Media Power and Media Bias

From WWII and onwards there has been a steady increase in the number of news corporations, which in turn has caused an increase in viewpoints on news coverage. Americans get this biased view of current world events because owners as well as reporters deliberately sway the facts to reflect their view on the event whether that is more liberal or conservative. The major news and media companies in the United States all have different political agendas that they must follow when reporting on current events especially the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are several reasons why news corporations report tainted facts and information and some of these are more complicated than others. The first example is “partiality, favoritism, and one-sidedness.

Civil Liberties: Opposing Viewpoints. Ed. Auriana Ojeda. New York: Greenhaven Press, 2004. * * Campbell, Geoffrey.

Isn't Time Warner just a success of capitalism ? A successful company, which employs thousands of people and makes massive turnovers, while at the same time advancing the cause of the global market and promoting commercialism doesn't seem like a thing of public concern. In the World village today, why should we need thousand's upon thousand's of small independent company's and tv stations and newspaper's, when we could have ten large conglomerates who would control everything from production to sales to distribution ? The way in which thing's have developed over the past ten years, that scenario or fiction might even become fact or reality. So why should it bother the people of the World ?

For example, we watch the news and believe that a particular place isn’t safe because that is what media portrays. With all of these notions media gives us, and our dependency on media, it may be one big cycle of information that gets filtered and changed as the society and culture changes as well. Media dependency is also a concept and will continue to evolve as technology advances and new avenues of media consumption are explored. Researchers have noticed for as long as the media system dependency theory has been studied that, what people hear, see, and read inflicts an experience on the consumer. It affects their thoughts about the information they have just taken in and allows for judgments to be formed as well as a relationship to the media source itself (Loges & Ball-Rokeach, 1993).

Print. Federman, Joel, ed. National Television Violence Study: Executive Summary. Vol. 3.

However, on occasion within its own discretion, the media investigates and tries to inform us by the televised news, major newspapers and (large) radio personalities of cover-ups, conspiracies and or wrong doings by our so-called leaders. Are we always told the truth by the mass media? By the government? By the media speaking for or as directed by the government? Or has the line between truth and lies been so badly blurred in politics that we will never know what truly goes on in our political system?

Mass media has long had an influence on society and an in depth look at its most popular forms today would most definitely reveal several glaring inequities in the way TV networks, print media, and internet websites communicate information. Many media sources are slanted, one way or another, in their views and coverage of people and events. Everette Dennis once stated that objectivity is what sets apart American mass media from the rest of the world and is one of the most important precepts of American journalism (103). In present times, however, media that provides completely impartial analysis of the facts is either hard to find, or deemed incredible. The fact of the matter is that in a large portion of mass media outlets what is best described as obj... ... middle of paper ... ...lt;http://www.consortiumnews.com/2002/111302a.html>.

The show has always pushed the limits of freedom of speech while at the same time opened new doors and ideas within the limits. Currently in our country this show has become under fire by our government and is very close to being taken off the airwaves. This is just one show that is in jeopardy of being taken off the air. Recently our government through its administrative agency for communications, the FCC, has decided to send a message to the corporate media to clean up their broadcasts. The FCC defines indecency as: 1.

Is the media an active participant in democracy or a trafficker of consumer capitalism? Guardians of the citizenry or lap dogs of the power elite? Many journalists see themselves as protectors of our political system or more so as watchdogs of democracy, but the media is concurrently blamed and praised for various aspects of political life. On the one hand, it is indicted of a large spectrum of offenses such as jeopardizing national security, oversimplifying issues of public policy and focusing all too much on the negatives. On the other hand, the same politicians who criticize the media attempt to sway and dominate it, trying to get their messages out to the electorate.

Our society consists of consumers that buy into stereotypes and the propaganda that is being fed by the government and the media. Stereotypes steer individual's perceptions of a group of people in a certain way, usually negative, and generalize that opinion to all members of the group. Aware of the influence stereotypes have on people's views, governments use stereotypes already imbedded in society as a propaganda tactic to persuade people's thoughts, opinions and beliefs in order to benefit their cause. The media was used for disseminating stereotypes the effect violent music has on teenager's behaviours such as in the shootings at Columbine. After the September 11 attacks, the U.S. government used the media as an outlet to emphasize Muslim stereotypes to influence people to support the invasion of Iraq.