Analysis of Media Bias—Glenn Beck TV Shows: A Content Analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. 097325862110489
Author(s):  
Rizwan Ahmad

This study provides an overview of the media’s role in shaping public discourse and belief through framing news stories in a biased perspective and setting an agenda that is in keeping with the interests of the corporate and institutional funders of the media apparatus. Support for such an analysis is provided by a literature review that covers many critical aspects of news framing, agenda setting and cultivation theory, especially with respect to the emergence of a new ‘network society’. The ‘content analysis’ approach is utilised to search for biased content via the use of coders and decoders in some 140 randomly selected sampled links of the ‘Glenn Beck’ show during the two periods of time from 1 January 2010 to 30 June 2010, and from 1 January 2011 to 30 June 2011, each of these periods consisting of 70 samples. The results ultimately show that the programme almost unilaterally provides supportive views of moral conservative values, and slight negative portrayals of Muslims. The programme presents critical views of President Obama and his policies, although the finding in opposing Obama’s policies is not statistically significant. The significance of these findings is discussed within the larger context of media bias and its influence on political reality, as well as public discourse and belief; although the study and hence, the findings suggesting ‘bias’ do not represent the entire media industry representing conservative values.

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erika Franklin Fowler ◽  
Sarah E. Gollust ◽  
Amanda F. Dempsey ◽  
Paula M. Lantz ◽  
Peter A. Ubel

Although scholarship on competitive framing acknowledges that framing is a dynamic process in which the early stages may matter most, very little research has focused on the dynamics of issue emergence. In this article, we draw on several literatures to develop theories for how controversy related to new issues will emerge and expand in news coverage. Through a comprehensive content analysis of 101 local newspapers across the fifty U.S. states, we explore the dynamic and evolving process wherein a new issue—the HPV vaccine—emerged into public discourse and a legislative debate over school requirements for vaccination began. We find that coverage of controversy is a function of proximity, driven primarily by events within a state, although external events also influence local coverage. We also find that the legislative discussion in the media did not necessarily start out as controversial, but as the issue evolved, we observe a large increase in the proliferation of both actors taking positions and the types of arguments made to influence debate. The findings yield important insight into issue emergence with implications for how future research might test competing frames to better understand how the presentation of controversy in the mass media affects public opinion.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Nikolaevna Kasperovich-Rynkevich

This article explores cost-effective mass media technologies. The experience of the use of paid access to the media content of Belarus was studied, the author also made the forecast on its future functioning. The paper provides global media industry trends and focuses on the use of messagers to promote content and increase the target audience of mass media. The research used the methods of content analysis and a written survey. During the study the author revealed that the media economically oriented technologies help to make a profit through distribution of content and formation of a loyal mass media audience.


Author(s):  
Katrin Voltmer ◽  
Christiane Eilders

This chapter investigates whether the assumption that the media contribute to the communication deficit of the EU is reflected in the empirical pattern of political coverage. In particular, it explores the extent to which German media take a Europeanized perspective on political affairs and whether or not they promote the politics of European integration. The study is based on a content analysis of the editorials of German national quality newspapers covering the period between 1994 and 1998. The findings show that the media under study devote only a very small portion of their attention to European issues, thus marginalizing Europe to an extent that is not warranted by the significance of the European level of governance. If the media do focus on European issues, they predominantly address them in terms of national politics, which is interpreted as a ‘domestication’ of Europe in public discourse. At the same time, the media unanimously support the idea of European integration. This pattern of communicating Europe reflects the élite consensus on European matters in Germany and may have contributed to the alienation of the general public from European politics.


Author(s):  
Paul Alonso

In the post-truth era, postmodern satiric media have emerged as prominent critical voices playing an unprecedented role at the heart of public debate, filling the gaps left not only by traditional media but also by weak social institutions and discredited political elites. Satiric TV in the Americas analyzes some of the most representative and influential satiric TV shows on the continent (focusing on cases in Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, Chile, and the United States) in order to understand their critical role in challenging the status quo, traditional journalism, and the prevalent local media culture. It illuminates the phenomenon of satire as resistance and negotiation in public discourse, the role of entertainment media as a site where sociopolitical tensions are played out, and the changing notions of journalism in today’s democratic societies. Introducing the notion of “critical metatainment”—a postmodern, carnivalesque result of and a transgressive, self-referential reaction to the process of tabloidization and the cult of celebrity in the media spectacle era—Satiric TV in the Americas is the first book to map, contextualize, and analyze relevant cases to understand the relation between political information, social and cultural dissent, critical humor, and entertainment in the region. Evaluating contemporary satiric media as distinctively postmodern, multilayered, and complex discursive objects that emerge from the collapse of modernity and its arbitrary dichotomies, Satiric TV in the Americas also shows that, as satiric formats travel to a particular national context, they are appropriated in different ways and adapted to local circumstances, thus having distinctive implications.


