Nesbitt-Larking

“Since media are part of the political class and talk mostly to the political class, the myth of popular polarization took root and grew.” (Fiorina, Abrams, Pope, 2005, p. 167). Recently media has played a huge role in the country’s politic; they share information, report events, and frame opinions.

Chun-Fang Chiang and Brian Knight discuss the significance that media bias has on voters in America. They conducted a study in which subjects select a candidate to vote for after reading a biased newspaper article. After the research is conducted, they determine that media is influential in determining who people will vote for, but there are different degrees of influence. For example, people are more willing to be influenced when their source is more credible and when the voters tend to be more moderate.

Political scientist, journalists, and politicians alike often discuss the role of the news media’s place in affecting campaigns, and voter perceptions. Claims of media bias in political news coverage have risen over the past two decades. Scholarly research has explored concerns that broadcast and print media shape voting decisions in democratic processes.

A major modern problem with the media is the sublimation of, and reaffirmation of, stereotypical female gender roles. “The media treats women like shit” (Cho). Which is a serious issue because of Marshall McLuhan’s famous words, “The Medium is the Message” (Warwick). The medium up for discussion is the media, which can be fundamentally defined as the most significant “single source of information that people have today (Katz). Therefore, in order to understand “what’s going on in our society” (Katz) it is “absolutely imperative to “understand media” (Katz). Media and technology are “shaping our politics, our national discourse and most of all, they’re shaping our children’s brains, lives and emotions” (Steyer). Caroline Heldman, PhD, and

The development of opinions, attitudes and political values results from the interaction that occurs within the social environment of an individual through contact with family, friends, at school, work and church. Families especially help shape interest in politics and party affiliation while educational institutions encourage support of the political system. The mass media also influences public opinion through newspapers, radio, television and the Internet by reaffirming attitudes and opinions that individuals have already established. According to Doris Graber, author of Mass Media and American Politics, “people do not necessarily adopt the precise attitudes and opinions that earn the media’s praise: rather, mass media information provides the ingredients that people use to adjust their existing attitudes and opinions to keep pace with a changing world” (11). Therefore, the news media focuses the attention of the public on certain issues or individuals, which causes individuals to form opinions on these particular topics.

The words in print and the images on the television screen is hard to determine whether the media deliberately supports a white supremacist agenda or if the media has been transformed into something that is not considered intentional but just as dangerous. Media coverage efforts should include critical research focused on racial biases within media that are marginalizing and over criminalizing other races used to persuade ideologies. Many studies have researched the ideas of impartial racial bias in media (media and social media)

Social media is described, by the Merriam-Webster dictionary (2015), as “forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos)”. As few as 10 years ago the term social media was yet to be coined, but within that decade the use of these blogs, websites and sharing platforms has increased exponentially with no plateau in sight. From creating Instagram accounts for household pets, to sharing Halloween themed baking ideas over Pinterest, people today have access to social media outlets for almost everything. Today about 74% of people ages 18-65 use some form of a social networking site (Pew, 2014). Facebook takes the lead in social media usage with about 71% of those adults. LinkedIn and Pinterest are tied for second at 28% of users, 26% use Instagram, and Twitter falls last in the top 5 most used social medias with 23% of users (Pew, 2014). In September of 2013 the Pew Research Center measured that 90% of adults ages 18-29 used these social media outlets on a daily basis, which is an astonishing increase from the 9% that was measured in February 2005 (Pew, 2014). Due to the fact that young adults are increasingly involving themselves in these online platforms, it is very important to understand the long term and psychological effects (such as depression, social anxiety,

The media has grown and become more prevalent in the lives of everyday people, causing it to be a very large industry that looks to expand its audience and be profitable while doing so. Elections are very important to people and the easiest way to access the information regarding the candidates is through the media. “Agenda setting can thus be seen as another name for successfully performing the first function of framing: defining problems worthy of public and government attention.” (Entman, 2007). The media pushes their agenda regarding

