Posted on behalf of Matt Hudak:
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2010/09/17/lady-gaga-urges-fans-senators-dont-ask-dont-tell-policy/#content
A blog on agenda-setting? I immediately turned to the infamous FOX News Network. FOX News, known for it’s conservative views, provided a relatively stale article on Lady Gaga, which I thought was somewhat of an oxymoron. Two-thirds of the FOX News article, “Lady Gaga Urges Fans to Call Senators Over 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Policy, But Can't Get Through Herself!”, were direct quotes regurgitated from Lady Gaga’s YouTube proclamation on gays openly serving in the military. It is hard to draw out FOX’s opinion on the issue because of the author’s objective reporting. The article does not try to come to any real conclusion about Gaga although the title does imply a failure for Gaga. The title state that Gaga “can’t get through [to the Senators] herself!” The title also states that Gaga wants her audience to “call Senators over” the issue of the military’s “Don’t ask, Don’t Tell” policy, when really her intent is to encourage fans to ask senators to repeal the policy (a title change that could have shown more support on the issue).
Roger and Dearing’s, “Shaping the Political Agenda”, the idea of “assessing causality” plays a part in the explanation of where this particular article is on Foxnews.com. Seeing as I had to search for this article within the website rather than seeing it as a headline is proof that Fox News does not even want people to be exposed to the network’s own article. Roger and Dearing state that there is a “positive association between the amount of media content devoted to an item and the development of a place on the public agenda for the item”. This ties into the fact that although similarly-racy entertainer, Lindsay Lohan’s, failed drug test article was posted on the same day as Gaga’s article, the FOX News website has Lohan’s article on their main page. There is convincing evidence that because of the placement of Lohan’s article, it was read more (or at least discussed more). As of Sunday morning, Lohan’s article had 217 comments with 204 ‘Facebook Recommendations’ while Gaga’s article received 7 comments with 14 recommendations to Facebook. Baron & Davis’ section on “position of a story” rings true in this situation and proving that “lead stories had a greater agenda-setting effect” (Baron & Davis, 281).
I also found it interesting that the Associated Press provided the Lohan article and it got better placement on Foxnews.com than FOX New’s own Gaga article. In my opinion, this has a lot to do with Baron and Davis’ idea of the spiral of silence. With an issue such as rights for gays and lesbians in the military, the media has not yet become comfortable discussing it, especially a conservative network such as FOX News. Which direction is media is steering issues like this? Unfortunately, some think that, “As time passes, those viewpoints will cease to be heard in public and therefore cannot affect political decision making” (Baron & Davis, 283). Drawing a conclusion, this is probably why FOX News does not have Gaga’s article ‘front and center’. How strong is the correlation between media coverage and political decision-making? I personally believe that society is moving in a direction where media coverage of once taboo issues is increasing and this will, in turn, have an effect on political decision making.
Matt, I think your article is the perfect example of Fox’s agenda-setting. Then again, their website is probably chock-full of examples! Their obviously conservative bias never ceases to amaze me, and I find the irony of their old slogan of “Fair and Balanced” to be laughable. They blatantly place the articles with topics that they support and believe in front and center. I can see how they might avoid putting Gaga's article 'front a center' because of the chance that they might provoke their viewers to see the DADT issue in a different light. Maybe the audience will start thinking about the issue and realize just how unjust and outdated the notion of DADT is. On the other hand, they also seem to love putting articles that demean more liberal topics and stories in the spotlight. Such is your mention of Lindsay Lohan and her never-ending drug escapades. They probably find great pleasure in exploiting Lindsay’s personal troubles and mistakes, along with other failures of their non-conservative rivals.
ReplyDeleteWe are all perfectly aware of the sheer impossibility of being informed on everything that is going on in the world, which puts an infinite amount of power in the hands of news outlets and news media as they select and frame certain stories. As is pointed out in the McQuail reader: “The more the media speak in one voice, and the more people are disconnected from each other, from intermediate organizations, and from their past, the more absolute is the rule of the media and their masters.” Fox is using that power to their full advantage; attempting to make their viewers think how they want them to.
