Final Blog Post
What is the Transhistoric Relationship between the Press and the Government in a Society Aspiring to Democracy?
I think there is a reason why media has not changed very much throughout history. Being transhistoric means preceding through many different historical time frames, cutting across all periods of time, whether that be a quality, trait, or characteristic, in this case of news and the media. Personally, I think social media has remained basically the same since its rise to fame in 1997 when blogging sites and profile sites started to sprout. I also believe that mainstream media has remained relatively the same too, in a general sense. The way media is gathered remained fairly the same, the actual bodies we put media in remain the same, and the way we have gotten the media out, though a little different with how quickly it can be through the internet, is relatively also the same. But I wonder why?
The Chilling Effect
The chilling effect is the discouragement of the legitimate exercise of natural and legal rights by the threat of legal sanction, according to Wikipedia. To translate, it is the way the government uses threats in order to take away your exercise of natural and legal rights that are granted to us in the constitution and Bill of Rights. I personally think the name is pretty ironic. The government can get you to fear exercising your natural born rights through doing things like passing laws, coming to decisions in court cases, or the threat of a lawsuit. They use their power almost backhandedly. They have the power to make laws, which are supposed to be used to protect the people, but instead they use the power to make the laws that scare people into doing what is their right to do, whether that be freedom of speech or press, etc. Do you see how they can take their power and throw it in your face without consequences? yet you are left feeling scared to exercise a right? Interesting.
All of this is done in order to slow down a group of people, and historically, those group of people are journalists and those involved in the press.
Prevalence
I came to realize that different versions of this chilling effect have been prevalent throughout every time period of history imaginable. Where there is a democracy, there is the chilling effect. Democracies are supposed to be a place where every voice gets heard, that of the citizens and the people as well as the policy makers and law enforcers and representatives. However, throughout time, democracy has lost its meaning, especially in America.
First of all, there are so many people in America that it is impossible that ALL of their voices get heard, if even some voices. There have been so many corrupt representatives elected into congress that even if our voices could be heard, they would only get to their ears and that is all. Nothing would be changed and nothing would be done to help any of the issues that voices need to be heard about.
Unfortunately, the same goes for voting. So many people do not even bother to vote anymore because they are under the impression that it will not change anything. Imagine of the most fundamental rights of a democracy- the right to vote- not meaning anything. That is when you know that democracy is losing its significance. According to FairVote, only 58% of the voting population voted in the last 2016 Presidential Election. ONLY HALF OF AMERICA VOTED IN THE LAST ELECTION! That itself should be a crime.
The reason being, is because so many Americans feel like their votes do not matter when it really comes down to it. So many conspiracies go around saying that popular vote doesnt matter, the electoral college doesnt matter, and voting in general does not matter because whoever the big names want to win the election, will win no matter the votes. Notice how so many elections have a recount? because the people vote for one candidate more than the big names thought they would, and are so shocked it is not who they wanted, they recount and smudge the votes! They use the recount as a redherring to confuse America and trick them into thinking because there was a recount there was a problem with the numbers....
My point being, as long as there are corrupt people in government and corrupt things going on in government, there is going to be the chilling effect to shut the people up who try to expose these people and situations. Everything is a mind game
Coronavirus
Take this pandemic, for example. This has been one of the biggest things since war that has effected our country, and the world for that matter, at such a large scale. Every time I turn on the news, it is always the same thing: stay inside, social distance, wear a mask, blah blah blah.
Ever stop to think about the timing of this coronavirus outbreak? Conveniently right as the President and his competitors are campaigning for the 2020 election? Weird!!
Much like anti-war voices never being heard in mainstream media, conspiracy theorists, who are really the truth tellers here, are not being heard. People who have uncovered the truth, are not being heard. My mother was telling me about how Harvard College was in kahoots with a tech school in Wuhan in constructing the virus. I just went to go look this article up, and I had to DIG for it on the internet. Typically when you type things into the search bar on google, your search will come up as you type because others have looked it up, but I searched two different things concerning COVID-19 and nothing was coming up to autofill the search. Are you really going to sit here and tell me that not one person IN THE WORLD has searched for Harvard's connection to the virus? Then why did New York Times publish a whole article on it?
This is exactly what I mean. During times like this, where media is needed the most, it is shut down by corrupt people who are hiding too much and have too much to lose, even if it needs to be heard.
It is obvious that many people do not like President Trump. You hear about it on the radio, see it on the news, and read it in the paper just about everyday. With him running for re-election for 2020, the virus could not have been released at a better time. It was released to make Trump look bad during his campaigning, to embarrass him, to make him seem a fool with how it was going to be handled. Funny thing is though, this virus had the opposite effect: it has done nothing but made Trump look even better. But, since it seems like there are so many people who hate him in the world, you will never read an article supporting him, because they want you to think most of America hates him.
This is just like concealing those with antiwar voices.
The Future
Everybody always says having a democracy is the best form of government you could have, and I agree; I would hate to live in China where it is communist and you can't even watch certain television channels because they do not want you to.
But, sometimes democracy makes herself look bad.
Since America has become a democracy in 1835, we have been dealing with the same issues in the press and in the government. There is always going to be someone in government who does not want the press to find something out about them, expose them, show who they are to the world. That is why terms like the chilling effect were ever invented. I've come to realize the reason things like this do not go away is because there is always going to be a political figure who wants to shut up the press. Instead of the press and the government working together like they are supposed to, we are left with hostility in the press and too much power in the government and this creates voices to not be heard. In a form of government dependent on the interaction between the people and the policy makers, there seems to be an unequal amount of power. The government is on a power trip, and that has been evident for years, but especially now during this pandemic.
It makes me thoroughly upset that the government feels the need to have things like the chilling effect, to make people scared to exercise their rights. They do not have the power to take away our rights. In fact, they should be doing all they can to enforce and protect them. I am not sure what went wrong, or when, or where, but something is wrong.
Unfortunately, something of this magnitude is not going to be fixed without a fight, a dirty dirty fight.
In the future, I want to see democracy revert back to what it always should have been: a way for the people and government to positively interact and exchange information. I want voting to hold the same weight it used to when it was used for the first time in the first Presidential Election. And, I want the people to never feel scared of legal sanctions when utilizing the media or exercising their rights.
There is potential with coronavirus for small steps in the right direction to be made, but we won't see that until our lockdown is over.
The Movie
Even as seen in the movie, Goodnight and Good Luck, centered around a man who reports political news, media then is still very similar to media now. During his time reporting, the Red Scare was going on. If you don't know what the Red Scare is, it is when the US and Soviet Union were having the Cold War. During this time the Communists were referred to as the 'Reds' and the term 'Red Scare' comes from the U.S. fear of the Communists and the threats they were making at the time. The Cold War and the Red Scare had lasting effects on the government, that we can even see today. Back then, anyone who wanted to be part of the U.S. government had to be screened for loyalty... sounds like something we still do today! The media was scared to report news concerning the war, because they did not know if it would get back to them. Sounds also very similar to news and media today: people being targeted and taken out by the government because of something they do not approve of. In the movie when the reporter sees the magnitude of the situation, he wants to expose the truth but sees how profound of an effect it can have on the people, the same things go on today. This movie is a perfect example of a different period of history, with different struggles going on, and just as scary circumstances, and all the same things are happening today as they did then. Some things just do not change.
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