Hi Phil, yes and another good program is The Social Dilemna on Netflix. It is true that big media can be strongly biased, and deliberately so. For example, Fox News was openly set up to promote a strongly conservative viewpoint from the get go. But the Social Dilemna talks about how the algorithms optimized to maximize advertising revenue push people into silos to allow greater targeting and focus, and hence return-on-investment for advertisers. This means that bias and the resulting polarization can also be a mere bi-product of a business strategy blindly managed by AI, rather than the intended centerpiece of it as is the case with Fox News (and others).
We all need to put pressure on our leaders to harness these platforms to the benefit of the community as a whole rather than individuals or groups or bottom line results.
It is my view that Christians are being increasingly pushed further to the right into order to bolster the republican vote because over the years, urban growth has greatly favored the democrats and this will continue. By polarizing Christians and demonizing Democrats as atheistic socialists who want to usher in a godless immoral world, the hard right is doing enormous damage to the institutions it claims to defend, chiefly the public trust in the electoral system, and in the fundamental goodness of people. Once trust is lost, then so is truth and then lies are seen as coming from every side in every discussion and all we have is conspiracy theories - this is the tragedy of today’s US polical landscape.
I think concerned Christians should stand up and be counted here. A strong voice needs to be heard that says that it is time for people of good will to resist and to not be led around by the nose by demagogues like Trump or the party political. We need trust to be restored in the political system. It is time for people to vote with their feet when it comes to using facebook and other systems that polarize us, and boycott those media outlets that refuse to go back to good old serious journalism that at least tried to check facts and show a balanced view. We get the systems we get because we fail to do anything about them. I am just saying that people have been successfully set against each other and this has taken everyone’s attention away from what is really important, and that is to listen, to learn, to compromise and to work together. Instead of Churches becoming part of the republican marketing machine, Christians should take back the pulpit and push a broader and much more inclusive message that seeks to unite all people regardless of their faith.