Sources

Jonathan's Sources:
Liberty Musings
Hall,David
http://www.libertymusings.com/media.html

Wikipedia:Media Bias in the United States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias_in_the_United_States#Claims_of_a_conservative_bias

Wikipedia:Culture of Fear

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_fear

Americans' Confidence in the Media

This is an image of the publics confidence in the media from 1991-2009. As you can see there has been a substantial decline in confidence in television news networks.

Fox News Doctored Photos

Here are the examples of Fox News editing photos of its critics and rivals. Notice the obvious discoloration of teeth in the top picture and the receding hair line and circles around the eyes in the bottom one.

Sources

Abby's Sources:

Bringing the Sociology of Media Back In

RODNEY BENSON

 http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/upcp/2004/00000021/00000003/art00002

Sociology of Mass Communication

Denis McQuail

University of Amsterdam

Amsterdam, Netherlands

 http://www.jstor.org/stable/2083287

Culture Of Fear

The term Culture of Fear is used in media corruption a lot. It is when some people in society incite fear in the general public to achieve political goals. The term now a days seems to be associated with Islamic terrorism. Although many people claim that this has been going on much longer than post 9/11 years.

Propaganda was a major tactic during WWII to scare the public into complying with the government. Newspapers and News Networks use the term “War on Terror” now to incite fear in the public about the terrorist attacks. This causes paranoia amongst the public which at times can be very irrational. Many people think that the culture of fear is causing a “non-white terroristic other”. In other words, anyone who is not white and of Islamic religious background is a terrorist.
-Jon Twining

Factors That Contribute To Diverse News

It is important for media sources to remain unbiased and objective because most viewers appreciate facts and statistics. It is key that the number of media outlets increases topical and ideological diversity of the news because they are projecting different perspectives (Benson 282). The public should be presented with multiple types of arguments and each side of the story. Diversity is important in the media because it is important for us as humans to think in different ways. “Media are not merely neutral channels, it is freely available for the purpose of sending messages but instead are complex social institutions whose theories, traditions, norms, practices, and self-chosen incentives all exert an influence on the messages they transmit” (McQuail 94) If we are presented with the same arguments or same way of thinking all the time we will never be able to form our own opinions and make judgments. 

-Abby Love

Media Reports On War

Wars have always been covered vastly in the media. A popular media corruption scheme was propaganda which started during WWII and was a scare tactic in order to instill hatred against the opposition. Since the television has come out the media has been able to use propaganda much more efficiently. With TV the media can show parts of the war they want too, either to make it seem worse or better than it actually is.

Fox News was the most popular news network during the start of the Iraq War. Its reports would make some pro-war comments and would call non-war supporters profanities. There were also claims of censorship on the war as well. There was a study about the poor health conditions in Fallujah, Iraq following the invasion. The study claimed that the health conditions were worse than Hiroshima. There was no coverage of the study by the media in the United States.
- Jon Twining

Governmental Restraints

As many of us know, many national governments have quite a bit of say in what the media publishes. The government and political restraints shape a lot of what the media censors and what they reveal. Governmental pressures influence news coverage by putting limits on how much information can be revealed about governmental officials lives and the access to confidential government projects (Benson 282). The government also encourages entertainment media to reduce the pressure on their actions. For example, if the media focus’s on what scandal the latest most popular celebrity is dealing with that way the government can focus on their objectives without constant criticism from the public.
-Abby Love

Corruption In The Liberal Media

Conservative corruption in media is very prevalent at the moment. Especially with the president of the country being a democrat. Like I said in an earlier post, Fox News has been criticized heavely for this. Rush Limbaugh has been a major player in this as well since he is a registered republican.

A big example of this would be George W Bush’s press secretary, publishing a book where he admits to regularly passing on lies to the media, but he said he had no idea they were actually lies. Another example of this is Fox News editing the pictures of two journalists who claimed there was “ominous trends” in the networks ratings. The pictures were made to make the journalists unflattering by yellowing their teeth and editing facial features such as nose and ears. 

