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Arguments on media bias
The impact of Journalism
Arguments on media bias
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Commercial media represents archetypal platforms of a two-sided market; on one side, they offer information to their viewers, and on the other, they offer entertainment and adverts to their customers. In this paper I will argue that good journalism is undermined by commercial media due to the role of advertising and circulation as a source of revenue for media outlets. Both commercial media bias and the use of sensationalism demonstrates, unequivocally, that the commercial economics of the media conflict explicitly with its partisan politics. A model of advertising-free journalism will be explored to determine the viability of media that is free of commercial pressure. Additionally, defenders of commercial media will be examined in establishing the implicit influences of commercialism that cause unethical behaviour. Commercial incentive creates a conflict between good journalism and commercial media that is too great to be ignored or looked over, and thus the goal of informing viewers is often compromised.
The dependence on advertising puts pressure on the type of journalism that would be encouraged (McChesney 2004). As media outlets need advertisers to survive, concerns are raised over the likelihood of advertisers creating distortions in media content. The result is often distorted news and information that demonstrates a bias for the owners and advertisers, and consequently results in a breakdown in the quality and integrity of journalism (Baker 1994). The most well-known and documented case of commercial media bias is represented by the influence of tobacco companies over US media (Blasco and Sobbrio 2012). In 1954, the American Cancer Society released a result of a study on 187,000 men proving that cigarette smokers had a se...
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... is also present in commercial media and acts as an obstruction to the publication of good journalism. Stories may be concocted, include misinformation and newsworthy stories may be omitted, in hopes of attracting more customers. Scripps debunked the possibility of removing advertising from profit-driven journalism in the hope of freeing journalism from commercial pressures, which confirms that good journalism cannot exist in this form. Analysis of commercial media defender, Rupert Murdoch and his company’s actions exhibit that participation in the commercial media industry drives unethical behavior, due to profit incentives, even without explicit advertising pressures. The current state of commercial media confirms that journalism is at a crisis point. Good journalism will continue to be undermined for as long as profit drives the commercial media industry.
In his editorial "Words Triumph Over Images," Curtis Wilkie blames today’s media for being “reckless” and “a mutant reality show”. He believes that television and radio are “unfiltered”, which causes the quality of journalism for newspapers to be unmatched. Yet, it is unfair to label all media that is not print as lesser because the quality of any media relies on the viewers and the individual journalists, and in drastic situations like a hurricane, reporters may have many road blocks. Any of these aspects can affect the quality of journalism, which invalidates Curtis Wilkie’s claim.
In “Reporting the News” by George C. Edwards III, Martin P. Wattenberg, and Robert L. Lineberry, the main idea is how the media determines what to air, where to get said stories that will air, how the media presents the news, and the medias effect on the general public. “Reporting The News” is a very strong and detailed article. The authors’ purpose is to inform the readers of what goes on in the news media. This can be inferred by the authors’ tone. The authors’ overall tone is critical of the topics that are covered. The tone can be determined by the authors’ strong use of transitions, specific examples, and phrases or words that indicate analysis. To summarize, first, the authors’ indicate that the media chooses its stories that will air
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.
In the documentary film, Page One: Inside The New York Times, the inner world of journalism is revealed through journalists David Carr and Brian Stelter as the newspaper company The New York Times, struggles to keep alive within a new wave of news journalism. The film is dedicated to reveal the true inner mechanics of what modern day new journalists face on a daily basis and leaves the audience almost in a state of shock. It broadcasts news journalism as yes, an old school method of news generation, but it also highlights an important component that reveals the importance behind this “old school” methodology. We often think that progression always correlates with positive products, but the documentary insists that within the case of modern journalism, the new wave method is actually a detriment that can reap negative consequences.
Menashe, L. (1998). An analysis of Newspaper Coverage of Tobacco Issues. Journal of Health Communication, 3, 307-325
It is not uncommon to hear people complaining about what they hear on the news. Everyone knows it and the media themselves knows it as well. Some of the most renowned journalists have even covered the the media’s issues in detail. Biased news outlets have flooded everyday news. We find that journalism’s greatest problems lie in the media’s inability for unbiased reporting, the tendency to use the ignorance of their audience to create a story, and their struggles to maintain relevance.
