Echo chambers, public angst, and lessons from German media to build public trust in campaign reporting
A 2024 YouGov poll reveals that The Weather Channel is the most trusted news outlet in the U.S., with Americans more likely to view it as trustworthy than untrustworthy. This highlights a troubling trend in the state of U.S. media, where out of 50 analyzed news outlets, only the apolitical Weather Channel is seen as reliable. Interestingly, a foreign news outlet, the BBC, ranks as the second-most trusted source. Given that much of the public's news consumption is politically focused, this polarized media landscape raises concerns about the impact on democracy, as political affiliation increasingly shapes how people engage with news.
Germany’s media landscape, which includes a mix of public and private outlets, provides an interesting contrast to the polarized U.S. media environment. Despite having 489 federal, regional, and local channels, Germany’s oldest public television news program, Tagesschau, remains the most trusted source of political information. A 2023 Reuters survey found that 62% of Germans have high or very high trust in Tagesschau, a figure significantly higher than the trust Americans place in the BBC, the second-most trusted news source in the U.S. This suggests that Germany’s media environment is less fragmented, less politically polarized, and not as influenced by party affiliation as the U.S. media landscape.
However, that doesn’t mean that the German media landscape is immune to the global shifts from traditional to social media, which has eroded journalistic filters. In response, the German public media have adapted by expanding into digital platforms and exploring strategies to maintain journalistic integrity.
In the Media & Elections program, participants will reconstruct and analyze political persuasive strategies of the 2024 United States election, examining how these strategies are reported and amplified in American news media. They will also compare this coverage with how similar events and strategies are portrayed in Germany. The program will be enriched by discussions with media professionals from both German and American news outlets, as well as faculty from Gettysburg College and other international institutions.
By participating in this program, students will:
- Gain an understanding of the fundamental functions of news media, including how stories are selected, sources are evaluated, and content is framed.
- Learn to distinguish between political news reports that perpetuate political strategies of persuasion and those that merely reflect them.
- Explore different institutional models of private and public media, and understand how these structures influence both what and how news is reported.
- Study key similarities between the American and German political systems and their respective media landscapes.
- Develop policy recommendations to strengthen fact-checking mechanisms and promote responsible political information gathering beyond partisan echo chambers.
- Most importantly, deepen their understanding of the complex relationship between politics and media, especially during an election year.
Media & Elections consists of six sessions and a final session to present findings.
Schedule
Students are expected to attend all program sessions throughout the semester. All sessions will be held on-campus at Gettysburg College.
- Session 1: Thursday, January 30, 4pm-6pm
- Session 2: Thursday, February 13, 4pm-6pm
- Session 3: Thursday, February 27, 4pm-6pm
- Session 4: Thursday, March 27, 4pm-6pm
- Session 5: Thursday, April 3, 4pm-6pm
- Session 6: Thursday, April 10, 4pm-6pm
- Presentations: Thursday, April 24, 4pm-6pm