The amount of attention that is paid to a certain story shifts the audiences’ thoughts and focus on and to that story. For example, how important to you think the Casey Anthony case is to the American audience versus other missing/murdered children in America? The media make it seem as though this case is more extreme and horrific than others, when the unfortunate reality is that hundreds of thousands of other children go missing every year. Then again, there is always the argument of supply and demand. “Maybe the public sets the media’s agenda and then the media reinforce it.” (B&D) Both sides have valid arguments. In the case of Fox News in general, however, I think their agenda is clearer than day.
I believe the best solution to any agenda-setting situation is for the audience to be aware of multiple sources out there, as we discussed in class. That way, we can avoid ignorance as Elihu Katz put in the article we read for the McQuail reading, “…communication is the agent of pluralistic ignorance, or of false consciousness, causing people to misperceive what their similarly-situated fellows think or believe.” Pardon the cliché, but knowledge is power and the most effective way to avoid biased news and agenda-setting is to seek out more than one source of news. We may not have the ability to absorb every piece of news from every source, but we can at least try to seek out multiple sources. That way, viewers can have a well-rounded view on a certain issue or topic, come up with their own opinions, and take the power back.
Just like Matt, as I was doing the reading assigned for this week my mind kept going to FOX News. I think they are perfect to look at if you want to study agenda-setting, and the fact that this article was difficult to find was what I thought to be quite typical of them. I was thinking that if she was talking about something else having to do with the military, they would have covered it more thoroughly and not have thrown it into the depths of their website. But the fact that she was supporting homosexuality and against the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, they did not want to flaunt the article about it for fear they would seem to be supporting her and alienate many of their viewers. In the Baron and Davis reading (281) they talk about priming which is an important aspect of agenda-setting, and especially important when we are talking about the influence media can have on political issues such as DADT. If the media does not give much coverage of a specific issue, or “weight”, you can bet not many people will know about it nor have much opinion, thinking it’s not that important. I’m thinking that FOX News’ decision to practically hide the article was their way of doing their job and reporting news, but making sure Lady Gaga’s message of support for homosexuality was not heard by many.
ReplyDeleteAlso as I was reading, my mind drifted to my grandparents, as they are very conservative and only watch FOX News. In McQuail’s Reader in Mass Communication Theory (page 387) they mention reference groups, and examine the question of whether or not the media is starting to be a substitute for reference groups, or real-life groups of people that you would get further information (in our case political) from, rather than the fleeting stories on TV news. This notion immediately reminded me of my grandparents, and I started to think about the vast population of older people just like them who cannot get out of the house much, or do not have a group of people they talk with often where politics and other worldly issues come up. They are really only getting their information about what is happening in the world from television, and for them they only watch FOX News because they know they are more conservative (although they will deny that they are in anyway extreme right wing). It reminded me of a specific instance where we were discussing terrorism and terrorists. They told me only Muslims were, and that you don’t see Caucasians flying planes into buildings. After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I told them about the situation that occurred with the attack on the IRS building in Texas, which we had also talked about in class. They had no idea that had happened, even though we have family members who work for the IRS. I truly believe that it is because they only watch FOX News, and although I didn’t see their coverage of it, I am positive they did not say the word terrorist, and I’m sure they spun it to look more like an unfortunate event rather than a planned attack. If they had more of a reference group, I’m betting they would have gotten more facts about what happened. I also agree with Angela when she makes the point about consulting many sources and coming up with your own opinions. I believe that is something more and more of us are doing now because we realize the extent in which different media outlets have different viewpoints, and that since it is coming from owners and editors and we should probably not just take the word of those few people. However, the challenge of getting older generations to see this, and see the change that media has undergone, seems immense and practically impossible. I personally hope that being able to connect something that FOX News did not fully convey with something that is very close to my grandparents (family who works for the IRS) will get them to at least consider getting more information from a different source sometimes.
