One of Donald Trump’s strengths is his ability to sense what might be called the pulse of society – quite apart from his own capacity to shape collective perceptions in the United States. During the election campaign, he repeatedly surprised observers with his statements, often leaving political analysts – who viewed developments through the lens of political correctness – at a loss. In the end, it was they who had misjudged the situation.
The upheavals now being caused by Washington’s shifting geopolitical doctrine are, in fact, reflected with striking accuracy in the changes taking place across the media landscape. Television – for now – remains the dominant source of news; the internet continues to surge; and print newspapers account for an ever-shrinking share of the information mix. A study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs illustrates this trend, attributing 34% to television, 27% to the internet and just 5% to traditional American newspapers.
The most revealing finding, however, is that readers of legacy media outlets – such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal – also make up the small minority of Americans who support an active US role on the global stage. By contrast, Americans who rely primarily on websites and social media tend to express skepticism, at minimum, about US involvement in international affairs.
How Americans choose to consume news also shapes their views on the country’s foreign policy – even though 60% of the audience acknowledges difficulty in assessing the reliability of information on digital platforms. That figure is significantly lower for newspapers and television. Ultimately, Americans today show far greater interest in economic news (50%) than in coverage of US relations with other countries (30%).
The structural shifts in how American diplomacy now views the world are closely tied to the transformation of the media ecosystem and to the country’s demographic evolution. Younger generations in the United States are larger in number than those in Europe, a fact that – together with the successful integration of migrants from other parts of the world – has widened the distance from the historical experiences that once shaped the transatlantic relationship.
