1. choose one specific TV show and website (ex: Breitbart for online periodicals and Anderson Cooper 360 for television news). Consider the approach to each story as they were discussed. Did either source display implicit or explicit bias (as discussed in class, remember that this does not mean "opinion" or "judgment" or even "inference"; this means that the source had an agenda beyond the pursuit of truth)? For example, Breitbart's reporting on Trump's rally includes the headline "Watch: Antifa Leftist Protester Takes Pepperball in the Groin"; Cooper's show began with a sixteen-minute long fact check of the president's speech itself. Also consider: what is the format of these media? (Example: Breitbart's coverage of the rally is mainly a series of people's Twitter feeds and short responses; Cooper's show opens with the nightly fact check titled "Keeping Them Honest," followed by a panel discussion and then a one-one-one interview).
2. Did either source provide support for whatever information they were reporting? If not, what claims did they make to justify reporting the story? If so, what kind of support? Were their sources reliable/available? (Example: again, Breitbart's reporting is largely blog-style op-ed reporting, or supported mainly by tweets when and if there is a source; Cooper often uses the president's own words in video clips, or else asks establishment politicians or political commentators to weigh in).Finally, research and consider the demographic for each source
For your first major essay, we'll be putting to use our many discussions regarding media and politics from class by specifically analyzing how politics gets discussed in aggregate.
To be clearer, what you'll be doing for this assignment is the following:
1. Please choose two of the following three media: print journalism, television news, online periodicals.
2. Please then choose one specific publication/TV show/website from each of your chosen media (ex: Breitbartfor online periodicals and Anderson Cooper 360 for television news).
3. For one week straight, look at an issue that both sources discuss (As an example, on Tuesday, both Breitbart and Cooper reported on the US's new policy to remain in Afghanistan; on Wednesday, both Breitbart and Cooper discussed Trump's Phoenix rally.)
4. Consider the approach to each story as they were discussed. Did either source display implicit or explicit bias (as discussed in class, remember that this does not mean "opinion" or "judgment" or even "inference"; this means that the source had an agenda beyond the pursuit of truth)? For example, Breitbart's reporting on Trump's rally includes the headline "Watch: Antifa Leftist Protester Takes Pepperball in the Groin"; Cooper's show began with a sixteen-minute long fact check of the president's speech itself. Also consider: what is the format of these media? (Example: Breitbart's coverage of the rally is mainly a series of people's Twitter feeds and short responses; Cooper's show opens with the nightly fact check titled "Keeping Them Honest," followed by a panel discussion and then a one-one-one interview).
5. Did either source provide support for whatever information they were reporting? If not, what claims did they make to justify reporting the story? If so, what kind of support? Were their sources reliable/available? (Example: again, Breitbart's reporting is largely blog-style op-ed reporting, or supported mainly by tweets when and if there is a source; Cooper often uses the president's own words in video clips, or else asks establishment politicians or political commentators to weigh in).
6. Finally, research and consider the demographic for each source (this information is readily available from the sources listed on D2L under the "Materials" section. Please see me if you have trouble locating them, but we'll be going over them thoroughly in class as well).
The ideal result of this research will be your rhetorical analysis of the news and its audience; what you should be looking to answer is the question:
How do the speakers in a given medium shift the tone and content of their message in order to reach different audiences?
The structure sheet-also provided for you in the "Materials" section on D2L-will give you a detailed account of how to build your argument fluidly, but a cursory breakdown of this essay's structure is:
Begin with an introduction describing the two media you've chosen, why you've chosen these (rather than something else), and the dates during which you recorded their stories.
Follow up with a paragraph researching the target audiences for these outlets. Information on what types of audiences consume these sources is, again, readily available, but we'll have a research day in class wherein I will assist you in finding this data if help is needed. Discuss here the political leanings of the audience, the age range, the income level, and any other relevant information that cues you in to the audience's worldview.
This should be followed by a paragraph discussing your first chosen media outlet. Here, use the above demographic information to discuss how the story of the day is approached by the chosen medium. Also discuss any bias or agenda the outlet might have, and what evidence you have for said bias. (Note: evidence for bias means actual, cited, sourced evidence; you cannot simply suggest, for instance, that a source is biased against Hillary Clinton, and then use as your evidence the fact that the source criticized her-this is not evidence of bias).