I found it interesting and odd that in the article that Matt found, Lindsay Lohan’s drug test was considered to be more important than Lady GaGa’s which was actually news worthy and made a statement. In the Baran & Davis chapter about agenda setting, they made me realize a lot about the news on TV and how it is presented. “In choosing and displaying news, editors, newsroom staff, and broadcasters play an important part in shaping political reality. Readers learn not only about a given issue, but how much importance to attach to that issue from the amount of information in a news story and its position.” (p. 279). This quote is completely true. This summer I did an internship in Los Angeles at E! Entertainment for E! News. I quickly learned which stories were more important because they were the ones that were hyped up and had the most camera time. Lindsay Lohan’s situation was talked about a lot on our network because it was celebrity news. However, a story involving a celebrity that has nothing to do with anything that should be publicized or will have no impact on anyone else but themselves belongs not in the evening news, but on shows such as E! News. I think it’s ridiculous that there was so much coverage concerning Lindsay when it wasn’t important. Why would Fox want their viewers to think about something so unimportant?
ReplyDeleteThe don’t ask don’t tell policy is absolutely news worthy since it impacts many Americans and is relevant to the news. The McQuail reading talks about “Pluralistic Ignorance” and “Breaking the Silence.” The book defines pluralistic ignorance as: “When everybody believes that he is the only one who thinks something, and does not talk about his opinion for fear of violating a moral taboo or an authoritarian ruler, or of just being unpopular…” (p. 381). Having someone as popular as Lady GaGa talk openly about the topic of gay rights is huge. It allows people, especially her fans which she has tons of, gain courage and are more likely to stick up for what they believe in which leads to breaking the silence. When someone acts, others will follow. I think that Fox put Lindsay’s article first because it was the most popular topic at the time, and possibly to downplay the support for gay rights. Their decision could have been based on an agenda to either highlight the story that would generate the most viewers based on popular topic, or it could have been a way to put gay rights on the backburner. It’s hard to figure out the exact agenda in this situation, but it’s definitely something to think about. It just doesn’t make sense to me.
When reading about Matt's article I didn't find it surprising that Lindsay Lohan had a bigger impact in the news than Gaga's did. FOX News does a really good job at getting the story across that will cause the most controversy and the biggest impact to viewers and readers. I think this is large in part to what Agenda-Setting is really about.
ReplyDeleteLike the Baron and Davis chapter says on page 279 about Agenda-Setting, "What do you remember from the mass media as the important issues and images of the campaign?" And in reality the most important issues and images were very mediocre and questioned the haircuts of John Edwards and the questions over Obama's middle name and the questions of his "blackness." I think this is a perfect example of just what the people want to see and what their main concerns are.
I also agree with what Michelle said about the importance of what Gaga was trying to get out of her story. I believe that the whole DADT story could really make some big impact if it were to actually be brought to surface and there could be some really positive reaction to her story. I think that FOX News would have covered her story more if it had to do with something besides promoting homosexuality in the military and if it was more of a concern about the well being of the military or simply promoting the military there would have been a much bigger impact to FOX News viewers.
But this is also why I am not surprised that the Lohan story is much more appealing to viewers, seeing as though she is constantly in the News and there is always some sort of drama surroudning her no matter if it be positive or negative. This reminds me almost exactly about what it was like when Brittney Spears was on her decline. No one cared about any other celebrities, in fact all any news team wanted to do was exploit her until she hit rock bottom, something very similiar to this exact situation.
In McQuail's Mass Communication Theory on page 381 I found it very interesting when I read about Publicity and Puralistic ignorance. I think that this section has a lot to do with what the FOX News article about Gaga is really about. In the chapter McQuail writes, "Silence, it appears, is a reaction to taboo, fear and shame - for those who think differently than what they perceieve others to be thinking. Even a single truth-teller is enough to wipe out the effect on the naive subject of a large majority." I believe that those sentences sum up why the Gaga article is hidden away and rarely discussed. I think that FOX news may fear what could happen if people started to jump on the bandwagon of promoting the DADT theory and could really cause an uproar in the military.
I agree that this is a perfect example of agenda-setting. Granted it’s near impossible to know about everything that is going on in the word, and just as impossible for it all to be of equal importance to you, but what we do have the opportunity to read or hear about is obviously going to affect our positions a little bit. Foxnews.com being a conservative news organization, an issue such as homosexuality isn’t going to be a topic they feel ‘comfortable’ covering.
