The overlooked factor that shapes how people vote

Summary

POLITICO Tech Podcast Summary
Episode: The Overlooked Factor That Shapes How People Vote
Release Date: November 12, 2024

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Introduction

In the latest episode of POLITICO Tech, host Stephen Overlea engages in a thought-provoking conversation with Stephen Waldman, co-founder and president of Two Report for America and Rebuild Local News. The discussion centers on a pivotal yet often overlooked factor influencing voter behavior: the sources from which individuals obtain their information. Waldman, drawing from his extensive background in political journalism, argues that understanding where voters get their news is crucial to comprehending recent election outcomes.

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The Changing Media Landscape

Waldman begins by addressing the traditional focus on demographic groups in post-election analyses. He states, “A lot of the conversation understandably is about demographic groups... But the thing that misses is how do people get their news?” (02:05). He emphasizes that the evolution of information consumption over the past decade plays a significant role in shaping voting patterns.

Waldman critiques the outdated terminology surrounding media, suggesting that terms like "alternative media" no longer suffice. He explains, “The word the media doesn't really mean anything anymore... It's a mix... of traditional media, non-traditional media, and social media” (03:00). This blending complicates efforts to analyze the impact of media on voter behavior, as information now flows through diverse and often overlapping channels.

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Impact on Voting Behavior

Delving deeper, Waldman highlights distinct voting preferences tied to information sources. Referencing an NBC poll conducted earlier in the year, he notes, “Among people who are most likely to get their news from newspapers were at that point going 70 to 21 for Biden. And among people who are primarily getting their news from YouTube or Google, it was 55 to 39 for Trump” (04:24). This stark contrast underscores how differing media consumption habits can influence electoral outcomes.

He further illustrates that demographic groups, such as Latinos and young voters, who predominantly use social media for news, showed significant shifts in their voting behaviors. “Latinos are considerably more likely to be social media users and get news from social media than white people are... same thing with young people... they're above the national average in how often they're getting their news from social media” (04:24).

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Social Media's Role and Its Effects

The conversation shifts to the evolving role of social media platforms in news dissemination. Waldman observes a substantial increase in news consumption on platforms like TikTok and YouTube. He mentions, “Last election, of the people who were using TikTok regularly, only 3% of them were using them for news. This time it was 17%” (06:23). Similarly, YouTube’s role has grown, with news consumption rising from 23% to 32% among adults (06:50).

Waldman raises concerns about the implications of increased reliance on social media, highlighting its polarizing nature and propensity for spreading misinformation. “There's all sorts of evidence that social media, A is more polarizing. And B spreads more misinformation” (06:50). While he acknowledges that misinformation could be present across the political spectrum, he points to anecdotal evidence suggesting a higher prevalence on the right, potentially influencing voter decisions (07:33).

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The Decline of Traditional and Local News

A significant portion of the discussion addresses the decline of traditional and local news outlets. Waldman explains, “We've lost somewhere between 60 and 65% of the reporters out there in about two decades. Thousands of communities have no local news” (14:33). This vacuum has been filled predominantly by national news and social media, leading to a more fragmented and polarized information environment.

The absence of local news has broader societal implications, including reduced community cohesion and increased alienation among residents. Waldman notes, “When local news goes away, it's replaced by national stuff... It leads you to have more misunderstandings about those people” (14:33). Moreover, the decline hampers communities' ability to address local issues effectively, fostering a sense of powerlessness and disconnection (16:25).

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Responsibilities of Tech Platforms

Overlea shifts the discussion to the responsibilities of tech platforms like X, YouTube, and TikTok, given their role as primary information sources. He raises critical questions about accountability, asking, “If social media is basically going to act like publishers, shouldn't they have to be subject to some of the same rules as publishers?” (13:33).

Waldman concurs, stating, “I think so. But that's a hugely controversial topic” (13:33). He criticizes tech companies for their contradictory stance on being news sources while resisting regulatory accountability. “They will say we are actually the best source for news... But then when it comes to... lawsuits... they say, no, we're not publishers” (12:13). This tension highlights the challenge of ensuring accurate and responsible information dissemination on dominant digital platforms.

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Future Implications

Looking ahead, Waldman speculates on the future of media and its impact on politics. He anticipates that traditional journalism will need to adapt by embracing platforms like TikTok and YouTube to remain relevant. “It's never going to go back to the days where you just had like a trusted brand and you looked that up on the Internet” (09:06).

Waldman also foresees the potential influence of artificial intelligence in future elections, predicting it could become a major factor by 2028. He muses, “Maybe human beings will make a comeback, like having actual journalists that you kind of know who they are and come to trust them” (09:06). This perspective suggests a possible resurgence in the value placed on trusted, human-driven journalism amidst increasing digital misinformation.

