POL 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Alternative Facts

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Politics and Public Administration
• Course: POL 102
• Professor: Arthur Ross

Document Summary

The mass media: information, political socialization and democracy. The mass media gives us access to information about: A healthy democracy depends upon the free flow of accurate information. We are overwhelmed with information, but starved for understanding . Information is only meaningful when it is put in context that makes it meaningful. Most canadians, depend on the mass media to provide them with an education about politics and government, a framework for understanding the meaning and importance of issues and events as well as how democracy works (political socialization). Information is only meaningful when we have sufficient knowledge to both understand and act on it. Meaningful information should also be free from partisan or ideological bias (bias in favour of a particular political party or ideology) or vies that favour business or corporate interests. We live in an era of new media: proliferation of websites, twitter accounts, blogs and social media.