populations that hold the opposite position on both questions.

It is simply unreasonable to pin the blame for patterns of trust and distrust in media, or the rise of Trump, on a medium that is consistently used less by demographic groups that express that distrust or support the president and is used more by

the population begin to reinforce each other within the feedback loop. As

The positive feedbacks between the benefits to elites, who gain a reliable audience, the benefits to the broadcasters, who gain a loyal market segment, and the beliefs and attitudes of

Right-wing audiences are systematically disconnected from potential sources of disconfirmation. As

This makes the corrective role of professional institutions asymmetrically available to the two populations.

equally capable of telling truth from identity-confirming fiction.

At the end of the day, if one side most trusts Fox News, Hannity, Limbaugh, and Beck, and the other side most trusts NPR, the BBC, PBS, and the New York Times, one cannot expect both sides to be equally informed or

Existing in a media ecosystem dominated by media whose role is to confirm your preconceptions and lead you to distrust any sources that might challenge your beliefs is a recipe for misinformation and susceptibility to disinformation.