Overlea echoes this sentiment, adding, “There’s a potential future where because of disinformation fueled by AI, people may be looking for trusted sources of information” (11:10). However, he questions whether legacy media will regain its trusted status, given existing public trust issues.

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Reviving Local News as a Solution

The conversation concludes with Waldman emphasizing the importance of reviving local news outlets to counteract the negative trends in information consumption. By restoring local journalism, communities can regain a sense of cohesion and empower residents to address local issues effectively. “When there's less local news, you feel powerless and ineffective in your own community” (16:25).

Rebuild Local News aims to fill the void left by declining local media, fostering informed and engaged communities. This revival is seen as a counterbalance to the polarizing and often unreliable nature of national news and social media, potentially leading to more informed and cohesive voter bases in future elections.

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Conclusion

Stephen Waldman’s insights on the POLITICO Tech podcast shed light on the critical yet overlooked role of information sources in shaping voter behavior. The decline of traditional and local news, coupled with the rise of social media as a primary news source, has profound implications for political polarization and election outcomes. Reviving local journalism emerges as a key strategy to foster informed, engaged, and cohesive communities, ultimately influencing future electoral dynamics.

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Notable Quotes:

• “A lot of the conversation understandably is about demographic groups... But the thing that misses is how do people get their news?” – Stephen Waldman (02:05)

• “It's a mix... of traditional media, non-traditional media, and social media” – Stephen Waldman (03:00)

• “Among people who are most likely to get their news from newspapers were at that point going 70 to 21 for Biden...” – Stephen Waldman (04:24)

• “There's all sorts of evidence that social media, A is more polarizing. And B spreads more misinformation” – Stephen Waldman (07:33)

• “We've lost somewhere between 60 and 65% of the reporters out there in about two decades...” – Stephen Waldman (14:33)

• “If social media is basically going to act like publishers, shouldn't they have to be subject to some of the same rules as publishers?” – Stephen Overlea (13:33)

• “Maybe human beings will make a comeback, like having actual journalists that you kind of know who they are and come to trust them” – Stephen Waldman (09:06)

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and conclusions from the episode, providing a clear and engaging overview for those who haven't listened to the podcast.

Transcript

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[Stephen Overlea]

Hey, welcome back to Politico tech. Today's Tuesday, November 12th. I'm Stephen Overlea. After every major election, the losing side faces the same dreaded where did it all go wrong? And for the past week, that question has been consuming the Democratic Party, prompting all sorts of data analysis and cable punditry about why voters cast ballots the way that they did. But journalist Stephen Waldman argues those pollsters and reporters are overlooking a key factor where people get their information. And in a recent piece for Politico magazine, Stephen wrote that a voter's candidate of choice appeared to differ depending on whether they read the newspaper or scroll social media. Stephen spent the early part of his career as a political journalist at outlets like Newsweek and U.S. news & World Report. And he's now the co founder and president of two Report for America and Rebuild Local News. Both are focused on reviving independent journalism in small communities. On the show today, Stephen lays out the new media landscape and why we all need to adapt. Here's our conversation. Well, Stephen, welcome to Politico Tech.

[Stephen Waldman]

Thank you for having me.

[Stephen Overlea]

So the post mortem kind of dissection of the 2024 election outcome has really been breathless for about the past week. And you wrote for Politico that where people get their information needs to be part of that analysis. What are people missing?

[Stephen Waldman]

Well, a lot of the conversation understandably is about demographic groups. You know, how did Latinos go? How did suburban women go? How did non college educated people go? And I think to some degree that's because that's the questions they ask on the exit balls.

[Stephen Overlea]

Right.

[Stephen Waldman]

And they're important. But the thing that misses is how do people get their news? How do people get their information? And that's always been important. But the world of news and how we get our information has changed so dramatically in the last 10 years that it very likely is a big factor in shifting votes as well.

[Stephen Overlea]

You know, when you're thinking about this, how do you define kind of alternative media or new media, you know, whatever term you want to use for, for it. And kind of the legacy media that we often think about as the news.

[Stephen Waldman]

Yeah, I feel like we're going to have to like invent entirely new terms because the word the media doesn't really mean anything anymore. Right. And I keep using these very cumbersome phrases like information ecosystems or things like that, like how you get your information. Because the truth is, it's a mix, right? It's a mix of some of it's from traditional media, some of it is from, I'd say, non traditional media, let's say podcasts, you know, a Joe Rogan or Ben Shapiro. That's media of a sort, but it's certainly non traditional. And then some of it's not even that. It's just things you see on TikTok or something someone posts on Reddit or a retweet from Elon Musk. That's not even non traditional media, really. That's social media, which is a different thing. And so we really have to take that all in. They're all there. But we have to stop thinking that, oh, if we analyze, like, what the New York Times headline was, we'll know much of anything about, you know, how people consumed information.

