Media Consumption and Dialogue: Dylan Meader, Maryland

This snapshot was gathered in conjunction with the Maryland Voices initiative at Maryland Humanities, specifically to supplement the "Voices and Votes: Democracy in America" traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street program. This collection, made up of stories of first-time voters between the ages of 18 and 24, showcases the experiences of young people as they wrestled with the 2020 presidential election, issues around social justice, the environment, immigration, and the pandemic. 

Dylan Meader (00:00): My name is Dylan Meader. I live in Frostburg, Maryland. I've been... I was born in Maryland, so I've been here my whole life, but I was born in Silver Spring, Maryland. And then we moved to Allegheny County and I pretty much been like around this area the whole time. And yeah, I go to the nearby high school, Mountain Ridge.

Dylan Meader (00:24): As far as social media though, I'd say that... I mean, social media in general, it wants to push... If you're given something and if you're spending more time looking at a certain thing on social media, it's going to want to push more of that to you. So that you'll use... You'll go on social media more and stuff like that. And I think that it kind of creates a confirmation bias because people... Let's say they're Republican or Democrat, if they're viewing more left articles or right articles, they're going to get more of that.

Dylan Meader (01:02): They're not really going to get more diversity. And for that, I recommend to my friends and stuff like that to really pay attention to the news sources that they're looking at and the bias that it has. Like Fox News, CNN, they all have their opinion segments. And I think it's fine in... For you to view those opinions articles. But I don't think that they should be a really primary source.

Dylan Meader (01:36): I think you should be looking more at just the information. Like I think Reuters does a really good job of that. Reuters. They... Their articles are fairly unbiased and that's actually one of their key principles. They really don't add emotionally charged language into their word. And there's several other news sources like that, but you see all these very, very far right news sources like... What is it, like OAN, Newsmax, things like that.

Dylan Meader (02:16): And they're kind of like... I've noticed, especially with this election, especially Trump. He's kind of pushing that the election was rigged and a fraud. And that ended up all being litigated and disproven and the cases were dropped. But there are... There's like a good, I guess majority of the supporters that are moving from Fox News, which is... It's fairly right, but it's not like extreme. But then they're moving to Newsmax and OAN. And those are just even more far right.

Dylan Meader (02:58): And I think it's just reinforcing that bias. And it's just a perpetual loop basically, because they're getting more... They're just going deeper and deeper into it, but you still want to hear both sides of the story. But like I said before, I think really especially if they know someone else that has differing opinions, they can sit down with them and really not an accusatory way saying, "Oh, you're wrong and I'm right."

Dylan Meader (03:35): But just give them the resources to make better judgements and stuff like that. And really have them analyze what exactly they're reading. And especially sources like Breitbart or even MSNBC. They very... They're very biased in their headlines. Like they're usually all painting one side in a good light and the other in a bad light. And then whenever one side does something good, they're not covering it. And even though some might say, "Oh, that's not bias." But it is, if they're not covering... I mean, I know that they can't cover everything, but ultimately I think people should really realize what they're reading to really pay attention to the bias.

Asset ID: 2021.03.09.d
Themes: Social media, media, politics, bias, news, disinformation, Donald Trump, elections, extremism
Date recorded: January 29, 2021
Length of recording: 04:29 m
Related traveling exhibition: Voices and Votes: Democracy in America
Sponsor or affiliated organization: Allegany Museum, in partnership with Maryland Humanities
More information: https://www.mdhumanities.org/programs/museum-on-main-street/2021-2022-tour/