Sensationalized

Responses to sensationalism

Fact-checking websites, media literacy, better content moderation on social media, and legislation have been pursued to reduce the negative impacts of algorithms and sensational media. When American public television news came about in the mid-20th century it came about in part in response to the commercial news stations having sensationalized news prioritized above that of "serious reporting". Some have argued that different algorithms and platform incentives are needed to reduce modern sensationalism both online and among politicians reacting to those online incentives. Andrew Leonard describes Pol.is as one possible solution to the sensationalism of traditional discourse on social media that has damaged democracies, citing the use of its algorithm to instead prioritize finding consensus.