Sunday, June 21, 2009
Fox News Edited to Favour Republicans
This video demonstrates how mass media can affect how millions of people will view an issue. In this case, the issue is Barack Obama's and John McCain's health.
As the narrator describes in the Youtube video shown above, Fox News, the institutional source of the message, has seemingly edited out negative sounding facts about John McCain, and edited their news coverage in such a way that it favours McCain and puts Obama in a bad light. This is also known as agenda setting, whereby Fox News tried to influence viewers into thinking that McCain is possibly a better choice, and hiding the truth from their invisible receivers. By doing this, they are also altering the standards by which people evaluate the issue. It is very possible that the gatekeepers of Fox News are pro-Republicans.
It is rather interesting how a simple bit of information, such as the medical history of two people, can be depicted in so many different ways just based on different focuses on different angles, and very importantly, the way the information is being presented to the audience. This is where the media uses different communication techniques to present the same message differently.
In the case of Fox News, once their invisible receivers receive the message, how they comprehend the message, is up to them entirely. As it is a one-way communication, the receivers will probably just talk about the message among themselves, and forget about it over some time. Feedback to the institutional source is delayed. There might not even be feedback in most cases because of the “Spiral of Silence”, whereby some receivers think that they are the minority who think this way, and thus are too afraid to voice their opinions.
Below is another video which is solely a Fox News Report on rapper, Jay-Z's, lyrics about Obama.
Below are some examples of how invisible receivers comprehend the message.
Naturalthing1 - Jay-Z's and Young Jeezy sound real intelligent don't they? Great role models.
Starcatcher777 - What did anyone expect!
PierreElliottTrudeau - Who cares? Seriously. I mean how many freaking white supremacists supported Bush openly? Never heard Fox News blast them?! Seriously...
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Actually the Daily show's host is quite interesting person. you should see the time when he guest showed on a show denouncing its ethical practice of not really reporting on issues. I cant remember the exact show's name but after the show aired it was canceled because he exposed how utter c$@p the show actually was on reporting about politics.
ReplyDeleteremind me in class to tell you about it in detail.
hahahahaha well i suppose the Fox people definitely know how they don't report the news as it is. they probably just do it for the money.
ReplyDeleteand this is one thing i notice about American culture. they really just say it as it is with no regards to consequences! tho it may be a stupid thing to do at times, but other times it's really funny and makes me just wanna say "Respect!"
Honestly, are we surprized by what those two said? The whole sub-culture of rap is unhealthy. their lyrics are explicited, filled with themes of gangsterism, promoting women as mere sexual objects etc etc.
ReplyDeleteHi Subhan.
ReplyDeleteActually if you look up the history of original rap, you'll find that it was never meant to be about sex and violence. It came about promoting racial harmony, equality among all, and other political issues. Rap was sorta like the punk version of RnB.
But throughout time as hip hop became commercialized, money grubbing music producers decided to sell out. And they began to shape rap around sex and violence because they realized that's what sells. That is how rap and hip hop is misunderstood to be a sleazy and crass genre nowadays.
For reference to original hip hop, check out Erykah Badu, N.E.R.D., Public Enemy, Beastie Boys.
The media gets first hand news, and then re-edit it in a way they want audiences to favour and broadcast that now secondhand news to them. As said above where "Fox News reporter tried to influence viewers into thinking that McCain is possibly a better choice, and hiding the truth from their invisible receivers". Thus, it is not always wise to firmly believe whatever the media say for you'll be only hearing and believing their side of the story.
ReplyDelete