ReplyDeleteBy placing the article where they did, they insured that readers would have a difficult time finding the article and therefore getting that information as well; this was their specific agenda. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that knowingly, “they are constantly presenting objects suggesting what individuals in the mass should think about, know about, have feelings about” (McCombs & Shaw,154) By hiding the article the way they did and making it almost impossible to find, FoxNews in a sense controlled what we had access to and therefore simultaneously dictated what we should think about, or in this case what not to think about.
Since the article dealt with Lady Gaga who is a clear supporter of gay and lesbian rights, Fox was essentially telling their readers that this isn’t an important issue, like how you made reference to their word choices in the article title.
This seems to go against a claim made by Rogers and Dearing, and therefore helps shine a light on Fox’s biases. According to Rogers and Dearing “The rank order of these issues on the public agenda corresponded to their degree of media coverage” (87). Gay rights has been and continues to be a pretty prominent issue on the public agenda, but yet wasn’t given a lot of visible coverage by the network. The news was reported, but it wasn’t able to be easily accessed by the reader. Like you pointed out, Lindsay Lohan’s failed drug test was given a better place on the website (from another source), which in terms of importance to the public, would be a very low percentage. Issues involving gay rights would have a higher public importance than the status of a celebrity- especially Lohan at this point in her career. In this case, public agenda didn’t determine rank order, but it was the agenda-setting by the media that did.
The correlation between media coverage and political decision making is very strong. People will always use the media as a reference to make political decisions because they use the media for information. Everyone has some kind of contact to media and that in a way makes them second guess there initial belief. This is definitely an example of the spiral of silence theory.
ReplyDeleteThis article involves a subject that most people do not want to talk about in fear of isolation so they go along with the majority. "The media, because a variety of factors, tend to present one (or at most two) sides of an issue to the exclusion of others" (Baran and Davis,283). Foxnews is a clear cut example of this.
I think this is the problem we have with society today. No one is willing to be the person who wants to be different and step out the end crowd. As Mcquil says, "Communication may be seen to correct a false impression; it permits "true consciousness' to prevail" (Mcquail, 383).
Like some of the other posts above, as I was doing the reading for this week about agenda setting theory, I immediately was thinking about Fox News. One thing that came to mind was a documentary I watched in one of my previous media studies classes about Fox News that truly showed how objective they were. After reading Matt's blog and looking at his articles, it was no surprise to me that the Lady Gaga article was hidden and the Lindsay Lohan article was spotlighted on the front page.
ReplyDeleteAs some others have stated, it is obvious that the Lady Gaga story is much more newsworthy than the Lindsay Lohan story because it covers a subject that is very controversial in our country. Lady Gaga has an opportunity to use her popularity to make people feel comfortable about coming out to talk about this problem. Fox News seems to hide this story because it is something our nation is not entirely comfortable with talking about. Therefore, they leave the Lindsay Lohan story to be more newsworthy. "Lead stories had a greater agenda-setting effect.....First, people paid more attention to the stories at the beginning of the news, and these were less likely to fall victim to the inevitable interruptions experienced when viewing at home. Second, people accepted the news program's implicit designation of a lead story as most newsworthy" (Baran and Davis 281). The second part of that quote sticks out the most to me. It seems to me that many times when viewing a web site or reading a newspaper the idea is that if something is on the front page that it is important and if something is thrown to the back, it is less important. Less people are going to view what is hidden on the web site in comparison to what pops right up when you go to a web site.
In the McQuail reading, a very interesting statement is made. McQuail says, "Most people, however, continue to think as they thought, deferring to the majority either out of self-doubt or self-protection" (McQuail 381). This statement really stuck out to me as I was doing the reading. It really does seem to be true. Often time’s people will change their opinion based on the majority. This relates to how Fox News posts their articles in different ways. Like I stated above, it is a common idea that the front page holds the most newsworthy stories. Even if someone has an extreme interest in the controversy discussed in the lady Gage article, they may pay more attention to the nonsense discussed in the Lohan article because most people are reading this article because it is located on the front page.
