Repost: Media and social media perpetual "outrage culture"

Repost: Media and social media perpetual "outrage culture"

I posted this previously on November 17, 2016. Social media and media messaging have turned our entire world into a culture of perpetual outrage:

We have a media system that loves to yell and scream. It is basically its default setting. Forget deliberation and civil discourse, it goes immediately to outrage and cynical condescension, or in other cases, relentless and unprovoked shaming. And we, as the consumers and residents of this culture, have come to confuse all this noise and reaction with action. Psychologists call this the narcotizing dysfunction—when the amount of effort and energy poured into something becomes self-soothing, obliterating any notions of effectiveness or reality.
The result? Our daily nightmare. A world in which not only are truth, vulnerability and nuance completely lost—but the incompetent and the conniving in our midst are able to capture immense amounts of attention. Where not only is shamelessness the ultimate defense against any form of accountability, but where all the normal, qualified and well-adjusted people have walked away in disgust.
….
At this point, everything in-between—vulnerability, nuance, truth—may as well not exist. When our culture encourages the fakeness and stupidity and trolling it is supposedly trying to rail against, there is no room for anything else.

Source: This Is The Hollowed-Out World That Outrage Culture Has Created | Observer
I was reminded of this today because of widespread publicity about the Women’s March to protest Trump. The March was initiated after a recording of Trump making lewd, vile and disgusting comments about women, was made public last fall.
Today I realized I am so old that I remember when women’s rights leaders actively defended a serial sexual predator in the White House and condemned the victims.
What has changed between then and now?
Perhaps the power of social media to keep us in a state of perpetual outrage.
(If it is not clear from the first paragraph, I believe Trump should be condemned for his outrageous and lewd comments. I have to state this, of course, because of the logical fallacy that if I do not, you may – will – assume the opposite.)

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