The Media's Influence on Public Opinion

“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.

Journalism is an industry that provides a source of information and news for the public, while popular culture is a source of portrayal of the image of the journalist. Popular culture provides a glimpse and “shapes the people’s impressions of the news media”, whether it is portrayed in a positive or negative light. There is no denying that popular culture possesses a large effect on what the public perceives and thinks about journalists and the industry through how the characters, plotlines are presented. Sociologists have even argued that “popular culture’s depictions…of real world professions” have a major influence on the public’s realistic perception of that respective field. Thus, it is not a surprise that in the 1930s, journalist organizations deliberately advocated positive portrayals of the press in Hollywood. An example of a film that stands as a positive representation is The Front Page. Although the film presents reporters and editors “lying and hurting innocent people”, the audience is able to fall for their unique charm and charisma—they are brash, fast-paced, intelligent, composed, independent, passionate and investigative. They embody what America ultimately champions: self-reliance, drive for action and accomplishment. However, popular culture also perpetuates negative, unlovable notions that “journalists [are] hard drinking, foul-mouthed social misfits concerned with only twisting the truth”. In novels like John Andross written by Rebecca Harding

On the contrary, a biased media has increased its effects on American citizens from a voting stand point. It is no surprise that the media plays a major and powerful role in the lives of millions of American citizens every day. These same Americans sit before the television and computer screens and partake in ongoing debates as it relates to political values, parties, and various other pieces of data. It was seen in most recent election experiences that the media can be biased towards both liberals and conservatives. Frontline reported that by comparison, only 11 percent of the primary coverage

A news programs bias and political party standings can effect what types of propaganda they show of certain candidates. For example, FOX news is a strictly Republican news channel, it supports Republican candidate, meanwhile news channels such as MSNBC and PBS are extremely democratic programs and support Democratic candidates in elections. News programs political bias can affect the way that particular program portrays a candidate for an upcoming election and a candidate’s portrayal can change a voter’s opinion of a candidate and can cause that candidate to lose viewers’ votes. The broadcasting of malicious rumors and gossip in any form by news programs gives a negative conception to a viewer. No viewer wants to vote for a candidate that is portrayed in a way that makes the viewer believe that they are bad for the country. Every viewer needs to take in to consideration the political bias of a news program before changing his or her opinion of a candidate as well as do some research on the candidates of an election themselves.

An important yet under-discussed issue for our time is the media bias. Everyday free speech is broadcasted across the world but with underlying agendas of communication companies. Many broadcasts engage in the assaulting of political candidates or display of tragedies to prompt viewers to believe the media states the exact truth. However, a majority of people do not decipher the tone and mood of the channels and papers which secretly distribute the opinions of the news company rather than solely the news.

Though the misinterpretation and ignorance of honest news through perceptual bias is formed by individuals, it’s a shame that the remaining three-fourths of bias is deliberately carried out by reporters and journalists themselves. The main issue at hand is that journalists today feel that their own opinions are correct and superior to others; therefore, they are sure to only circulate information that will get citizens to see things their way, as opposed to giving an honest, impartial version of the truth. When asked if today’s media influences the opinions of citizens for better or for worse, Shane McNabb, a fellow news consumer, explains that “media outlets influence people when they have obvious biases. They tell you only what they want you to hear, and often out of context. This is often the case for both liberal and conservative outlets, and people end up either not knowing what to believe or taking on the opinion of the biased outlet”

In United States politics, it is evident that the media helps persuade or dissuade peoples’ perceptions of presidential candidates. Traditionally, the media coheres to a baseline ideology and covers news, politics, and stories based on that platform. For instance, a very liberal news outlet could characterize a story about raising taxes in a very appealing fashion while a very conservative news outlet could cover the same information negatively. This phenomena is also known as framing. Framing is the way in which media and other groups organize and perceive events in daily society. Framing is an important tool that is used to bring people to a common similarity and ideology. Liberal and conservative news stations use framing daily, either

Former SIS agent and novelist David Cornwell once said, “I suffer from the same frustration that every decent American suffers from. That is, that you begin to wonder whether decent liberal instincts, decent humanitarian instincts, can actually penetrate the right-wing voice, get through the steering of American opinion by the mass media.” In this weeks reading we read about the events happening after the cold war and beyond. These being subjects like the NATO expansion to internal reform. However in one section of the reading it talk about the events of the Somalia and Bosnian humanitarian effort and the shocking reality of America’s view on it. Being born in America, we have all have heard and influenced by the idea of America being a peace keeping and leading Humanitarian force in the world. Yet the history of America is anything but. With fights only

The authors Barbara K. Kaye and Thomas J. Johnson discuss media effect on individuals as they receive news. Their main claim is that the media has an incredible influence on how the public gets their information. Two of their subclaims are useful in the discussion of my research paper. One subclaim states that “liberals increasingly use sources that they perceive as progressive, while conservatives rely on those they think support the right side of the aisle, and both groups avoid media they think represents the opposite side.”. Another subclaim talks about how there are four types of media bias: gatekeeper bias, coverage bias, statement bias, and perceptual bias. These work together to highlight the influence media has on the public. It also mentions the ways in which people receive their media and the natural trends

Media has quite the power to change and influence politics and the way that American politics are run. Any kind of media or the information that they provide us is supposed to make it easier for people to understand how political decisions are made and know how government works. But in this period of time, the media is often used to exploit false rumors and obscure the true form of conflict or political issues from people.

For persuasion one has to convince the audience that a certain point of view is correct when put against others. Politicians, leaders, and other individuals of power use the media to influence the viewers. A rather powerful tool, if used the right way, it can gather thousands upon thousands of followers. The media’s role in political affair is very crucial: it can make or break the candidate. Certain television networks as well as other news websites on the internet give individuals the platform to express specific viewpoints. Media plays an important and powerful role in America. Millions of Americans view the news and form opinions based upon what they hear, see, or read in the media. The media should present their news in an unbiased way

The role of the media is to report the goals and objectives of the political parties. This is crucial for candidates and parties because it is how most or all of their ideas are shown to the public. Media, such as social media, bring politicians and candidates closer to their potential voters and give them a closer, more personal relationship with the citizens of the state or country. However, despite the rapid growth of social media, the news and print media are still the leading and most important sources in political elections. (http://epthinktank.eu). Because social media is so relevant in our generation-- it is very important that the media is unbiased when reporting about politics because the media should not persuade the opinion of the

In our democratic society, mass media is the driving force of public opinion. Media sources such as Internet, newspaper, news-broadcasts, etc, play significant roles in shaping a person’s understanding and perception about the events occurred in our daily lives. As long as the newspapers, internet, network television, etc, continued to be easily accessible to the public, the media will continue to have an influence in shaping its opinions. Factors such as agenda-setting, framing and priming help shape the public opinions. Agenda-setting is when the media focuses their attention on selected issues on which the public will form opinion on, whereas framing allows the media to select certain aspects about the problem and then

The media has always had a powerful impact on public opinion in Britain. With several different types and means of communication, such as TV, newspapers, social networking and radio, it is difficult for the public to not be even slightly impacted by the opinion of thousands that surrounds them every day. However, with newspapers spinning stories to promote the party they favour (such as the Daily Mail in favour of Conservatives or the Mirror in favour of Labour ) or to disparage the opposition, is it clear there is any obvious influence from the media towards the public in relation to reporting on British Politics?

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.