[Stephen Overlea]

Well, some of the analysis that you have done, kind of looking at those voting demographics, looking at where they get their information, there were definitely distinct differences between Democrats and Republicans, you know, as you said, between older voters and younger voters. How did some of those big differences break down?

[Stephen Waldman]

Well, we're having to look a little bit at indirect clues since they didn't actually ask this question on the exit polls. But there was a poll earlier in the year, NBC did a poll that actually, like, tried to get at this, and this was when Biden was still in the race. So, you know, might have shifted a little bit, but it gives you a sense among people who are most likely to get their news from newspapers were at that point going 70 to 21 for Biden. And among people who are primarily getting their news from YouTube or Google, it was 55 to 39 for Trump. So maybe that changed by Election Day. But clearly there's some really big differences in how people, you know, the voting preferences depending on where they're getting their information from. We do know a little more about which types of social media or media different demographic groups prefer. Like, for instance, we know that Latinos are considerably more likely to be social media users and get news from social media than white people are. You know, given the fact that Latinos were such an important shifting group, the fact that they're mostly getting their news from social media would seem to be relevant. Same thing with young people. That was another group that shifted to Trump, and there too, they're above the national average in how, how often they're getting their news from social media.

[Stephen Overlea]

Well, it's interesting, too. I mean, if you look at even Just within social media, for instance, in the last four years, the platforms where people are getting their news changed pretty dramatically. You know, looking at research from the Pew Research center, for instance, right. You've seen TikTok kind of take off as a platform for news. Facebook, you know, has sort of declined a bit. And so there may be some demographic reasons for that. But even in kind of the social media landscape where people are turning for information is an ever evolving thing.

[Stephen Waldman]

Yeah, it really is like TikTok. At last election, of the people who were using TikTok regularly, only 3% of them were using them for news. This time it was 17% were using it for news. So even within that platform, news is becoming a more important thing than it was just four years ago. And YouTube, I think, I think maybe because YouTube's been around for so long, we kind of forget about it.

[Stephen Overlea]

Right.

[Stephen Waldman]

But it is an incredibly important part of this information system and it's a bit of a mix. Like some of it is youtubes of traditional media, but a lot of it isn't. And there again, how people use that platform has changed a lot. Like last election, about 23% of adults got their news from YouTube and this year it's up to 32%, same platform, but a dramatic increase in how a change in how people are using it. And like, you know, one of the things we haven't talked about and like, I don't want to be too judgmental about it until we know the truth is like we know that, okay, why does it matter if people are more reliant on social media? Well, there's all sorts of evidence that social media, A is more polarizing.

[Stephen Overlea]

Right.

[Stephen Waldman]

And B spreads more misinformation. Now, we don't know yet for sure that that's what happened. You know, it could turn out there was as much misinformation on the left does there was on the right. But there's certainly anecdotal evidence that the misinformation was more prevalent on the right and that a lot of these voters were, you know, hanging out a lot in social media. So maybe that was a big factor.

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[Stephen Overlea]

I'm curious if you see these media habits and shifts as permanent. And how should that impact then? Kind of the way that journalists like ourselves and pollsters and campaigns anticipate voting patterns in the future?

[Stephen Waldman]

Well, I guess I would say, given how much has changed just in four years, it would be hard to say anything is permanent. Like it could change just as much in some new direction.

[Stephen Overlea]

Right.

[Stephen Waldman]

In the next four years. What does seem to be permanent is that the traditional media consumed through the traditional means is, you know, gone, or at least never going to go back to the level it was now.

[Stephen Overlea]

Lovely, lovely.

[Stephen Waldman]

But I could totally see traditional journalists getting better at getting their information right onto TikTok and YouTube. You know, like, that's gotta happen and that's not news. Like, we've been talking about that for a while. We still haven't somehow figured out how to do it properly. But, you know, so I think the distribution mechanism being some combination of social exchanging of information and direct. Like, I'm going to. The thing that I want to go to, it's going to be a mix of that. It's never going to go back to the days where you just had like a trusted brand and you looked that up on the Internet. I mean, look, I should never say never, because AI is going to come storming into this world. That's going to be. When we talk about 2028, that's probably going to be the biggest change, right? It will be the first. We had some AI in this election, but just the beginnings. So 2028 may be the next presidential election where AI is a really massive factor. And boy, that could just go in so many different directions. Like, if you want to have a little bit of Hopium for the journalist trade, you could say, well, people are going to be so confused and freaked out by misinformation and just not knowing what's true in the algorithmic, purely digital world that maybe human beings will make a comeback, like having actual journalists that you kind of know who they are and come to trust them. Maybe that'll become a positive value again. Who knows? It will definitely change. It's just like anyone who is running a media company or running a political campaign that is still thinking of this primarily in terms of how the newspapers cover you is just missing the boat, right?

