The world today is blinded. At least the world today is misconstrued and confused. The rise of new technologies today, specifically new media platforms, has created mass amounts of misinformation and disinformation within the population. I have always known something a little peculiar was happening within large media, but now, after researching many articles and learning from my Environmental Media course at the University of Colorado Boulder. Large issues in the world have so many opinions covering the stories all at once that very rarely it seems, people are getting the correct information. Most importantly, the matters of climate change and environmental destruction are huge debate topics amongst most of the world, with opinions coming from every angle. Sometimes those angles are skewed from the truth, furthering our misunderstanding of the actual events that are happening. Multiple articles that were assigned during this course gave me evidence to confirm my prior beliefs.

Unless you are Amish or living in the bush, you will have most likely been exposed to or at least made aware of climate change. With new technologies such as social media; it is almost impossible to not be exposed to what is happening. With most of the world being around a screen for most of the day the media is always accessible at our fingertips. Which gives the human race a great advantage. These technologies can be used to our own disadvantage by creating a large separation of belief and rationale amongst the world. Media today has created a massive divide between the population of the entire world. Being divided and contradicting upon its self at times, mass media has worked its way into the once original minds of humans and takin over whats seems to be a large majority’s thought process. Many issues in the world, specifically climate change, have had increasing polarization due to the effects that mass media has on the populations’ exposure to the crisis today. The media does an excellent job at creating this schism by showing viewers partial or even opposing pieces of information to widen the margin of belief amongst the viewers. This quote from Hoffman’s article, How Culture Shapes the Climate Change Debate, shines a beaming light on the situation that is occurring in our lives. “In  1997,  nearly identical percentages of Republicans and  Democrats  (47%  and  46%,  respectively)  indicated that global warming was already happening. By 2008, the divide had grown steadily to 35 percentage points,  with 41 percent of Republicans and 76 percent of Democrats in agreement. In  2013, that divide stood at 38 percentage points, with 50 percent of Republicans and 88 percent of Democrats believing that “global warming evidence is solid.” ( pg 36) With this separation and deception happening at a political level, how is anybody supposed to trust practically any news source? Especially when our own government is one of the leading sources of mis and disinformation. 

Although this is, unfortunately, our reality, I believe that new media technologies could be used to our advantage in a way that could centralize global beliefs. Specifically, climate issues, social justice matters, and religious affairs may be another story. But, with regards to climate activism within new media, there are many great examples that show a legitimate beneficial impact. One of the most meaningful examples is the story of Greta Thunberg, a young influencer in the fight against climate change. Thunberg was one of the most internationally known people for the past couple of years. From her original statements at the UN Climate Action Summit, throughout her TED talk and later protests, millions of people have been exposed to her in one way or another. Now, even though some of the publicity that Greta is receiving is negative, people are still learning about her movement. Exemplifying the phrase, “there is no such thing as bad press. Because this creates such a large debate, it will eventually affect the thought processes of many people, hopefully. This next great example of new media spreading important information effectively is taken from a more comical standpoint. Lil Dicky’s music video “Earth” does an outstanding job of reaching all generations but most importantly the younger ones, the ones that will have a bigger impact on the future of the Earth. By using comedy and all-star celebrities to entice viewers into his video, Lil Dicky is able to promote his idea on very important issues in the world. Even though I was laughing throughout, I still was able to understand the main message behind his cartoon. We live in this world and it provides so much necessity and joy to our lives that we need to start loving it back and protecting the Earth from our own actions. 

With such an incredibly large influence from new media, it is inevitable that people will always be persuaded by things they see on their phones and televisions. These new technologies are capable of providing humanity with an excellent resource to help evolve our global intelligence and understanding. But it also has the ability to blind the population from the true issues at hand. With the help of people like Greta and Lil Dicky, new media is showing the world that it is here to help, but we need to stop ignorantly listening to believable deception. If we are able to see past misinformation and disinformation, the media will once again be a credible tool used by the vast majority of the population.