Media Comparison

20 Pages 4979 Words

Case Studies in Mass Political Communication
The most important tool for any democracy is information. Because by definition the supreme authority within a democracy rests with the people, mass communication becomes an essential element of informed decision making by that aggregate authority. In this way, any manipulation or lack of factual information has serious negative implications for the ability of a body of people to act consciously on its own behalf. Only an informed citizenry can participate in the cognizant decision-making process necessary for the advancement of its own needs.
The question then arises as to the current state of mass communication within democracies. Are the media that communicate on a mass scale fulfilling their roles as scrupulous disseminators of information? What biases exist that may affect how the information is presented? How do the effects of these biases translate into the idea of an informed citizenry? All of these inquiries tap into the wide-ranging social implications of mass media. What follows is an analysis of a selected group of American mass media outlets for the purpose of determining strengths, weaknesses, similarities, differences, and biases, all in the context of their social implications.
Means
The media analysis will focus on five mass media outlets, including both print and broadcast media, and will compare each outlet’s coverage based on two consecutive days of reporting on a particular ongoing issue or story. For the purposes of diversification, three categorically different topics shall be used, which can be classified as international, national, or local news, respectively. For each individual topic, two of the five sources will be compared and contrasted, and have their coverage of the topic examined in terms of framing, journalistic practices, and “the four information biases that matter”: dramatization, personalization, fragmentation, and authority-disor...