Overall, the two articles on Fox News demonstrated by Matt are clear examples of the media setting the agenda for its viewers. By placing a possibly uncomfortable but extremely newsworthy story hidden on the web site it is not giving viewers a fair opportunity to view the article. This article could have a huge affect on people all across the world but Fox News does not allow it to base on where it places the article on its web site. I understand that certain subjects are touchy in our country but I feel that it is important that media outlets allow these subjects to be spoken about.
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ReplyDeleteMatt, great choice of article to effectively show Fox’s agenda-setting. As a news station that is known for their strong Republican spin, I am not surprised that you had to dig a little bit to find this one. Lady Gaga is obviously supporting homosexuality and like Michelle G. had said in earlier post, Fox did not make a big push to ‘advertise’ this article, perhaps with the worry that they may lose some of their loyal media consumers. I’m convinced the main reason this article was even written was because Lady Gaga is on the top of the music world and people are intrigued by her style and music videos. If Fox didn’t release this article, they could possibly have been beaten to the punch, in a manner of speaking. Taking a closer look at the article, not much information is even given on Gaga and her push to speak to government officials. The article is really limited in information and it is not surprising coming from Fox.
ReplyDeleteContinuing to talk about Fox, they push to publicize the news they want their consumers to see and neglect to push the news that may not interest those that are big into Fox’s news, which makes perfect sense. “Few journalists have not uttered at least once in their careers, ‘We only give the people what they want.’ McCombs (1981) himself acknowledged these limitations” (Baran & Davis, 280). Fox has been a dominating news station for many years with dedicated viewers that they drew in by themselves. Now that they have their dedicated media consumers, they are just continuing to feed them what they want. They push the information they think their consumers will like and hold back on some of the information their viewers may not necessarily agree with, or care about. “These media functions are perpetuated through recruitment and the socialization of media elites, editors, and journalists. In this way, the traditions, practices, and values of media professionals shape the news agenda” (Rogers & Dearing, 80). The main audience for Fox consists of republicans, with similar or identical political values. Fox will continue to give the Republican biased news because they have a large crowd and are successful at what they do. They are just continuing to give people what they want.
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ReplyDelete“[Agenda-building’s] basic premise – that media can profoundly affect how a society (or nation or culture) determines what are its important concerns and therefore can mobilize its various institutions toward meeting them” (Baran & Davis 281). In other words, through agenda building, the media decides for its audience what is important. Fox is a perfect example of this because they displayed an article about Lindsay Lohan’s recent failed drug test on their main page. However, when it came to a story about Lady Gaga talking about gays and lesbians in the military, Fox hid this article (Matt said he had to go searching for it!) This is absurd because Lady Gaga was actually talking about politics and things that pertain to our country!! But Fox makes it look like Lindsay Lohan’s wild antics are more important and more newsworthy. Seriously?!
ReplyDeleteI’d like to pull a quote from McQuail that I believe exemplifies Fox news’ approach to the whole Lady Gaga vs. Lindsay Lohan articles. “Silence, it appears, is a reaction to taboo, fear and shame – for those who think differently than what they perceive others to be thinking” (McQuail 381). While fox has not been silent about Lady Gaga’s story, they have certainly been shy (they didn’t have this article front and center, like they did with Lindsay’s). As some others have mentioned before, the story on Gaga doesn’t delve too deeply or even find too many facts. It’s rather dry and inconclusive. It’s almost as if they were afraid to touch on the topic too much. But then again, Fox had no problem getting all over Lindsay Lohan and exposing her latest failed drug test. It would appear that Fox isn’t afraid to dish about Lindsay Lohan because they already presume to know how their audience will react to it. But they’re afraid to discuss Lady Gaga because of her affiliation and support of the gays.
I completely agree with Matt when he said “this has a lot to do with Baran and Davis’ idea of the spiral of silence. With an issue such as rights for gays and lesbians in the military, the media has not yet become comfortable discussing it, especially a conservative network such as FOX News.” Just like McQuail said on page 381, “Silence… is a reaction to taboo, fear and shame – for those who think differently.” This seems to be Fox’s approach to a lot of things these days….!
