Critiquing the Media Debate

The Assignment:

1. Read and annotate Marcus Prior's News vs. Entertainment: How Increasing Media Choice Widens Gaps in Political Knowledge and Turnout
2. Generate arguments for the following  statements.

• “Greater choice allows politically interested people to access more information and increase their political knowledge.”
• “In a high choice environment, lack of motivation, not lack of skills or resources, poses the main obstacle to a widely informed electorate.”
• “…people’s increasing ability to customize their political information will have a polarizing impact on our democracy as media users become less likely to encounter information that challenges their partisan viewpoints.”
• “Greater media choice thus widens the ‘knowledge gap’.” (political knowledge is higher in some segments of the voting population than in others)

Debate each statement  by commenting on each of the blog posts below.

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