Media Bias And Public Opinion

Clawson and Oxley state that politicians sometimes follow and sometimes lead public opinion, they simply state that “it depends”. That being said, politicians often follow the public and listen to what they have to say about different issues. They call this democratic responsiveness which, “refers to leaders enacting policy that the public wants” (Clawson & Oxley, 2017, p. 360). Therefore, when politicians listen to the public and enact laws that respond to their issues, it means they are following public opinion. However, it can also be argued that sometimes public opinion is manipulated of shifted because of politicians. This can be explained as, “when leaders use false or misleading arguments or information to turn the public against

This is done when journalist let their views impact or shape what stories they decide to cover, or even the way they communicate that story to the public. This is truly important because journalist have the power to impact views that the public may have simply by changing the way they cover a story. Additionally, the way journalist select their stories is often influenced by the networks they work for and how those companies decide to work. Graber and Dunaway discuss that some news outlets have evolved and transformed themselves into fully market based news (p. 353). This becomes a conflict because news outlets because bias and tend to only favor views that gives them profit. The issue continues when journalist begin to cover news that provide the public with little information of what truly matters, or try to avoid certain facts that do not work along with their views (p. 353). It is clear that ideological and partisan biases brings along many negative consequences. The biggest one being that journalist will often communicate incomplete and negative information simply because they do not agree with certain views. This can deeply affect how the public receives and analyzes information, in addition to decreasing their opportunity to understand the whole story. Without a doubt bias has an impact on the public, it does not allow individuals to have truthful and logical discussion, for they have limited information and are often closed to other ideas outside of their comfort