Reject polarization, not news

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While no one word could define a dynamic 2024, different dictionaries’ and publications’ “word(s) of the year” capture its essence, including two reflecting the year’s predominance of politics and media.

“Polarization” was the choice of Merriam-Webster, which defined it as “division into two sharply distinct opposites; especially, a state in which the opinions, beliefs, or interests of a group or society no longer range along a continuum but become concentrated at opposing extremes.”

Ironically, polarity’s omnipresence “happens to be one idea that both sides of the political spectrum agree on,” Merriam-Webster’s editors stated.

This same polarization, however, means partisans probably won’t agree on the Economist’s word of the year: kakistocracy, defined by Merriam-Webster as government by the worst people. The word, the magazine stated, “has the crisp, hard sounds of glass breaking. Whether that is a good or bad thing depends on whether you think the glass had it coming. But kakistocracy’s snappy encapsulation of the fears of half of America and much of the world makes it our word of the year.”

Polarization and the belief among some that the result will be a chaotic kakistocracy may be driving the data in a recent AP/NORC poll titled “Most adults feel the need to limit political news consumption due to fatigue and information overload.”

This exhaustion is especially felt with political and government-related news, with 65% stating they “need to limit their media consumption” about these consistently top topics.

Not surprisingly, Democrats, defeated federally, felt most strongly, with 72% signaling a retreat. Republicans, however — despite wins in Washington — weren’t too far behind, with 59% pledging a pullback. Independents’ in-between beliefs logically landed them in the middle at 63%.

A different kind of poll — Nielsen television ratings — suggests the shift’s already begun: From Election Day to mid-December, according to the AP, left-leaning MSNBC was down about 54% and CNN fell 45%. Fox News, whose viewers are already more numerous (and right-leaning) than their news network rivals, increased (but didn’t spike) by 13%.

Whether this political/media malaise is in fact exhaustion after 2024’s turbulence, Democrats’ dejection over their losses, or some other combination of factors is unclear.

“People often express negative views of the news media in general,” said Marjorie Connelly, a senior fellow for the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The organization, Connelly said, recently conducted a separate survey about news avoidance and it “showed the public often has different views of the media in general and the media they consume.”

And the definition of “the media” seems ever more malleable. More than half of news consumers get at least “some news” from social media every day, according to the Pew Research Center. Some comes from links to vetted, verifiable news sources. But for those who “regularly” receive news from social media, including 59% from X (Twitter), 52% from TikTok and 48% from Facebook, much of the “news” isn’t objective reporting but subjective opinion.

While surely some accurate accounts are disseminated from these and other social media sites, it’s important to note that none of them are news organizations and instead are aggregators (and aggravators, all too often). X, for instance, doesn’t have enduring Moscow correspondents but endless Elon Musk commentary; TikTok is replete with “influencers,” not internationally based reporters, and so on.

This especially matters when conflict across continents has doubled in five years, killing at least 233,000 people in just the past year — a stunning 30% increase, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED).

The dire data “suggests that intensifying conflict may persist as a defining feature of the decade, driven by geopolitical rivalries, continued growth in already active conflict zones, and new instabilities driven by domestic politics,” Clionadh Raleigh, ACLED’s president and CEO, said via email from the U.K., where she is a professor of political violence and geography at the University of Sussex.

Putting context to these conflicts requires reporters. And reporting requires readers, listeners and viewers.

“With one in eight people exposed to conflict in 2024, the disconnect between rising global violence and declining public engagement is concerning,” said Raleigh.

Somewhat encouragingly, the AP/NORC study reports fewer planning to tune out “overseas conflicts” compared to political news this year. But it was still 51% — a fatigue level that could encourage more apathy than alacrity from national leaders. And this matters not just for places like Eastern Europe and the Mideast, but in countries considered stable as well.

“We have seen drastic conflict increase in middle-income and democratizing countries over the ‘failed’ states we have become accustomed to being unstable,” said Raleigh. “High incomes and democracy is not insurance against political violence. Political competition, contests for power, and the elites who capitalize on society’s divisions, are the basis of violent conflict. That can happen anywhere, and we need to be aware of it.”

Indeed, awareness is key, not just for geopolitical crises but for domestic changes and challenges ahead, too. Being informed needn’t be partisan. In fact, the opposite: Objective reporting and analysis should be enlightening, not exhausting.

And awareness is essential to stave off kakistocracy and strive for democracy — one of Merriam-Webster’s runners-up for word of the year. “Democracy,” Merriam-Webster wrote, was a word that “saw a large increase in lookups throughout the year as people tried to fully understand what it means — and to challenge, celebrate and protect it.”