Getting exposed – really exposed

Two outlaws stare at one another in a wild west saloon. Their hands hover over their guns. One looks at the other and says, “This town ain’t big enough for the both of us.” One has to leave.

Now think of that as your thoughts, especially when something new completely changes what you once believed.

One thought has to go.

Cognitive dissonance is the term that is used when we submit to our own biases and select sources of information that fit our belief and value system. See, when we come across information that contradicts what we know or believe, the two thoughts can’t fit in the same space, so we seek out sources of information that reinforce what we already know even if the information is factually wrong. Cognitive dissonance, or selective exposure, is an unconscious process (Claussen, 2004).

Understanding our own biases is one of the lessons taught at the Center for News Literacy at Stony Brook University. (For those who don’t know, I’ve been at the centre for the week learning about how profs at SBU deliver the undergraduate news literacy course.) While profs at the school agree that it is a crucial lesson in order to become news literate, whether selective exposure to news media exists in today’s age of information fruitfulness is a subject of some debate.

With explosion in sources of news, information and opinion has meant that consumers can go anywhere to find out about anything. Today, not only do we have access to more information than any previous generation, it is also far easier today to practice selective exposure, especially when it comes to seeking sources that reinforce our political ideologies (Stroud, 2008).

One of the key problems with “partisan selective exposure” is the public could take more ideological stands on policy issues and “stunt the ability of government officials to create policies that are responsive to the public’s needs” (Stroud, 2008, p. 343). At the same time, Stroud argued, partisan selective exposure could be a myth: Years of research left a mixed bag of results over whether people consciously or unconsciously tuned into broadcasts or read print publications that fit their beliefs and values. After analyzing the news consumption habits of voters during the 2004 American election, survey results pointed to evidence of partisan selective exposure. But Stroud was not ready to say the results definitively proved the existence of selective exposure:

“Partisan selective exposure is not so pervasive that people have completely surrounded themselves with likeminded (sic) media outlets” but “people’s political predispositions are important determinants of their media use.” (p. 359, 360)

So it is possible that during political events, such as elections, people may purposely select news and information outlets that match their beliefs. At the same time, that may not happen outside elections. Whether selective exposure should be in a news literacy curriculum, I don’t know:

“Media illiteracy is also high – many consumers do not know that television news is largely driven by newspapers (Presstime Survey, 2002) and wire services, the latter of which are fed by newspapers; that talk shows are not news broadcasts; or that editorial pages are supposed to be opinionated…. [However,] it is difficult to tell where cognitive dissonance leaves off and media illiteracy begins or to what extent they overlap.” (Claussen, 2004, p. 217)

I will say that understanding our own biases is important to understanding our news and information consumption habits. Who knows? Once we understand that, maybe we can make the town big enough for every gunman who walks into the saloon.