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role of media in public opinion
Role of mass media in public opinion
role of mass media in shaping public opinion
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Although the movie Wag the Dog is a comedy about a completly fake war, written and produced by a top Hollywood producer and a presidential Mr. Fix-It in order to take the focus off of a presidential sex scandel 11 days before the election, it does have a serious message to impart - Don't believe everything you see on TV. Sure, parents tell their kids that the man on TV isn't really dead, it's all fake, and we all know that movies and sitcoms and dramas aren't real, they're written and acted. But we believe the shows not labelled fiction. We watch documentries and biographies and absorb the information as the truth. When we watch the news at 6:00 pm every evening, and read the paper over coffee and breakfast, we believe everything reported. And why shouldn't we? Isn't it our right to know what's going on in the world and to not have the struggle of trying to separate fact from fiction? Unfortuantly, we may think this is our right, but we do have to take a more critical look at the information departed from the media.
In this movie a war is created when allegations of sexual misconduct are directed at the president 11 days before the election. Mr. Fix-It, Conrad Brean (Robert DeNiro) is called on by the President's staff to take the heat off of the President. He comes up with the brilliant idea to create a false war with Albania. "Why Albania?" "Well, what do you know about Albania?" "Nothing." "Exactly."...
Through manipulation and lies, media manages to modify objective news into biased news in order to convince the public of what the media wants them to believe. The article, “How the Media Twist the News”, by Sheila Gribben Liaugminas discusses the major influence that news has on readers based on their choice of stories and words. “How the Media Twists the News” has borrowed from multiple other texts such as the books like Public Opinion and Liberty and News, news magazine writers such as Ruderman, and news networks like CBS through Bias, A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News and CNN to make her arguments valid and prove that the news is biased and that it does influence readers significantly because of it.
The media takes a biased approach on the news that they cover, giving their audience an incomplete view of what had actually happened in a story. Most people believe that they are not “being propagandized or being in some way manipulated” into thinking a certain way or hearing certain “truths” told by their favorite media outlets (Greenwald 827). In reality, everyone is susceptible to suggestion as emphasized in the article “Limiting Democracy: The American Media’s World View, and Ours.” The
Media platforms like television and radio primarily spread propaganda created by the government. Citizens spend a lot of time watching television or listening to the radio and it’s a big part of their life. Almost everyone in the city owns a television or radio and believes things they see and hear from them. Montag escapes the police, but the T.V. chase is still playing out because they don’t want people to know that they let a fugitive get away. They found an innocent man on the street, labeled him as Montag, then killed him on the broadcast. “‘They’re faking. You threw them off at the river. They can’t admit it. They know they can hold their audience only so long. The show’s got to have a snap ending, quick!’... ‘The innocent man stood bewildered’… ‘The victim was seized by Hound and camera in a great spidering, clenching grip’” -Granger (Bradsbury 142). Media propaganda is so powerful today because everyone is susceptible to it. The press (newspapers, magazines, and T.V.) uses their tactics to shape people’s opinions. According to Johnnie Manzaria, the press is important because the most current news and info is spread through them everyday. People can believe anything the media says, because they have a popular opinion or reputation. Even if they spread propaganda, some people will inevitably believe it because “the news said so”, and is a very influential resource ("Media's Use of Propaganda to Persuade
Mass media controls the public like puppets. It affects everything a person does with their lives. Just like in Fahrenheit 451 we live in a society of fantasizers. We believe what the media tells us and to not question it but just go along with it. Media is everywhere whether we are aware of it or not.
...re are many people that believe everything they have to say. For example take Bill Clinton, our own President; he stood up and lied straight to all of us saying he never committed adultery. And then what about Watergate? And we elect these people into office to govern us. I cannot believe the media, they only tell what they get from the government, a system that lies and cheats its way through.
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.
