Could Bernie be benefiting from the media blackout?

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

People are turning away from the M$M and to alternate sources for information. Follow your favorite sources on twitter and Facebook, and one has no need or time to turn on the tele except for entertainment. Political satire is both powerfully influential and ubiquitous; the Daily Show and The Colbert Report have managed to do what M$M can't: grow a trans-generational following. Since M$M's credibility has been plunging for years, and Bernie continues to surge, is he benefiting from the blackout?

Poll: News Media's Credibility Plunges (2009)
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-news-medias-credibility-plunges/


Thoughts?

[brooklynite]

1. So that whole complaining about the debates thing was a waste of our time?

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

3. It is a legit complaint, for sure, and I haven't seen it suggested yet because...

no one could have predicted that a M$M blackout would work to his benefit, which is why I'm asking.

[firebrand80]

2. He's certainly benefitting from the claim

That there's a corporate conspiracy against him

[djean111]

4. 20 YO grandson and friends and co-workers - do not watch TV at all. Netflix, hulu, websites.

They look stuff up on the internet, they share information on places like reddit.
Bernie is discussed a LOT in the break room at work. So is the TPP. Big grocery store, lots of young people.
The other day, a customer who had talked about Bernie with my grandson last week (she had a Bernie bumper sticker) was leaving the parking lot, saw my grandson, drove back to intercept him and handed him about 8 or 9 Bernie business-type cards to hand out.

TV ads do not reach them. They distrust places like CNN, so they Google and verify things from those sites.
New paradigm.

[Art_from_Ark]

5. I don't trust CNN, either.

I think it started going downhill after Ted Turner left.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

6. That's a key word: Distrust

The millennials are practically defined by distrust/mistrust. Trust has been gradually eroding over time.

I just read a nice article about this yesterday. Boomers have most trust, drop off in Gen-X, way down for Millennials. I'll link the article if I can find it, but others are easy to find. Lots of articles like this abound.

Harvard Poll Shows Millennials Have 'Historically Low' Levels Of Trust In Government
http://www.businessinsider.com/poll-millenials-have-historically-low-levels-of-trust-in-government-2014-4

[djean111]

9. Here is an example of today's information gathering - Grandson watched The Martian online.

In the film, it was stated that currently, Mars is covered by maritime law. So - after watching the movie, he googled mars maritime law, saw that this is true, and then wondered if this somehow might lead to corporations being able to BUY Mars or something like that, he knows the planet cannot be bought, but claims could possibly be made for some sort of ownership of resources or access. He noted that the TPP would give corporations even more power, and said he would be discussing this stuff in the break room and online later, when he gets home.

He is not looking for absolutes, just following interesting trains of thought. He does conflate Hillary with corporations and Wall Street, and is directly impacted by the current health insurance set-up. Not in a good way. So he likes Bernie's single payer plan, and feels more taxes are fine, and says if his taxes can go to funding war, they can also go to infrastructure and health care, like in Europe. He is only 20, and I love the way his thought processes range all over the place.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

14. Great story!

I was about 38 before I could do something like that!

[pa28]

7. How many 20somethings get news from CNN, ABC or birdcage lining (AKA newsprint)?

They favor Sanders widely and are motivated, informed and involved BECAUSE they've done an end run around obsolete old media.

A close older relative of mine gets all of her news from "The Week", The Oregonian and NBC. It's a shame that all she knows about Bernie Sanders is that he's "a socialist" who supposedly got creamed in the debate.

When it comes down to it though which would you rather have? I'll take the excited millennials any day.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

10. This article is close enough. Significant drop actually begins with Gen-X

In the mid-1970s, when baby boomers were coming of age, about a third of high school seniors agreed that "most people can be trusted."

That dropped to 18 percent in the early 1990s for Gen Xers — and then, in 2012, to just 16 percent of Millennials.

The researchers also found that Millennials' approval of major institutions — from Congress and corporations to the news media and educational and religious institutions — dropped more sharply than other generations in the decade that followed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/04/millennials-less-trusting-gen-x_n_5767564.html

[nc4bo]

8. Scary thought for HRC or the GOP I'd think.

Imagine if he were talked about as much as Hill vs Trump or even as much as Hill?

There aren't enough Depends in the world to contain that Code Brown.

...and I do believe that is the entire point.

[jfern]

11. Nope, the media's lack of coverage is definitely hurting him

Unlike Bernie, Obama got a TON of coverage, and did fine with young people.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

12. I think memes like #notmyabuela resonate with late Gen-Xers and Millennials

DU is pretty out of touch. Or, alternatively, DU gives too much weight to M$M. This is an older crowd and still cites M$M when discussing who won the debates. That explains the disconnect between M$M polling and on-line polling. A growing swath of the population has tuned out M$M already.

[artislife]

19. Or all the damn polls

It just makes me laugh. It is like voting for your favorite show on CBS.

I am an Xer, I kind of remember the loyalty to tv stations, how quaint.