- Jon Twining

Influences That Shape The Media

There are multiple societal influences on the media, which enable networks to be flexible and adaptive to social change. There are general rubrics for what is ‘news worthy’ such as recognition, importance, and interest (Benson 277). News coverage is determined by many factors that include: the journalists themselves, organizational structures of news outlets, institutions or social conditions outside the news organization, technological factors, national culture, economics, the audience, level of power of news sources, and ideologies of the dominant social powers (Benson 279). These influences shape the output of the news networks because they are in search of profit, which is determined by audience maximization.

The more viewers that network has, the more advertising they will receive. Commercial pressures heavily drive media networks and news stations because most of their revenue is from their sponsors. Advertising and audience maximization pressures are said to be the most influential variables for mainstream media outlets” (Benson 285). “Profit pressures are said to promote a more cynical, scandal-driven political reporting” (Benson 282). People are more stimulated by conflict and controversial news as compared to uplifting and motivational reports. The tendency for people to thrive on infamous characters and outrageous situations, the news will bend facts or exaggerate details to boost their number of viewers.

- Abby Love

Corruption In The Conservative Media

One major form of media corruption is the Liberal Point of view. This view is typically against republicans. There have been a number of incidents in the last few years, mostly around President Obama’s campaign. The number of cases has been rising and a few of them are interesting enough to look into.

During a speech in 2008, Sarah Palin was accused by the leftist media for causing hatred. All she did was mention a domestic terrorist’s name and then a person in the crowd yelled “kill him”. A journalist in the crowd said she made direct threats to cause anger, even though a survey of members in the audience was conducted and found out no such threat by the man in the audience or Palin herself. This as an example of the media fabricating a story to take down a rival. 

- Jon Twinning

The Media From A Sociological Standpoint: Part 2

Most of news media is entertainment that constantly over simplifies and this leads to a lack of context. It is difficult to understand why certain media networks put more or less emphasis, personalization, dramatization, or contextualized political debates than others (Benson 277). The media must be strategic when providing political information in shaping public’s thoughts about social problems. The media’s objective is to acquire as many viewers as possible so they must find controversial topics that will keep their audience interested. Media power has remained the center of debate because the level of influence it has on the public is questionable (McQuail 94).  The public wants to hear opinions and ideas about political topics and networks that obtain official sources.

Portraying the media as simply a site on which various social groups struggle over the definition and construction of social reality is too passive and seems to view the media as a secondary role (Benson 278). When actually, the media plays a huge role in our society and influences the minds of the public.  The primary role of the media provides the foundation of politics.

-Abby Love 

Overview of Media Corruption

 In the day and age we live in now, how do we know what is true and what is not true? Many of us look to various forms of media outlets for this answer, whether it be a newspaper or the television. Unfortunately, this is not the case for some of those media outlets. Most notably Fox News has been criticized for this as of late.

Media outlets are now competing for advertising money, popularity and of course high ratings to bring in the money against each other. Some, if not all major news networks have some form of political bias to them. Fox News has been considered the most notable one, being a very conservative network. Other news sources do this as well whether it be fabricating stories or do stories that strike at their rivals. 

- Jon Twining

The Media From a Sociological Stand Point: Part 1

The media in American society is a huge part of how we learn, understand, and form opinions about political topics.  “The role of the media is to shape political debates and there are varied characteristics that shape news discourse in media systems”(Benson 275). The media dominates the television and utilizes computerized political marketing. Politics are structured by the logic of electronic media. Media texts and images are accessible more than ever because of technological advances in American society.

The sociologists that study the media are sparse which leads to an inadequate amount of theories. The media has been viewed as a dependent variable by most sociologists because of the wide variety of influential factors (Benson 275).  Rodney Benson, the author of the article ‘Bringing the Sociological of Media Back In’, decided to focus on the media has an independent variable by evaluation of its content. Also focusing on the process of creating political meaning rather than just a convenient indicator of the outcome (Benson 276). The stated roles of the media include censorship, regulation, enabling, and primarily a definer. The main issue associated with the media is the content analysis, if the medias’ reports are true and accurate. Recent sociological studies have attempted to operationalize and measure the quality of news reports but then subjectivity is intertwined.

- Abby Love