving rhetoric and (of course) the buxom blondes. The Murdochs understand their customers and know how to cater to them.