I completely agree with everyone posting here: when one thinks of agenda-setting, one (especially a more liberal individual) almost immediately thinks of FOX News. The McCombs and Shaw discusses agenda setting by stating, “The mass media force attention to certain issues…they are constantly presenting objects suggesting what individuals in the mass should think about, know about, have feelings about” (154). FOX has to deliver to what their predominantly republic audience wants and that may very well be to converse about what a train wreck (and very anti-conservative) Lindsay Lohan is instead of Lady Gaga’s liberal gay rights agenda. When first reading Matt’s post, I had all intentions of discussing why (based on gatekeeping, conservative notions and agenda-setting) the Lohan article was the “bigger headline” than the report on Gaga’s liberal political platform, but something completely different struck me when reading through the FOX News article.
ReplyDeleteAs Matt mentioned above, the article is rather “stale.” When I read through the article for the first time, I considered the journalists report to be quite objective. The writing was straightforward and seemed to simply state the facts—what Lady Gaga was preaching, what senators supported the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, etc. It wasn’t until reading through the article for a second time that I noted some interesting small (but important) details. The article begins by explain the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. The author writes that the policy, “…prevents gays from serving openly in the military.” Immediately following the description in the very next paragraph, the author refers to Lady Gaga as “the ‘Bad Romance’ singer.” Now, it is true that “Bad Romance” is one of Gaga’s top hits, but she has had many. Why choose to refer to her as the singer of that particular title?
This very well could have been a coincidence, but my gut tells me that the author shaped his wording purposely. Though it is subtle and may seem a little far-fetched, a reader could interpret Gaga’s attempt to regain rights for the gay population as her preaching a “bad romance.” At the very least, the choice in words gives the homosexuality a slightly negative connotation in keeping with giving FOX News’ conservative readers “the news they want to hear.” The other aspect of the article that struck me was the quote that the author decided to use from Lady Gaga. She says, “‘We are not asking you to agree with or approve the moral implications of homosexuality. We’re asking you to do your job – to protect the constitution.” They have placed a conservative spin on Gaga’s plight by relaying that it’s fine to continue to not approve with homosexuality, but maaaaaybe you should think about Gaga’s opinion that our rights laid out in the American Constitution may have been broken.
It was the subtlety in the writing that surprised me and though I didn’t notice it at first, it got me thinking: Was he actually straying from the telling us “what to think about” to actually telling us “how to think about” a particular issue? In this way, I think this article is a perfect example of McCombs’ second-order agenda-setting theory. Baran and Davis state, “…Media can also tell us ‘how to think about’ some objects…they tell us which object attributes are important and which are not” (282). McCombs linked his theory to framing theory because they both deal with these “attribute agendas.” Dietram Scheufele wrote this about framing: “Framing…is based…on the assumption that subtle changes in the wording of the description of a situation might affect how audience members interpret the situation” (282). The subtle wording in this article might very well influence the audience (especially those conservative reasons who may already be uncomfortable with the homosexual population) to truly consider homosexual relations “bad romances” and disagree with Lady Gaga’s movement to repeal the policy to protect first amendment rights.
Glad you all are having a healthy discussion here. Some great arguements have been made for sure.
ReplyDeleteWant to know MORE about what is going on?
Lady Gaga is having more of an impact than I thought. She is mentioned in the AP article below regarding DADT. It is a very interesting article that breaks down how some democrats and republicans are reacting.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_GAYS_MILITARY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2010-09-21-07-03-10
Enjoy!
We all know that the position of a story from a news source is no mistake, and that the news outlet will put there most important stories, their "agenda-setters", in the beginning of the news. This technique goes back to when newspapers first started and they used large, bold fonts for their most important headlines in order to catch the attention of the reader and assure that that particular story would be read. The type of headlines and stories a news source puts in front says a lot about their intentions. On page 280 of the Baran and Davis reading it says, "These problems that receive prominent attention on the national news become the problems the viewing public regards as the nations most important." So does this mean FOX news believes talks of Lindsay Lohan's drug test should take precedence over our US Military talks? IT seems like it here, since Matt said he had to dig for the Lady Gaga story, but I highly doubt that is the case. In this situation of obvious agenda setting, I think it is a perfect example of the 'spiral of silence' theory. Fox news covers the Gaga story in a way that puts a negative light on Lady Gaga. The title states, ..."But couldn't get through herself." This, to me, says to the public "if the famous Lady Gaga can't get through to the Senators, how are you?"
