Media Analysis
In Debating Democracy's "The Media: Vast Wasteland or New Frontier?" Jarol Manheim and Douglas Rushkoff present opposing views of the media. Both authors raise the questions of what the media represents and what messages the media tries to send to the public. Is the media's coverage of events just for entertainment value or do the reports have political content and value? Are the viewers capable of distinguishing between the media's glitz and the real facts? Do different sources of the media system actually portray different views and stories? A key question is how typical objective reporting is. If the knowledge can easily be obtained elsewhere, it is possible to conclude with pluralists that citizens have the tools to govern themselves more or less democratically. If, on the other hand, there are serious shortcomings, one might agree with the power elite camp that the people, because they have insufficient meaningful information, wield less power than they could and should. Manheim claims that the media is not as diverse as it claims to be. He states, Though for competitive purposes they might have us believe otherwise, most American news organizations have a great deal in common with one another . . . they define news
Additionally, many long-term trends and historical patterns are often missing in the news coverage. In order to get the full story, draw knowledgeable conclusions, and deduce logical possibilities for solutions, one must uncover the truth behind the stories presented (Manheim, 1991). Even in looking at additional links to information on the Internet, the media sets up a system that keeps the reader in a cycle of regurgitated information presented in a different format. In an article regarding the Social Security trust fund, viewers are only told that Congress and the White House are arguing over who is planning on taking money from the fund. The actual figure that is in the trust fund, as well as the figures of money borrowed by both the House and Congress, are not mentioned in detail, nor are reasons why the trust fund has been repeatedly plundered. Furthermore, the viewers are not told what the effects of such borrowing are. In much of the political coverage regarding non-controversial topics the elite was given preference however, the public view was often brought in when the subject matter became more contestable. Such was the case with the coverage of the presidential nominees' campaign funds versus the coverage of Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura's controversial interview with Playboy magazine. Coverage of the campaign finances seemed to contain more of an elite slant and did not take into account the public's views about the candidates' actual platforms. Conversely, the public's views and reactions heavily dominated coverage of the Ventura interview. This evidence relates to Manheim and Bennett's views of the media's portrayal of the news. The campaign finance stories contain a lot of dramatization, in the fact that finances are made out to be the most important aspects of the campaign, and in fragmentation, because the other aspects of the campaigns simply are not mentioned. The articles presented by the Internet showed evidence of Manheim's idea that the "natural language of the news is a language of cynicism" (1991). If one were to base opinions solely regarding the news that the Internet showed, it would only be logical to believe that the world was about to come to a grinding halt due to the "bad" judgement calls made by politicians regarding both our society and their personal lives. Moreover, it is not far
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Approximate Word count = 1589
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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