Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Effect on mass media
Effect on mass media
Mass media negative impact
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Effect on mass media
Fox News:
The Rise of Politically Partisan Infotainment
Consumers now have access to more information than in any other point in history, and are being subjected to partisan news on a larger scale than ever before. Partisan news outlets, such as Fox News and MSNBC tailor their broadcasts to appeal to the confirmation bias of their target audiences. Each network not only chooses which stories to run based on the interest of their target demographic, but also frames the facts in a way that leads consumers to believe that their own beliefs, however factual, are correct, which aligns with a scientific principle known as confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is the tendency for people to seek out information that aligns with their beliefs, while denying the legitimacy of information that opposes them.
Partisan news sources, such as Fox News no longer attempts to educate people so that they may make decisions about the truth of the world, but now exists primarily as a vehicle to tell people what the truth is, or to confirm a target demographics’ preconceived beliefs.
The purpose of this paper is to examine how Fox News impacts its consumers’ knowledge on current world and political events, and whether it has a positive or negative effect on the consumers’ overall knowledge. Two polls conducted by Farleigh Dickinson University, compared Fox News against its competitors, and what researchers found was people who only consumed information from Fox News were “less informed than those who say they don’t watch any news at all” (Cassino, 2011; Kelley, 2012; Study, 2012).
In a telephone study, conducted by Farleigh Dickinson University, researchers asked 1,185 adult consumers a series of questions, which included their age, sex, rac...
... middle of paper ...
...s politics: how one man's thirst for wealth and power shapes our world. London: Pluto Press.
Rothkopf, D. J. (2008). New media monkey-gland injections: A quick shot of sizzle. Superclass: the global power elite and the world they are making (pp. 232- 234). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Society of Professional Journalists: Improving and protecting journalism since 1909. (n.d.). SPJ Code of Ethics. Retrieved April 2, 2014, from http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp
Study: Watching Fox News Makes You Less Informed Than Watching No News. (n.d.). Slate Magazine. Retrieved March 5, 2014, from http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2014/01/30/does_watching_fox_news_make_you_less_informed.html
Wilde, O., & Dowling, L. C. (2001). The soul of man under socialism. The soul of man under socialism and selected critical prose (p. 148). London: Penguin Books.
“Fake” news programs, such as The Daily Show, Zinser reasonably argues, have the potential to dilute mass media and deceive viewers. The Daily Show has been straightforward about its lack of legitimacy as a hard hitting news program, but “the show’s content and guest list suggest otherwise” (Zinser 367). Zinser indicates that The Daily Show should hold itself to higher standards because “people might well think they’re being fully or sufficiently informed while watching” (367). In other words, Zinser believes that if viewers tune in with the expectation of becoming informed and The Daily Show’s content consists of significant topics, the creators ...
Estrich not only falls prey to generalization fallacy but also to faulty cause and special pleading fallacies. The greater issue with Estrich’s arguments is that the premise in her arguments are not supported by strong evidence. In many cases, Estrich does not provide any evidence for the claims that she makes. The lack of evidence and the use of fallacies collectively make Estrich’s article a very poor defense of Fox News. It should also be understood that many of Estrich’s arguments are also not explicitly mentioned and hence an average reader might not be able to infer Estrich’s arguments. Indeed, Estrich could have made her argument stronger by supporting her claims by strong evidence and writing in a clearer and concise
Fox News is constantly being bombarded with accusations of media bias, furthermore, a number of different instances of have occurred which question the validity of Fox News (Groeling). These instances occur throughout normal news broadcasts. Some of the more recent, and grossly biased broadcasts, were from the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. Historically the Fox News Channel is known to lean heavily to the right, or on the republican spectrum. President Barrack Obama’s political party is widely known to the public as being democratic. Statistically, to this day according to studies over 17 million households receive some form of the Fox News Channel (Auletta). The Fox News Channel is published through a number of different channels to its viewers. These channels include: Television, radio, newspaper, internet and more increasingly electro...
Before I am completely encapsulated with my emotions (mostly craze) I would like to make two statements whilst my mind remains somewhat stable… somewhat. The first being that several hundred news websites have published their own versions of this article; however, I chose to write about Fox News’ version. The second statement I am going to make is as follows. Fox news is the bane of my entire existence. Thank you.
