Many of us look to the media for the latest political or social news. I know that I love listening to NPR on my way to work, or to have CNN running in the background when I am at home trying to multitask! But how much of the information is based on objective content? Part of why we sometimes tune in is because we want to know what Wolf Blitzer thinks about a given situation, we want to know if we should agree or disagree with the rulings of major court cases. So, the media tells us, the media uses key works and images that give us a scandal spin on the story. When Justin Biber was arrested for drunk driving, they showed his mug shot. First of all, that was not news worthy, but they could have shown us a picture of him from his last concert or from him in a suit, but they chose to add drama and shape the way we feel about him.
If we look at the Bengazi hearings, we see another example of agenda setting, this time it is the government that wants to shine light on something. The conservatives are dragging Secretary Clinton into the lime light with more then 7 hearings on the same issue and there has not been a result. It started out being an investigation into what happened, then turned into finding out if Clinton was negligent, and now it seems that they are just looking to pin something on her. Perhaps, the conservative party wants to tarnish her image with the American people for the 2016 election.
Planed Parenthood, school shooters, and many other incidences have been brought to the media and the people that we rely on for unbiased reporting of the facts, give us what they want us to see.
The government has a saying when they don’t want the public to know something happened but they still need to report it in press meetings, and that is “Send it out with the Trash.” The Whitehouse delivers any bad news on Fridays at the end of the business day, that is considered the trash, because the press corps is ready to go home and listeners are getting ready for the weekend. What goes out on Fridays is typically an update on something that took place during the week, it is never something that the Whitehouse really wants the American people to hear, because it’s not too important. This is another way to shape the public opinion; by sending this information out on a day that people aren’t paying attention, we are again, taking advantage of an opportunity. So when there is something embarrassing that needs to go out, they can say that they sent it out.
My final thought is about satire or reporting. One of my favorite shows is the Trever Noah show. He is funny and he does bring up some very good points about politics and social behavior. But again, it is tailored to be funny and to be satire and not real reporting. He doesn’t go out and conduct interviews, he uses clips from other news sites and we never really see the whole story. What happened to real reporting, where we just get the facts and nothing else? Would we tune in to that? Have we ever been in a place where reporting was unbiased?
Tags: #AppliedSocialPsychology, media, reporting
There certainly seems to be a widespread feeling of disillusionment with news networks in recent years. Many viewers, myself included, yearn for news coverage that is truth-based rather than motivated by ratings. Unfortunately, as long as fear and drama continue to be such highly valued journalistic devices, sensationalizing news stories will remain the norm. The best way to cope with this is to be an educated consumer and set personal boundaries for how much sensationalized content you allow yourself to take in.