Media Targets and Impacts

The media is just as fickle and capricious as the people who report it. To say that the news is impartial and tries to report only the facts is a nice thought, but naive. That is not to say that the media intentionally misleads, though it oftentimes can, rather the media is inherently influenced by those who create it. One can find meaning and judgment in the most seemingly innocuous statement, whether real or perceived. Indeed, the public craves such opinion, which explains the abundance of radio and television personalities who forcefully expound their own thoughts. People enjoy hearing opinions they agree with, which is what allows the hegemony in media to continue. The reason two stations as divergent as CNBC and Fox News can both thrive is that people love to hear others not only agree with them, but also agree to such a degree that all traces of doubt that they once had are expunged. The stations also use this to their advantage, each utilizing a unique viewpoint or agenda and furthering it with whatever means they have available. The stations are also able to regulate precisely what they report, giving large amounts of coverage to events that other stations would similarly ignore. Yet, at the same time I do not believe that media has the same sort of control that it once did, as the advent of near-instant and efficient communication has allowed large groups of people to spread the word of events faster than ever before.

 Perhaps the best example of media framing is the media's coverage of the conflict in the Middle East. A tumultuous issue at best, one need simply look at the different titles of these two articles to see the dichotomy of opinion on the matter among major US publications alone, one from a prominent conservative publication The Wall Street Journal and one from the more liberal minded Time Magazine. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703995104575388754261573556.html?mod=googlenews_wsj and http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2015602,00.html 

The titles alone, "Funding Palestinian Incitement," and "Why Israeli's Don't Care About Peace with Palestinians" are clearly meant to not only appeal to a specific group of people, but also to incite some sort of reaction. A holdover from the early days of print media are hyperbolic headlines, mean to attract viewers, whether out of agreement or anger or simply intrigue. Both articles talk about the conflict in the Middle East, yet they both chose contrary and conflicting stories and viewpoints, illustrating how varied the ideas of different media can be on a particular subject. The editors at the Wall Street Journal know that they are trying to appeal to a generally conservative readership, and such a thought process is imparted in the tone and content of their articles. Yet, one can argue that the content of the articles themselves is irrelevant, with pageviews instead being what these sites seek. For the more pageviews a website can accrue, the more ad revenue a website can command, which is always good as newspaper and magazine subscription numbers continue to dwindle. A favorite example of this phenomenon is from my favorite webcomic that illustrates the logic behind outlandish and abrasive articles and headlines in a logical fashion.

source: Penny-Arcade.com