[Stephen Overlea]

I mean, I definitely hear your point and agree that I think there's a potential future where because of disinformation fueled by AI, people may be looking for trusted sources of information. I think the question, though, if you look at data on public trust in legacy media, is whether legacy media is where people look to for that trusted information that I also think is in doubt. But I'll say, you know, journalists do have ethical standards that we adhere to, even if sometimes we fall short. You know, media companies can be sued for things like libel and defamation if they, if they wrongly injure someone's root reputation. I wonder from your perspective, what responsibilities you think tech platforms need to take on, whether that's X or YouTube or TikTok. I mean, if they're now the dominant sources of information, these are not journalism organizations. But if this is where people are getting their information, what responsibilities do they need to take on?

[Stephen Waldman]

Yeah, well, the tech companies have, of course, tried to have it both ways, where they will say we are actually the best source for news. And, you know, Elon said, legacy media is dead, long live citizen journalism. So in one sense, they're very proud of the fact that this is how people get their news. But then when it comes to a debate about the law and regulations and whether or not they should therefore be subject to lawsuits if they're publishing libel or misinformation, they say, no, no, no, we're not publishers. Forget that. We didn't mean that we're not publishers. We're just a neutral platform like the phone company, and we shouldn't be held responsible for what people, you know, say or print on our platforms. And that, you know, that tension, people have been pointing out for a long time, and it's really at the heart of the question and everyone just keeps avoiding it. I think it is unlike less likely to come up now that Musk and Trump have won, because they're not going to want that. I think that's, you know, the big question for the media or for information systems is if social media is basically are going to act like publishers, shouldn't they have to be subject to some of the same rules as publishers?

[Stephen Overlea]

Right.

[Stephen Waldman]

I think so. But that's a hugely controversial topic.

[Stephen Overlea]

Right. Well, and, you know, with Trump returning to the White House, with Republicans potentially controlling both chambers of Congress, I do think we will see some more criticism and more scrutiny of some of those protections on tech platforms that may be done in the name of, you know, conservative censorship and accusations that they have a political bias. But nevertheless, I think those protections that tech companies enjoy will absolutely be questioned. Your organization is called Rebuild Local News, and as the name suggests, you see the decline in kind of community and regional news outlets as a factor in some of these media trends that we're talking about. Connect the dots for me between kind of reviving local news outlets and addressing some of these concerns about where people get their information and whether it's tainted by bias or inaccuracy, you name it.

[Stephen Waldman]

Yeah, I do think that the collapse of local news is an important part of this story. And first, you just have to understand the scale of it. Like, we've lost somewhere between 60 and 65% of the reporters out there in about two decades. Thousands of communities have no local news. The amount of content about local communities has just dropped precipitously. And what seems to happen is that that vacuum that's created is filled by national news and social media. So it's hard to prove causation. They're happening kind of at the same time. But you definitely see this phenomenon where when local news goes away, it's replaced by national stuff. That's important for all sorts of reasons. National news tends to be more partisan, more polarizing. Like, you're in Ohio and you're reading about crazy people in San Francisco all day, or you're in Brooklyn reading about crazy people in Alabama all day, and it leads you to have more misunderstandings about those people. And misinformation tends to flow more commonly on social media platforms. But it goes beyond that. It's also that when you have less local news, you have less ability for communities to solve their own problems, and you have less cohesion in a community, and people are more at each other's throats and more likely to feel alienated from their communities. There's all sorts of studies that say people, when there's less local news, you feel powerless and ineffective in your own community. You're more alienated from your community. So to the extent elections are also about, you know, anger against the system.

[Stephen Overlea]

Right.

[Stephen Waldman]

For the system is just doing stuff to you and you have no ability to shape it, that apparently is something that is influenced by whether or not you have information about your own community.

[Stephen Overlea]

Well, Steven, appreciate you being here on Politico Tech.

[Stephen Waldman]

My pleasure. It's an interesting topic.

[Stephen Overlea]

That's all for today's Politico Tech. For more tech news, subscribe to our newsletters, Digital Future Daily and Morning Tech. Our managing producer is Annie Reese. Our producer is Afraid Abdullah. I'm Stephen Overlea. See you back here tomorrow.