Is Information Decided Before You See It?
What makes a story newsworthy? Is it the facts? The people? Maybe it’s where it takes place. What if the information you see is decided by someone else? You do not have a choice on what you see. Everything is already pre-determined.
The Two Step Theory believes that the diffusion of information goes through opinion leaders before reaching the audience. The best example is News Anchors. Each day they determine which story they are going to talk about on air and how long a story is going to be covered. “More than eight-in-ten U.S. adults say they get news from a smartphone and 68% get news from TV at least sometimes…”. The overall point of this statistic is that there is a overwhelming the population who are going digital to find their news or still use television as an outlet. The question is what we are receiving the factual importance or true.
Do I believe in the Two-Step Theory? Depending on the circumstances, the two-step theory can be implemented but not to the extreme as the definition would portray. I talked about a previous blog that I am a sports fan and example how are used again is the Chicago Bears. During the 2021–2022 season, the news that was coming out of the organization was that the team morel we’re still together despite losing. That all the quarterbacks were on the same page when it came to the game plan. Did I believe this? Absolutely not. Everyone knew that there was dysfunction within the organization, but the Bears could not admit to it. Of course, they had someone making the decisions on what came out to the public and report it to the fans.
Now when you have an influencer or a news anchor sharing information, I don’t immediately share it. I like to do my own research. 1) I want to see if it is newsworthy and 2) I want to see if other outlets are comparing the same information or covering the same story. If you have two completely different outlets covering the same story but giving different endings, where is the truth in it? However, when it comes to sports, I do like to see the same story cover different because it just gives a different aspect on a game. One person may cover the story as a negative and point out what went wrong but another person can show the positives and go into detail on what went well. Outside of this, I’m not necessarily an avid national news goer.
National news and the Two-Step Theory can be a tricky conversation which opens many doors. Some say their conspiracies with how the news around but that is not a conversation for today nor do I want to discuss that. What are your thoughts? Does the information you consume come from one person and if you had to take a step back and think, do you believe that individual is providing the correct news to you?
