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Presenter: Maggie Maria Bourgeois

Faculty Sponsor: Eric Norman Budd

School: Fitchburg State University

Research Area: Political Science and Government

Session: Poster Session 4, 2:15 PM - 3:00 PM, Auditorium, A52

ABSTRACT

The First Amendment plays a foundational role in American democracy, allowing for the free exchange of robust ideas and opinions in our media that shape public discourse and hold institutions accountable. The U.S media landscape is currently dominated by corporations and social media platforms. This paper examines three primary barriers to meaningful reform: corporate consolidation, political polarization, and First Amendment constraints. The deregulation of the media market has concentrated ownership to big corporations and weakened local journalism, while partisan divide has pushed individuals to rely on algorithm-based platforms on social media forums. The constitutional protections of the First Amendment are engraved into our society, severely limiting the ability of the government to regulate content, even in response to misinformation which is constantly evolving with the development of AI generated news media; effectively amplifying the declining media literacy of the American public. This paper evaluates potential solutions to these major barriers, by evaluating other countries' responses to these issues, and weighing the plausibility of proposed solutions and their political feasibility in the United States. Ultimately, it contends that barriers to media reform are deeply intertwined within American society and our democracy, raising critical questions about whether meaningful reform is achievable in the United States.