Media concentration allows news reporters to fall victim to source bias, commercial impulse, and pack journalism. Together, all three of the aforementioned factors become known as horse race journalism, a cause for great concern in campaign media. In complying with horse race journalism, media outlets exclude third party candidates, reinforce the idea that politics is merely a game, and dismiss issues that directly affect voters and their day to day lives. Through horse race journalism, the media is mobilized in impeding an active form of the democratic debate in American politics. Even across the wide range of human values and beliefs, it is easy to see that campaign media coverage must be changed, if not for us, then for our children. It is imperative that we discern the flaws of the media and follow our civic duty to demand better media
In 2008, 21% of adults in America aged 18 and older were current cigarette smokers while another 21% had been former smokers and 58% had smoked less than 100 cigarettes in their life, according to a CDC survey (Pleis 10). These statistics result in almost half of the United States population being smokers at one point in their life. The tobacco industry is huge in order to provide cigarettes to the quarter of Americans that currently smoke. The statistics that resulted from the survey did not even include other types of tobacco products, which are just as harmful. However, even realizing the harm that tobacco products can cause, tobacco companies use a variety of devious methods to draw people in to buy their product, especially younger people. With all of the money flowing in from their consumers, tobacco companies lobby very heavily in Congress and the House to prevent laws and regulations that will cut into their profits. According to tobaccofreekids.org, the tobacco industry spent $10.6 million to lobby Congress in the first half of 2003 (Tobacco-Free Kids). Organizations such as the American Legacy Foundation are annoyed by the lies that big tobacco companies tell; they decided to bring the truth out into the open. The aptly named “truth” campaign opposes the tactics that tobacco businesses use to advertise their product, and the campaign has decided to fight against the lies to provide the truth about cigarettes and tobacco. The truth campaign’s anti-smoking ads present a stunning portrayal of smoking that reflects the influence tobacco companies have on youth while also illustrating the consequences of addiction and use.
Some of arguments promote specific anti-smoking mass media advertisements as a way of reducing the amount of smokers effectively. According to the research of Farrelly, Davis, Lyndon Haviland, Messeri and Healton (2005), “anti-smoking television campaigns have a positive effect on discourage smoking, including highlight short and long term health consequences”. In US, mass media campaign known as “truth” is launched by the American Legacy Foundation to survey the impact of campaign on national smoking among US youths in high school. In particular, from 1997 to 2002, the rate of youth smoking prevalence falls steadily from 28% to 18% in all grades. The findings examine the evidence that students in grade 8th declines by 50% and by 3...
In order to understand new media, one must first have a solid background of the old media. The old media traces its origins back to the “elite or partisan press [that] dominated American journalism in the early days of the republic” (Davis 29). With the advent of the penny press around 1833, the press changed its basic purpose and function from obtaining voters for its affiliated political party to making profit (Davis 29). With more available papers, individual companies competed with each other with “muckraking journalism”—investigative journalism exposing corruption—and “yellow journalism”—sensationalist journalism that completely disregarded the facts (Davis 30). The press continued to evolve its journalistic approaches and next shifted to “lapdog journalism,” r...
Although the Tobacco Industry recently paid enormous fines to the US Government and Individual states, they continue to promote smoking and influence young human beings world wide to use their products through multi dimensional advertising. For decades Americans were not told the truth about the dangers of smoking. The media stayed silent because it did not want to lose the hundreds of millions of dollars it made from cigarette advertising.
Should tobacco and alcohol advertising be allowed on television? The ban on advertising tobacco is already in affect, however, alcohol is another harmful substance. Should liquor be allowed to be advertised, if tobacco can not advertise their product? The ban on advertising tobacco products on television and radio, was passed through legislation in 1970 by Richard Nixon. This argument like others out there has two sides, one side in favor these advertisements and the other against these advertisements. Since both of these substances are highly addictive and costly. Would we like to see these advertisements continued? Are these advertisements the hazard they are communicated to be? Through the research of these two important sides, this essay will explore which side has a stronger stance on the topic.
It’s a question that keeps floating around in the public sphere: is print advertising and newspapers dead? The world is becoming more and more fast-paced and although, our want and need for the up-to-date news and breaking stories has not changed, the way in which we consume it has. This background report investigates and explains the downfall of the newspaper and the technological shift to online news. It will also discuss differing opinions of this relevant topic of the future of journalism from a range of reliable primary sources and investigative data.
Thirty years ago, if I told you that the primary means of communicating and disseminating information would be a series of interconnected computer networks you would of thought I was watching Star Trek or reading a science fiction novel. In 2010, the future of mass media is upon us today; the Internet. The Internet is and will only grow in the future as the primary means of delivering news, information and entertainment to the vast majority of Americans. Mass media as we know it today will take new shape and form in the next few years with the convergence and migration of three legacy mediums (Television, Radio, Newspaper) into one that is based on the Internet and will replace these mediums forever changing the face of journalism, media and politics. In this paper I will attempt to explain the transition of print media to one of the internet, how the shift to an internet based media environment will impact journalism and mass media, and how this migration will benefit society and forever change the dynamic of news and politics.
McLoed and Hawley (as cited in Wilson, 1995) elucidated appropriately, "a recurrent journalistic controversy has involved the question whether journalism is a true profession or merely a craft." Sparked primarily by Lippmann and Dewey, extending into the age of the penny press (mid 1980s) and later, the attempt to commercialise the news (late 1980s) to our present era, there has existed a contentious debate on journalism being distinguished as a profession (Wilson, 1995). Encapsulated in a democratic homeland since the advent of time, media systems are habitually acclaimed as the “fourth power,” with its journalists often hailed as the “watch-dogs” of such a society. Lending itself to act as ‘gatekeeper’ for the wider society and performing the traditional role of journalism, the media (overall) exist as powerful “instruments of knowledge” that perform the function of providing information to the masses in a public sphere, where issues may be discussed, justified and contested (Scannell, 1995, p. 17). Evidently, media workers play a pivotal role in our society; however, their status in the realm of professions is not definite.