2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 363-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boris Chapoton ◽  
Anne-Laure Werlen ◽  
Véronique Regnier Denois

Abstract Background European citizens are the largest alcohol users in the world with an average of 11 l of alcohol per individual per year being used. This consumption practice usually begins during adolescence. Youths’ views of substances consumption are built upon socialization experiments from which television takes part. To prevent vulnerable people from media influence, some governments tend to adopt restrictive laws against alcohol marketing within the public space including TV programmes; others rely on the self-control of the alcohol and/or media industry. More than 22 years ago, France adopted a restrictive law made of measures aiming to regulate or prohibit advertising of alcoholic products, especially within media dedicated to minors. Methods This study relies on a content analysis to identify the patterns and the frequencies of occurrences linked to alcohol within a sample of 14 TV series (8 French series and 6 American series) most watched by French teenagers. In total, 180 episodes have been analysed representing 111 h 24 min and 6 s of series coded. Results Alcohol is depicted within 87.8% of the sample. French series statistically show more events related to alcohol when compared to the American series. In French series, alcohol, mainly wine, is associated with a familiar lifestyle context with primary characters. Conclusion The restrictive law ongoing in France does not prevent popular TV programmes watched by minors to depict alcohol. Concerns should be raised about the impact of the values given to the substance integrated to main characters life within the media.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (14) ◽  
pp. eaay9344
Author(s):  
Hans J. G. Hassell ◽  
John B. Holbein ◽  
Matthew R. Miles

Is the media biased against conservatives? Although a dominant majority of journalists identify as liberals/Democrats and many Americans and public officials frequently decry supposedly high and increasing levels of media bias, little compelling evidence exists as to (i) the ideological or partisan leanings of the many journalists who fail to answer surveys and/or identify as independents and (ii) whether journalists’ political leanings bleed into the choice of which stories to cover that Americans ultimately consume. Using a unique combination of a large-scale survey of political journalists, data from journalists’ Twitter networks, election returns, a large-scale correspondence experiment, and a conjoint survey experiment, we show definitively that the media exhibits no bias against conservatives (or liberals for that matter) in what news that they choose to cover. This shows that journalists’ individual ideological leanings have unexpectedly little effect on the vitally important, but, up to this point, unexplored, early stage of political news generation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Miczo

Abstract This essay explores the news media’s portrayal of humor during the early phase of COVID-19-related lockdowns. Examining a collection of online news articles reveals the media tended to frame the issue as an ethical one (e.g., “is it okay to laugh at the coronavirus?”). After reviewing work on humor ethics, a qualitative content analysis of 20 news media articles is presented. Three issues from the news stories are identified, allowing comparison of the media’s claims against the ethical principles articulated. The essay concludes with a consideration of how news media’s coverage of humor fits within a broader pandemic narrative.


2019 ◽  
Vol IV (II) ◽  
pp. 412-420
Author(s):  
Samira Saleem ◽  
Syed Abdul Siraj

This study investigated the emergence of different factors in the framing of Panama leaks by gathering data along with five thematic frames of financial, morality, blame-game, political victimization, and accountability. Altogether 930 news stories were content analyzed to investigate how the issue of Panama leaks was framed in the media since its inception in April 2016. Furthermore, 22 framing items were selected to measure these frames and a principal component analysis resulted in generating a factor solution by clustering of these framing items into eight distinguishable factors of political-econo, governance, justificationssolutions, socio-political responsibility, implications, apathy, responsiveness, and economic instability. This study revealed differences in the use of these factors both in different newspapers and topics of coverage. The Pakistani press used the factor of governance more whereas the western press used the factor of political-econo more as compared to other factors in the framing of Panama leaks.


2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Lidberg

When the Australian Independent Media Inquiry (IMI) published its report most mainstream media reporting focused on the suggested statutory-based News Media Council and largely ignored any discussion of the underlying issues—public trust in journalism and news media and accountability for its practices. The aim of this study was to capture the attitudes held by the media industry toward these issues. Based on a content analysis of 33 submissions to the IMI and the Convergence Review it can be concluded that only 15 percent of the submissions addressed trust or media accountability issues. Furthermore, the submissions illustrate a disconnect between the attitudes held by some media proprietors and the trust deficit reality displayed in multiple studies of the public’s attitudes to journalism and news media.


Sociologija ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 518-537
Author(s):  
Nebojsa Vladisavljevic ◽  
Katrin Voltmer

This paper presents an overview of the main findings from a quantitative content analysis covering different types of democratisation conflicts (i.e., conflicts over citizenship, elections, transitional justice and distribution of power) in Egypt, Kenya, Serbia and South Africa. The key findings from the content analysis are organised around several themes: causes of democratisation conflicts, portrayal of conflict parties, preferred solutions to conflicts, perceptions of democracy, role of the media, authoritarian past, and tone of reporting and polarisation. The main finding is that cross-national variations depend on several factors: specific country contexts (and contexts of broader regions from which they come from, including the Arab Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and post-communist Europe); regime type and the stage of democratisation; and type of democratisation conflict (which reflects the main arenas of political contestation). Across all countries, the quality of media coverage is limited by bias, emotionalisation and - most importantly - polarisation. In particular, conflicts over the distribution of power trigger sharp polarisation, whereas elections - contrary to existing literature - seem to force media towards a more restrained style of reporting. The sample involves 5162 newspaper articles and news stories from the four countries.


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