This is one of the more on-target articles you’re going to read on the topic of the information war — though the writer (at National Review of all places!) doesn’t use the phrase. Nevertheless, that’s the topic. Conservatives mostly (and I mean 90% or so) talk only to the choir.
Here is Matthew Sheffield:
Despite conservatives’ perceptions, conservative media exists in a small, ineffectual bubble.
One of the more interesting developments since the emergence of the Web as a mass medium is the establishment of a conservative media presence. Prior to the Internet, there were basically no large-audience right-wing media operations aside from a few talk-radio programs.
Since the 1996 establishment of Fox News and the popularization of the Web, it has now become possible for a conservatively inclined people to consume all kinds of news and opinion catering to their specific tastes and viewpoints. Many right-leaning people have hailed this development, believing that they have finally defeated the hated liberal media. They suppose that because they can now obtain their news entirely from conservative-leaning media that this is what others do as well.
They couldn’t be more mistaken.
While the conservative-media constellation is far larger than it once was, its audience is completely dwarfed by the left-leaning mainstream media. People who are “very conservative” love right-wing media outlets. No one else appears to, not even Republicans who are “somewhat conservative.”
The fact that a majority of average Americans has never even heard of the Right’s biggest stars like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck is a perfect illustration that Republican political junkies live in a media bubble.
Conservative activists who dislike GOP nominee Donald Trump are constantly asking themselves how their party could elect an inexperienced bomb-thrower who constantly messes up. The relatively small influence of right-wing blogs and talk radio is part of the answer. Trump-hating hosts like Mark Levin and Glenn Beck bashed Trump daily on their programs for months. Their criticism had no effect, however, because the only people tuning in were those who already agreed. (It didn’t help that their denunciations were completely hypocritical and politically motivated as well.)
Read more: National Review
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