It is no secret that in society no matter where a person goes they will be surrounded by influences of news media and social media. There are televisions in restaurants, gyms, and homes, and on them there is a constant stream of twenty-four hour news. Often times what is being reported on television, or through news apps, is being presented primarily for an entertainment purpose. This is what George Saunders analyzes in his 2007 essay, “The Braindead Megaphone,” in which he criticizes not only the news media system, but also society as a whole, for the way news is received and accepted. He speaks to the fact that news media has an expectation that society doesn’t reflect, or have critism, for what is reported to them. Society accepts what they hear, because it is coming form a reliable source. He says, “Does stupid, near-omnipresent media
The media portrays a relative philosophy in that the media displays news it believes is relevant to the time. When people, such as Dan Rather and the Killian Documents, report news found to be harmful to the reputation of big business or government they are censored, or in Dan’s case forced to resign. ...
Fallows writes that this is an age of “truthiness.” The age of mass misinformation is upon us. I remember reading about the age of yellow journalism for a high school history class. We were assigned to read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. We all know the story Sinclair tells. Like his book, the news of those times was written to support a certain viewpoint or perspective. I have often wondered where are the critics of today’s yellow journalism. How is Fox News that much different from the Hearst version of news in 1916? The difference is not apparent to me. However, Americans are less likely to care. We have much lower standards for everything. It is almost as though Vietnam and Nixon were the beginning of the end of American optimism and a sense of real decency. It is as though those two pivot...
War and economy are portrayed hand in hand in the film, as Vizzini says to Fezzick ‘I’ve hired you to help me start a war’, and later goes on to reference Vietnam: “Don’t get involved in a land war in Asia.”
“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 ...
The term “Newspeak” was developed in 1984 as a way to limit the freedom of speech and thought; a restriction to one’s vocabulary. One of the words designed was “Doublethink,” the acceptance of contradictory ideas. Accepting alternative facts is doublethink. Another term coined by 1984 is “Newspeak,” in which the media only covers what the Party lets them cover. President Trump has lashed out at the media coverage on Inauguration Day, while others lash out at his administration for releasing false statements. Our society is heavily focused on the media and technology, and some people tend to believe what they read, no matter how credible it may be. If alternative facts continue to be released to the public, then people will soon begin to accept those statements and believe them. Not everyone believes what they say or hear, but there are a lot of people who trust their President and/or the media. There will be further disagreements and battles if alternative facts continue to be
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).
Television is a vital source from which most Americans receive information. News and media delegates on television have abused theirs powers over society through the airing of appealing news shows that misinform the public. Through literary research and experimentation, it has been proven that people's perception of reality has been altered by the information they receive from such programs. Manipulation, misinterpretation, word arrangement, picture placement and timing are all factors and tricks that play a major role in the case. Research, experimentation, and actual media coverage has pinpointed actual methods used for deceptive advertising. Television influences society in many ways. People are easily swayed to accept a belief that they may not normally have unless expressed on television, since many people think that everything they hear on television is true. This, however, is not always the case. It has been observed that over the past twenty to thirty years, normal social behavior, even actual life roles of men and women and media, regulatory policies have all been altered (Browne 1998). Media has changed with time, along with quality and respectability. Many Americans receive and accept false information that is merely used as an attention grabber that better the show's ratings and popularity. Many magazines and Journal reviews have periodically discussed the "muckraking" that many tabloid shows rely on to draw in their viewers. This involves sensationalizing a story to make it more interesting, therefore increasing the interest of the audience. "Along the way, all sorts of scandalous substance and goofy tricks appear, but not much mystery in the logic," (Garnson 1997). People often know that these shows aim to deceive them, but still accept the information as truth. Many times, people have strong opinions on certain topics. Yet, when they are exposed to the other side of the argument, they may be likely to agree with the opposite view. As Leon Festinger said, "If I chose to do it (or say it), I must believe in it," (Myers 1997). This is an example of Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory, which pertains to acting contrary to our beliefs. Television influences many people to change their original beliefs. It has the viewers think that the majority of other people hold the contrary idea. Once these views are presented, people have the option to hol...
Television and journalism have a relatively short history together, yet over the last sixty years, the two have become increasingly intertwined, perhaps even irreversible so. But this merger is between two opposing forces–one, a mass medium that inherently demands entertainment and the other, a profession most people hold responsible for information, for facts, which, for the most part, are inherently boring. So has television been beneficial for the American people? The people that our country’s founding fathers chose to hold responsible for electing those to be responsible for our country’s government? By exploring the history of television journalism, discovering how it came to be, and looking at current trends in the industry, I only hope to be able to give my own informed opinion.