As some Democrats fear social media is exaggerating economic problems, the White House faces a crucial choice on election strategy
On Dec. 20, 2022, Topher Olive went to a McDonald’s in the town of Post Falls, Idaho, and ordered a limited edition “smoky” double quarter pounder BLT with fries and a Sprite. The meal cost $16.10, and he posted the receipt on TikTok.
Even though he had ordered a novelty item, Olive’s video about a $16 McDonald’s order went viral, racking up hundreds of thousands of views…
[…]
One anomalous price from one store in Idaho 11 months ago was ripping through people’s social media feeds as if it explained the entire economy. One Democratic official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations, said: “What are we supposed to do, tell the president or Chuck Schumer to send a tweet saying, ‘Hey, most Big Macs aren’t that expensive?’ It would look ridiculous.” A spokesperson from McDonald’s did not return a request for comment.
Will Stancil has some fame on Twitter but he turned it to crank and a nut. The last ~6 months he’s been punching left like an insane person. I’m surprised he’s managed to get quoted in a major newspaper. But then again - his entire shtick for years has been that young people don’t know anything and their brains are poisoned by the media - particularly Tiktok.
Will Stancil, a research fellow at the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity, said the problem goes far beyond TikTok, pointing out the media also focuses disproportionately on negative news. He said that Republican voters turned on the economy as soon as Biden was elected — hardly a sign of underlying conditions.
It is not a conspiracy theory, Stancil argued, to believe the media ecosystem has warped people’s views, particularly given how hard it is to assess nationwide economic conditions from one’s own personal experience.
“This has a lot to do with the social and media environment that young people live in. People’s ideas of things like the economy — which they can’t experience directly — are being constructed from what they’re hearing from other people. It’s being constructed from what you hear from your peers, trusted sources, and the news media, and so forth,” Stancil said, arguing that while people can have their own experiences of the economy, they cannot individually form a comprehensive picture of it. “People begin to incorporate that into their worldview.”
there was a citations needed ep in the last weeks on how “The Economy” is a phrase bandied by the media to justify property relations and flatten class conflict. when the regular working class person is getting hammerfucked from all angles, they are encouraged to soldier on and accept their lot because “The Economy is strong” and therefore this is the good/normal status quo. but when strikes loom on the horizon, big scary numbers from right wing think tanks are paraded around uncritically and then The Economy is this fragile thing that can be deeply damaged… but only by the working class coming together and negotiating for more pay. and even though ultimately, when the strike ends, any “damage” was momentary and the improved wages/benefits improves many economic metrics in the long term… it is never discussed. and further, it must never be said that the 500 million or 5 billion or whatever in “economic damage” merely shifted from a tiny minority of the owning class and into the hands of the workers.
https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/ep-191-how-medias-use-of-the-economy-flattens-class-conflict