The Decline in Hard News, the Growth of Infotainment, and How It Negatively Influences Our Society

It is evident there are actors in play working diligently to disrupt our social, political, and economic structure through the use of media.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, the world began to see a decline in hard news and an increase of infotainment like The Oprah Winfrey Show, Entertainment Tonight, The Daily Show, and The View. The 2000s brought about even more. Slowly, our news became infiltrated with entertainment, scandal, and sensationalism. Now, it is at its peak and creating chaos in our society. What we have now is a corporatocracy, instead of one based on traditional values, like family.

“One prominent example of the encroachment of entertainment into news was the 1995 O. J.Simpson story, defined by Kellner as a “mega spectacle,” in a nation “hooked on infotainment and tabloid culture” and marking the “shift from journalism to infotainment.”

Our news media is a business, and as such, the goal is to make money. The goal is to grow a crowd., keep you interested, keep you buying, and keep you coming back for more. They do this by using aesthetic visuals, catchy titles, and glamorized anchors. In an effort to keep your attention they compete against other news media groups to show you even more extreme and attention-catching…