Likewise, use the next paragraph to discuss the other medium you've chosen, and examine it the same way as above.
Finally, come to an academic conclusion about the relationship between the audience and the message. Is the audience well-informed after consuming this news? Is one medium more reliable than the other? Is the reporting biased? Is the audience subject to confirmation bias, even if the source is reliable?Structure Guide For Essay One.
The layout for your essay should look like this; please use it as a guide and stay as close to this outline as possible:
I. Introduction.
A. Begin by establishing why your topic is important to a contemporary reader (ex: Last year, print newspapers hit a record low for sales, leading many journalists to assume that they'll soon be extinct). Follow this with support for the claim you are making about the issue's relevance.
B. Transition into a discussion of the two media you chose.
1. Name one of your choices, the medium, the outlet, and your reason for choosing it (ex: The biggest competitor for print news these days is online journalism, and the Huffington Post is one of the most widely-read online publications, so let's use that as one example).
2. Name the other, and do likewise (ex: Of course, in order to recognize online journalism's possible triumph over print, we should look at The New York Times in relief against HuffPo's coverage to get a sense of the difference between the two).
C. Follow this by announcing your project itself, including the dates and subjects (For the last week of August in 2017, I looked at each publication's coverage of issues such as the border wall, neo-Nazi rallies, and the right to protest).
D. Finally, give an academic thesis question, letting us know what you'll be exploring in the essay (ex: The coverage begs the question: are online publications able to produce faster coverage, or are they sacrificing substance for "being first"?)
II. Audience
A. Transition into your next paragraph by making it clear why you're discussing the audience (ex: Before we can answer the question of which publication delivers more accurate news, we first need to look at who their delivering that news to).
B. Go into the audience descriptions of each medium.
1. Outline the first one's audience by stating the
a. Demographic and
b. Psychographic
2. Then state the second one's audience by also stating the
a. Demographic and
b. Psychographic
C. Include here a brief (3-4 sentence) discussion as to why these specific audiences might be drawn toward those specific publications/TV shows/websites (ex: "One reason why Huffington Post tends to draw a younger, more liberal audience is that statistically, millennials get the majority of their news online, according to..."; "Generally, online periodicals have a stated political slant, and audiences can tailor their news to whatever they personally believe by seeking it out, which accounts for Huffington Post's larger liberal base..." etc)
III. Medium #1
A. Here, introduce one of the topics both of your choices discussed (ex: one of the top stories during the week of this project was the border wall).
1. Introduce the article on the topic, and give several specific quotes from the piece in question-the headline too, if it's relevant.
2. Follow this with your analysis, both of what the piece discusses and what you feel it's left out (ex: As you can see, in the Huffington Post's article, the author assumes from the first word that the border wall will not be put in place)
3. Include whatever sources the piece uses (ex: Many of the article's sources link to other articles on the same website, which doesn't suggest a broad base of information...).
B. Then, introduce an alternate topic with a smooth transition (ex: And before you assume that this issue is the only one with a particularly partisan slant, let's look at the other big issue of the week: the right to protest).
1. Repeat the steps from above here.
2. Here
3. And here.
C. Conclude this paragraph with an informed point about what you've stated above (ex: It's fair to say that the publication has at least a slightly left-of-center agenda, as most of the statements they make don't come from evidence-at least not evidence presented in the article itself).
IV. Medium #2
A. Here, transition into your next choice by acknowledging that you'll be discussing the same topics, but through a different publication/website/TV show (ex: That said, the very same topics were handled quite differently by the print source, The New York Times).
1. Again, as above, include direct quotes as you discuss the issues, and repeat the above steps here
2. Here
3. Here
B. Here
1. Here
2. Here
3. And here, but be sure to continue comparing the two, rather than just restating (ex: Unlike the Huffington Post's coverage, NYT doesn't immediately take the position that protesting confederate statues is "right" and that the statues themselves are "wrong"; in fact, the Times resists taking any position whatsoever, except for its op-ed page, which allows room for both sides).
V. Conclusion
A. Come to a conclusion about the relationship between the audience and the source. Is the audience, in your opinion, aware of any biases? Why do you think that? Is the audience demanding slanted coverage, or does the audience believe the slant they're told and thus unable to demand anything?