ReplyDeleteJust as the spiral of silence suggests, "people holding views contrary to those dominant in the media are moved to keep them to themselves for fear of rejection," (Baran, Davis, 283), FOX news is trying to further influence this fear. Rather than backing Lady Gaga to speak up about the DADT policy, they are trying to keep that fear of rejection in the public.
In the McQuail reading, it says "individuals are more independent when status in the group is less important to them, or when they can expect to be rewarded by an outsider for non-comformity" (McQuail, 382). Eventhough FOX news is not rewarding anyone for not back Gaga, putting a negative spotlight on her for talking out is pretty similar.
I found the quote in the article particularly interesting when it said Gaga is asking her "fellow Americans" to call their local Senators. I wonder who chose to put those quotes only around those two words instead of the whole sentence since it was a direct quote from Gaga. To me, it seems like, in FOX's view, that anyone supporting gays in the military are un-American. Not too 'fair and balanced' from a news source if you ask me.
I agree that the way news is presented can have an effect on people. If the news is presented to viewers the way Fox News does it, people do not have enough room to make decisions or take the time to critically interpret things that are happening. Fox News is the perfect example for studying agenda setting because the fact that the news presenters completely changed and turn the whole situation around to fit the point of views of those who oppose this issue says a lot about how people’s points of views can be morphed. The Baran and Davis readings for the week bring up an important point when it comes to news viewing by the audience. In the article in chapter 10 Lippman argues, “we are not equipped to deal with so much subtlety, so much variety, so many permutations, and combinations (Baran and Davis 279). As former soldier in the United States Army I think that the “Don’t ask don’t tell” policy is something that should be dealt with and it should be brought to the attention of the people who do not have the knowledge about this issue. The fact that Fox News is making this seem as unworthy of being on the news makes skeptical of their objectivity. Additionally, the Roger and Dearing articles bring an important point; the article mentions that many of the mass media have low credibility (Roger and Dearing 86). I agree because the fact that Fox News obscured and omitted certain information pertaining to the article on Lady Gaga makes me as a viewer doubt their credibility.
ReplyDeleteKieran Wheeler
ReplyDeleteAs many people have already stated, I also thought about FOX News when I was reading for this week. Although I am somewhat of a supporter of FOX News, it is obvious that they are extremely conservative in their reporting, which can basically force certain views and opinions upon their audience. However, it is not only FOX News that can shape the opinions of their audience. Every single media outlet controls the information that we consume on a daily basis. If these outlets do not provide us with that information about certain events, then chances are we will never hear about them unless we experience them first hand.
When referring to Bernard Cohen’s theory of agenda-setting and the power of the press, the Baron and Davis reading states, “It may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about. And it follows from this that the world looks different to different people, depending not only on their personal interests, but also on the map that is drawn for them by the writers, editors, and publishers of the papers they read” (279). This is why the media is extremely powerful, because not only do they filter what it is that we see, hear, and read about, but they can also play a major role in shaping out opinions about certain things.
As for FOX News, their conservative bias is what most likely prevented them from talking about the very touchy issue of “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” which is probably why they decided not to have the article about Lady Gaga front and center on their website. However, an issue such as Lindsay Lohan and her drug problems is not as controversial, and therefore won’t really stir up any major debate. It is simply concrete fact- a major star failed a drug test. Although many people would probably want to read about it anyway, the fact that it was on FOX’s main page sheds much more light on the issue. As Matt stated, media outlets such as FOX may be uncomfortable voicing an opinion about the rights of gays and lesbians in the military. They may feel that their opinions will come under scrutiny, and might go against the majority, and that the best thing to do is to remain silent on the issue. In the McQuail reading, it states, “Silence, it appears, is a reaction to taboo, fear and shame- for those who think differently than what they perceive others to be thinking” (381).
When it comes to political decision making, our views matter. I feel that the media plays a major role in political decision making, because it is basically responsible for the way that we view things in the world.