Has Social Media Made Us All Into Political Junkies?

Atrios today:

Once upon a time only weirdos like me (and you, dear readers) paid this much attention to politics. I documented the minutiae that most people weren’t aware of. Now everybody knows! Social media has led to a kind of “bleed” such that everybody is aware of all of the stupid shit that once upon a time only weirdos like me (and you!) were aware of. Even if you aren’t that interested in politics, the information comes at you like the Kardashians. I don’t know if this is good or bad. Once upon a time it was easy to tune out politics. Now it is impossible.

I think this is wildly wrong. At a guess, public knowledge of political comings and goings hasn’t changed in decades. The vast, vast majority of people pay only the slightest attention to politics, spending their time instead on soap operas, gossip magazines, kids’ soccer games, problems at work, trying to lose ten pounds, unpaid bills, pro football, the price of hamburger, and the guy down the street with the barking dog. Social media may have pushed politics into people’s faces a little more, but it’s also pushed all that other stuff into people’s faces a little more.

However, this seems eminently measurable. So how about it, political science types? What kind of survey data do we have that measures interest in politics beyond the superficial? What other indicators might provide clues? Turnout rates aren’t up. Small-dollar political contributions are probably up (?), but that’s still a minuscule portion of the population. Total viewership of news programs is probably down. What else?

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

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