There are two main schools of thought on this issue: (1) that media only has an impact on beliefs and voting in the short run and (2) exposure to the media may affect beliefs and voting in the long run. If a viewer doesn’t know the bias of a particular news outlet, such as in the launching of that news outlet or the first time that a person watches/reads it, the news outlet will likely alter her perception of reality. Even in the long run, while identifying the existence of bias is easy, identifying the extent to which it exists is often far more difficult. About 8-10% of the audience of a news network is persuaded, on average. The media isn’t just trying to put objective information on the table so that we can sort through it and sift through it on our own time, but rather implicitly directs our views and opinion in one direction. Baseline calibrations indicate that 4 to 8 percent of the audience of Fox News was persuaded to vote Republican that wouldn’t have voted Republican normally. Regardless of whether the influence is short term or long term, it has real world effects that can’t be discredited. The results of elections are hugely swayed by the media, both in terms of advertising and web marketing. Again, the media doesn’t get used as a platform for objective knowledge, but rather as a platform for specific

Mass Media has perpetuated racism through the inaccurate coverage of news in our country. The media has played a huge role in prolonging racism by disproportionally reporting on events and news that are tied to minority races. Decision makers should take notice to this awful trend because are country is becoming more and more racially divided day after day. The media has only weakened already weak ties between the white majority and minorities, creating much controversy and hostility. It is vital for policy makers and the american people to realize that the media’s agenda is much different from the public agenda and that the media does not operate in the benefit of American society. It is important to know that the media has drastically affected core values and put our country’s progression of race relations in danger.

“The collective opinion of many people on some issue, problem, etc., especially as a guide to action, decision, or the like.” Dictionary.com. 2015. dictionary.reference.com. [ONLINE] Available at: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/public-opinion. [Accessed 17 November 15]. When looking at the cultural, financial and ideological aspects of our world today it is hard to dismiss the pressing influence that the media has. In this essay I will be analysing how the media uses different methods to manipulate the public and the influence it has on society and how it shapes public opinion, alongside public opinion in democracy now. I will also be discussing theories in which people don’t believe the media moulds the public’s opinions. The media industry is very essential but on the other hand the public opinion is indispensable, without the public opinion there is no media. The media becomes an influential determinant of public opinion, and sometimes it has the power to change public sentiments in terms of controversial issues.

The media also influences how the public perceives issues. The placement of political issues during news coverage influences the importance of political issues on society. The ranking of media issues and society’s ranking suggest that the media influence the public (Weaver, 1996). The importance of an issue may rests on its time slot, sequence in the news story, or in the advertisement for the news.

presidential campaign of 1992, the media and candidates focused on similar issues, but there was minimal proof that the media were responsible for this agenda convergence. Therefore, to assert that the media consistently decides elections by dictating which issues are salient is misplaced. This study shows that even when public and media agendas align, it is not as simple as stating that this is due to the fact that media are dictating the agenda. This then undermines conclusions reached from McCombs and Shaw (1972) in their Chapel Hill research whereby the strong correlation between public and media agenda was concluded to be a case of the media directing public opinion.

The first thing one must prove is that the media is an effective vehicle to influence public discussion in a democracy. This is key before examining the motives behind any bias that exists. The reach that different mediums have is the main thing that shows how media can influence public discussion. For example, according to the Pew Research Center, in the United States, 93% of adults get their news from digital sources.1 This includes online-only news outlets along with the digital arms of traditional news outlets. The ease of accessing media outlets is unprecedented when one compares it to previous generations. With the number of people with smartphones growing exponentially in recent years, people are having an easier and easier time to access the news right at their fingertips. It’s not just digital sources that are seeing an increase. News watching on TV’s has also grown over previous years. Neilson Media Research has found that news consumption through television has grown by 45% in 2016 compared to the year before. This also far surpassed previous presidential election years.2 This prevalence of news in the daily lives of citizens is the main reason why media can influence public discussion. Since there are so many people viewing so many different sources, that fall across the political spectrum, there will many different points of view. This difference in perspective will lead to people discussing their differences of opinion, hence encouraging healthy discussion in

How much does the media effect your choices in voting? When we first ask this question, we think of the obvious. The media informs us of canidates, their personal backgrounds, their ideology, their stances on issues, things they do in the community they represent, and the platform on which they plan to run. However, once they get past the initial introduction, they "tend to be highly critical of politicians; they consider it their job to find inaccuracies in fact and weakness in argument." (Janda et al., 192) They force the faults of politicians on us, seldom speaking of the positive aspects from that point on. This, in turn, gives the voters a negative vision of their representatives as leaders. If faults are constantly being pointed out, voters begin to think that all politicians are incompetent and unable, and therefore see no need to vote. The media does not intentionally force these negative views upon the mass public; rather they point out the faults because it makes a better story. Although the media does not directly create or change opinions, it tells the public what to think about. By using priming