We are more "fluid" in our loyalties on a lot of things...sure there are the crazed legions of fans for Apple, Star Wars and The Big Bang Theory..but it isn't that iron clad with a lot of other things.

There are more issue driven people.

Veganism
Climate matters
Human traffic
Immigration
GMOs
TTP
Housing

etc.

A lot of the OW protesters are still connected but working in individual issue groups. There is no way the antiquated method of polling can interpret where people are. They don't know where to look or how to even ask the questions that will give them real information. But people show up...in mass to Bernie or Trump and they barely register that the disgust with all of it has finally reached a majority. Change is afoot.

[Uncle Joe]

13. If anyone believes that, they don't understand marketing, corporations don't spend billions

of dollars exposing their products for good will purposes, they're literally buying a piece of your mind, it begins when you're a child; viewing cartoons and its' commercials selling toys and sugar coated breakfast cereal and up until you need or want adult diapers, prescription drugs, reverse mortgages and funeral insurance.

When the time comes that you need or want a product, theirs' will be the first that come to mind.

The corporate media has not only blacked out Bernie, they've kept Trump front and center from day 1, regardless of actual newsworthy events just for the purpose of keeping Trump's face and name in the American Peoples' consciousness.

The corporate media know that Bernie has tapped into legitimate anger felt by a disenfranchised electorate, and that by promoting Trump's non-stop fear and hate based racism, misogyny, xenophobia and all around inane stupidity, the corporate media along with Trump can divert or misdirect a sizable portion of the American Peoples' legitimate angst working against Bernie and his message.

With the American Nation starving for nutritious political sustenance, the corporate media continually peddles junk food because it serves their extremely narrow mega-conglomerate self interests, they love Citizens United; vast quantities of dollars flowing into political commercials from all over the planet, low taxed super salaries for their ownership, upper management and star punditry, this is their preeminent and overriding concern.

It affects and colors all their coverage and commentary or lack thereof.

Thanks for the thread, WhaTHellsgoingonhere.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

20. Thanks Uncle Joe. Then I'll take a crack at it from a marketing point of view...

First, corporations, especially conservative media, throw money away -- down the toilet -- often. They do this to quash liberal voices. Conservative media moguls are willing to buy up radio stations just to shut out liberal voices despite losing money in the process. This is also especially true of upstart tech companies. It's just an investment in their product from which they expect future returns. In the case of media, protecting the Republican brand and demonizing Democrats.

Second, as the internet grew, companies learned that traditional forms of advertising weren't as effective, not the same return for the investment, forcing them to change their advertising model. They didn't foresee this; the change followed the paradigm shift. Marketing guru's aren't that clever, they are reactive.

Third, there's the matter of the debates. From an advertising perspective, the Democratic debates are pretty much a loser relative to the Republican debates. With 16 Republican debates, as an advertiser, I wouldn't bother dumping anything into the Democratic debates. (Are we in the midst of a paradigm shift?)

Fourth, "debates" (which is a misnomer to begin with) are sporting events, nothing more. And like any sporting event, the officiating is as big a part of the post-game discussion as what was said. The networks are selling more than Trump. They have to sell inequity to make it all work. The only difference, of course, each candidate is declared the winner. I think this is just part of the trend we've witnessed since the mid-1970, and especially so since 9/11 (see below). Getting shut out is the ultimate inequity. So to learn about Bernie, people are turning to their trusted sources rather than having everything filtered through the M$M.

Which brings me full circle: Bernie is surging despite the media blackout, and this is my interpretation of that fact. It's counterintuitive only from an old paradigm point of view.

In the mid-1970s, when baby boomers were coming of age, about a third of high school seniors agreed that "most people can be trusted."

That dropped to 18 percent in the early 1990s for Gen Xers — and then, in 2012, to just 16 percent of Millennials.

The researchers also found that Millennials' approval of major institutions — from Congress and corporations to the news media and educational and religious institutions — dropped more sharply than other generations in the decade that followed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/04/millennials-less-trusting-gen-x_n_5767564.html

[Bluenorthwest]

15. Colbert Report is over a year off air, both CR and The Daily are in fact 'MSM' as Comedy Central is

owned by Viacom, global media hot shot and in fact the 6th largest broadcast and cable company. Can't get anymore mainstream than Viacom. So I have a hard time with saying 'this mega corp is not mainstream'. I do not think that is accurate.
Perhaps by 'MSM' you mean news and commentary programming on cable and broadcast outlets? To me, 'Mainstream Media' is just that, the news and commentary is a part of it, but if you are owned by Viacom, you are in fact Mainstream.

This is not a subject where information from a few years back remains true. This is all in great flux, and the only way to understand it is to look at it as it really is.

[NCTraveler]

16. Two options with the media when you are a Democrat.

1) Blackout
2) Shit On

In order for option two to work for us their hatred has to be over the top. It's why the constant negativity directed at Clinton shows up in personally liking her differently than the large support she recieves.

But in the end those are pretty much our two options with the msm. Nothing new.

[Motown_Johnny]

18. I dunno, lets try it with Hillary and find out. n/t