News is propaganda
Okay, maybe a little dramatic, but…
Propaganda hasn’t ‘disappeared’; it's just changed shape. Instead of posters and political conferences, we are now subjected to something simpler, and more insidious. Welcome to the age of the internet. Phones? Mandatory. Objectivity? Optional. This is what we can expect in this century’s technological evolution, where today’s media landscape has morphed into a double-edged sword, where the news is spread fast, but opinions spread faster.
This problem has especially stood out to me recently. With the drama scattered across my feed and the amount of false information being repeated, it has made me question one thing: How much do we really know? Honestly, the answer is more unsettling than you’d think.
News has a hand in shaping your opinions, your thoughts, your beliefs. Everything that would make you, you. The news is a puppeteer, pulling strings left and right, up and down, until eventually you stand on the side they designed for you. Don’t stand out. Don’t be different.
This affects everyone–social media users, our youth, journalists, and the public. I believe the news has too much say in reshaping your ideas. The news shapes your opinions by blurring the lines between opinion and fact, framing stories and their saturation, and the echo chambers that allow misinformation to fester.
We’re meant to trust the news, correct? But what happens when the information given to us isn’t really news, but an opinion? What I mean is, news reporting is never truly free from biases. As of recent, technology has changed how information is created and shared. For example, consider the switch from paper news to digital consumption. While traditional news operates under the belief in factual and written words, digital consumption has lowered the bar for the information that we consume. Anyone can publish a post or create a story, and anyone can fabricate a lie or push an underlying message. This is an issue when people create “news” that is presented alongside information, making it easier for the audience to mistake opinion as truth.
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According to the Pew Research Centre, 38% of U.S. adults– 18 to 29– say they regularly receive news from news influencers. This shows how the line between opinion and fact has begun to blur. Shouldn’t news be objective? Shouldn’t we, the people, be able to consume information without having to differentiate between fact and fiction?
The news holds the power to shape opinions. And because information has increasingly been mixed with personal beliefs, I wonder if we will see a resurgence in propaganda-like articles being mass-consumed where fact and fiction are blurred.
The power of reports is not only in what the information is, but how it’s represented. The news shapes your opinion through framing–the way an event is selected, worded, and then presented. This can push for an underlying belief they want you to adopt.
The Australian Psychological Society reports Australians generally overestimate the level of crime in their community. Media representations of crime are partly responsible for this. Certain crimes are often over-reported on TV, in print, and online. These include violent crimes, crimes by young people, and crimes by those with a mental illness. Official crime statistics indicate that most crime is non-violent, but media reports often suggest the opposite. Homicide statistics have decreased in the past 10 years, despite public perceptions of an increase. When we are exposed repeatedly to such information by anchors we have been told to trust, how can we know any better? Knowing that death, destruction, and crime sell, we are more likely to believe what is in front of us and how frequent it has become. Even when it’s simply not true, showing how the news’s choice of regurgitation can shape how serious certain topics are perceived.
Wording is another problem. The specific wording and way it is described can change how we interpret it. An article researched and published by Kathryn Higgins examined how Australian current-affairs media presented “African gang” crime in Melbourne. This research found that the way these stories were constructed and presented could contribute to the criminalisation of Black African youth. Crime is one thing. The deliberate labelling is another. Using words with positive, negative, or neutral connotations can evoke a subconscious link with what the reporter thinks, what’s really happening, and what you think. The news can influence us before we’ve even had the chance to form an opinion, first by deciding what should be shown, then by how it’s shown.
The influence of news doesn’t end after we’ve read the story, especially with the algorithm’s trend in creating echo chambers. This is a phenomenon in which an individual’s beliefs and views are reinforced by exposure to information that aligns with their preexisting opinions. Algorithms recognise your interests, which leads to seeing more related content. You may ask yourself, what is so wrong with that? What is so wrong with finding a community and sticking with them? Less exposure to opposing opinions and leakage of misinformation and disinformation into fact can reinforce confirmation bias and can make people more likely to become entrenched in their opinions. This isn’t just a hypothetical. A Nature Behaviour study in 2024 analysed more than 35 million Facebook posts containing links and found 75% were forwarded without users clicking through to read linked material. This is an example of how misinformation can spread without people checking the actual context and source behind it.
You could say the feed feeds us. But what happens when the feed is poison?
I’m not asking you to purge all news and spend your time correcting others. Instead, I ask that you educate yourself. With all the knowledge at our fingertips, do your own research, learn how to form your own opinion, and search for the truth. Think for yourself.
