The media has tremendous power in shaping political discourse and setting the public agenda. This is why it is essential that the media be challenged time and time again to be fair and accurate. The role of the media is to deliver unbiased and straightforward information to the American public and let the people form their own opinions towards issues. However, we all know that the media has never been and never will be that way. Instead, the media uses their own ideologies to manipulate the viewers' political reactions. In today's media especially, the important issues are spinning out of control due to the lack of real, concrete, unbiased information. Stories are usually reported on by favoring one ideology over another. For instance, the media may use expert testimony to support stories that favor their viewpoint or use language to "spin" the facts so that they favor one side over another. It is impossible now to watch a news station, listen to the radio, or read an article without some sort of sensationalism and bias to the story.
The media is also notorious for delivering "half truths" throughout their coverage of events and issues. Various external and internal pressures have driven the media to sensationalize stories in order to attract viewers and increase ratings. This results in facts either being distorted or omitted completely, thereby delivering incomplete or false information to the public. How can we be expected to make a decision regarding where we stand on certain issues if the information we are receiving is lacking? New policies and regulations, especially in this difficult time today have, and are going to continue to have, a profound impact on the lives of the American public and we deserve to not only get unbiased, but accurate information regarding these issues. Essentially, we expect to get the truth.
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"Instead, the media uses their own ideologies to manipulate the viewers' political reactions".
ReplyDeletegreat point, unfortunately we cannot blame the media alone. We also have selfish desires and we search out the media outlet that is most in-line with our biases.
I agree with Eazycrat. The media has a responsibility to us as people to deliver news that is unbiased and full of factual and significant content. The thing is anyone knows that ideals are very different from reality. News should be honest, unbiased, historical, contain citizen activist, and also diverse. Is this what it is; no. But even though the media takes most of the blame, they are not the only ones to blame. We as people are to blame as well. We seek out news that support what we want to hear. Even though there are other viewpoints out there, we don't listen to them because it's not what we believe. How on earth are we supposed to learn anything if all we do is listen to something we already know?
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