A good part of Outfoxed focuses on the company's blurring of news and commentary, how anchormen and reporters are encouraged to repeatedly use catch-phrases like "some people say..." as a means of editorializing within a supposedly objective news story; how graphics, speculation and false information are repeated over-and-over throughout the broadcast day until it appears to become fact, and in doing so spreads like a virus and copied on other networks. A PIPA/Knowledge Networks Poll points to glaring, fundamental misconceptions about the news perpetuated upon Fox viewers, versus information received from widely respected news-gathering organizations like NPR and PBS. Asked, for instance, "Has the U.S. found links between Iraq & al-Qaeda?" only 16% of PBS and NPR viewers answered "yes," but a frightening 67% of Fox viewers believed there had.
Bonila, Denise M., and Levy, Beth, Eds. The Power of the Press. H. W. Wilson, 1999.
Both CNN and Fox News influence these immense populations with how each utilize pathos, ethos and logos in the topics discussed during the broadcasted show. For example, Fox News 's audience seems to be primarily conservative, while CNN’s audience seem to be more liberal (Engel). So each network’s stories “focus on the issues that” conservatives or liberals “want to watch and talk about” (James). These topics are used to develop a more conservative or liberal fan base in the respective news networks. As the dominant news network on cable television, Fox News impacts the greatest quantity of citizens, bringing in an audience of over two million for primetime (James). Therefore, Fox News influences the largest percentage of Americans listening to news networks by effectively using these manipulative literary techniques. However, CNN has a younger audience than Fox News (Carter), which contributes to CNN’s audience growing from 350,000 a night, in 2013 (Agee), to 629,000 viewers a night (James). CNN and Fox News compete with each other to influence the greatest amount of people and the public’s opinion of current events. Each network appeals to pathos, logos and ethos differently and similarly to coax the greatest amount of listeners each night.
Fox news has been known to have controversies on whether or not they can be trusted, and where they stand in certain situations, stirring many articles and researchers to determine their reliability. It has been researched that approximately sixty percent of all “facts” reported by Fox news are false (Mintpress News Desk). The Network has become one of the biggest sources that lie to the public, beating numbers even from CNN and MSNBC. A poll from the Pew Research Center Project for Excellence in Journalism was determining the percentage of commentary/opinion and factual reporting for three different news groups: Fox, CNN, and MSNBC. Fox news has been shown to be forty-five percent factual reporting, but fifty-five
“The old argument that the networks and other ‘media elites’ have a liberal bias is so blatantly true that it’s hardly worth discussing anymore…No we don’t sit around in dark corners and plan strategies on how we’re going to slant the news. We don’t have to. It comes naturally to most reporters.” (Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News) This example is tremendously important in the author’s discussion because it proves that news stories do manipulate people through bias. Popular news networks are viewed by thousands of people every single day, thus making it have a huge impact on the public since they believe what they see. When news reporters present their news segments, it is natural for them to give their insights due to human nature being instinctively biased. “The news media is [sic] only objective if they report something you agree with… Then they’re objective. Otherwise they’re biased if you don’t agree, you know.” (CNN’s American Morning) In this quote, the readers are presented to current panelists agreeing that news consumers have a very hard time separating their own view of the news from the perspective of the news reporters because they are presenting their own opinions throughout their segments. This problem exists once again because of the bias that is contained in media
Most of people believe that television news programs present biased information. On the other hand, there are people who believe that TV news just states the facts, and that it is not biased. These people who believe that TV news states the facts believe whatever they hear and see on TV.
Although viewers comprehend that the news should be unbiased allowing the listener to make educated decision, the fact is that it is an environment of judgement and attack.
From the beginning days of the printing press to the always evolving internet of present day, the media has greatly evolved and changed over the years. No one can possibly overstate the influential power of the new media of television on the rest of the industry. Television continues to influence the media, which recently an era of comedic television shows that specialize in providing “fake news” has captivated. The groundbreaking The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and its spin-off The Colbert Report have successfully attracted the youth demographic and have become the new era’s leading political news source. By parodying news companies and satirizing the government, “fake news” has affected the media, the government, and its audience in such a way that Bill Moyers has claimed “you simply can’t understand American politics in the new millennium without The Daily Show,” that started it all (PBS).
"Journalism Ethics Online Journalism Ethics Gatekeeping." Journalism Ethics for the Global Citizen. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
“Power is the ability to define reality and to have other people respond to your definition as if it were their own (Nobles).” People fail to see responsible journalism as a crisis because it is so convenient to have news media make up your mind for you. The foundation of our personal philosophies stems from irresponsible journalism through the major news sources we consume, the exposure to less responsible entertainment, and the biased reporting enforcing negative stereotypes.
Meyers, C. (2010). The 'Standard Journalism ethics: a philosophical approach? Oxford University Press. Nordenstreng. K. (1995)