Politics and Society

Being a student in the Global Studies department here at the University, I am constantly finding myself fascinated by international perspectives, especially when concerning world news. So, when choosing a topic of comparison for this particular assignment, it is no big surprise that I became interested in reviewing The New York Times newspaper compared to one of Britain’s most popular newspapers, "The Guardian."

Continue reading ""The New York Times" Versus "The Guardian"" »

Posted by Rachel at 9:55 AM | Permalink

The media sources I chose to compare are CNN’s talk show “Paula Zahn Now� and Fox News Channel’s talk show “On the Record Van Susteren�. These talks shows are both hosted by female respondents and are aired on channels that have a long standing rivalry. This is the first I had watched either show. I picked these particular shows as they both advertised to cover the day’s top stories in news.

Continue reading "Zahn vs Van Susteren" »

Posted by Bobbie-Jean at 1:42 AM | Permalink

In choosing a pair of media sources to analyze and compare, I wanted to see how national versus local news or political discussion differed, but I also wanted to see the differences and/or similarities of different mediums. In doing this, I decided that I needed to maintain the same political background for each media source, local AM radio, and National television news channel, and decided to see how liberal/Democratic media sources differ, because I am used to seeing Fox News Channel from time to time and rarely have listened to conservative AM radio shows. So I wanted to see something different, and compare national tv from local radio from the same political bias.

Continue reading "Local AM vs. National TV" »

Posted by Nich at 11:08 PM | Permalink

I decided to watch to 30 minute segments from CNN Newsroom and MSNBC Live and their coverage of varying national to international topics. This was a relatively small time frame to get any real depth in material but it was easy to understand many of the varying issues that would be relevant to the average viewer. I wanted to get viewpoints from both sides of the political landscape either liberal or conservative. It is widely known that CNN is more conservative and MSNBC is mostly liberal.

I. Chronology
CNN Newsroom - 30 minutes
- U.S. foreign policy in Iraq and Senator John McCain's call for more troops in Iraq.
- John McCain takes first exploratory step to the presidential candidacy in '08 (Republican)
- Former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson taking first exploratory step to presidential candidacy
- Democrats meeting to decide leadership roles in the House and Senate
- Hurtha and Moyer fighting for majority leadership role
- Severe weather situation in Montgomery, Alabama. Storm (tornadoes) ravaging through the Southeast region.
- Coming Up:
- Democrats plan for Iraq
- Continuing weather coverage
- Battleship Intrepid stuck in mud.

Commercial Break
- Volvo SUV
- National
- "Combat Hospital" Promo
- Chase Home Equity Lender
- Promo for "Lou Dobbs Tonight"

- Severe weather in Southeast region, specifically North Carolina now.
- Intractable Intrepid, U.S.S. Intrepid stuck in mud for 10 days in New York City
- Just In: Sheriff in Riegelwood, North Carolina reports five confirmed deaths in tornado storm.
- Coming up:
- Baghdad store's being looted
- Wal-Mart in trouble

Commercial Break
- Promo for "Paula Zahn Now"
- UBS Financial Firm
- Westin Hotels & Resorts
- Chrysler Car
- Kyocera printer
- Citgo gas station
- Discover Business Card
- Promo for "Warrior One: Hummers"
- Head-On prescription

- More storms ripping through Riegelwood, North Carolina.
- Wal-Mart watch, promoting higher wages with the support of Senator Barack Obama and former Senator John Edwards.
- New York Stock Exchange opening bell and opening numbers
- Storm coverage back in North Carolina

MSNBC Live - 30 minutes
- Pelosi anointed Speaker of the House
- High-speed chase of 16 year-old driver
- weatherplus.com coverage of severe weather in Southeast region, Alabama and North Carolina specifically
- NYSE & NASDAQ opening
- Vote on #2 in House Majority leader between Murtha (D-PA) and Hoyer (D-MD)
- Not "Brokeback Mountain" relationship between Sen. Reid and former colleague
- Coming Up: Senator McCain exploring the option of running for presidency in '08

Commercial Break
L'Oreal
FedEx
PhRMA.org
Smart Balance Omega Foods
Cadillac Escalade
Iams dog food
The Jewelry Exchange

- John McCain exploring 2008 bid for Repbulican candidate
- GOP: Rebuilding years
- Trent Lott back as #2 in Senate
- Coming up: Pelosi & Hilary Clinton combination

Commercial Break
- Kraft Crumbles
- Ditech.com
- Geico
- Liberty Medical
- Promo for "Countdown w/ Keith Obelerman"
- Halls
- One-A-Day Women's

- Breaking News, six people confirmed dead from tornado in Riegelwood, North Carolina
- Women In Command, Nancy Pelosi as Speak of the House and Hilary Clinton as potential president candidate in '08
- Developing Story: Leadership

Commercial Break
- Promo for tonight's shows on NBC
- Jimmy Dean Breakfast Bowls
- "The Fountain" movie trailer
- Buick Lucerne + On-Star
- E*Trade
- Promo for Scarborough Country and Doc. Block later tonight.

- Breaking news of sever storms in Southeast region and tornado watch/warnings

II. Context
By nature (well I guess not so much nature as environmental surroundings) that I am a Republican by heart and I would prefer to watch CNN over MSNBC. Both stations were what I expected in trying to identify each station as either conservative (CNN) and liberal (MSNBC). However, most of the stories on CNN would not reflect a very distinct conservative approach because of the limited amount of coverage on each topic because of the tremendous coverage the Southeast region demanded and with good reason.

In my viewing I found that both stations primary targets were adults in more of a business aspect or citizens with a primary interest in ongoing politics. CNN spent a lot of time jumping from topic to topic covering a wide variety of topics. In an approximate seven minute span they jumped from politics to weather to digging out a trapped ship. It appeared that CNN was attempting to maintain an unbiased political aspect and the topics of choice definitely helped not promote any one side's opinion.

In my viewing of MSNBC I would have to admit that I was less intrigued with this station because I know that they generally lean towards a liberal approach. Their topics worked well into one another and they also spent a considerable amount of time on the ongoing sever weather conditions around North Carolina, Alabama and other Southeastern states. However, they had a segment on the Republican parties' loss of both the Senate and the House and brought in both a Republican and Democratic analyst to weigh in on the current issues of today's to party system. It appeared that the Democratic analyst received a lot more airtime than the Republican and also the Democratic analyst was much more abrasive and confrontational. But beyond the few minutes attributed to the few topics on politics it was difficult to get a sense of political agenda through MSNBC but not as "coded" as CNN appeared to be.

One thing that genuinely intrigued me was the use of commercials by each station. Both stations ran many commercials as often as possible but if I had to say whether either side ran more commercials I would have to say that MSNBC ran more commercials more often. Both stations offered a wide variety of commercials reaching out to a small demographic based on each station. CNN is viewed as more conservative, Republican, they ran more commercials promoting finances and upscale merchandise which would appeal to a more middle-upper class demographic. MSNBC ran a variety of commercials that could not be linked to any specific demographic because they covered a large scale from upscale automobiles, Cadillac Escalade, to a more down-to-earth on-the-go viewer, Jimmy Dean Breakfast Bowls. I was very interested in the amount of commercials that were ran by both stations as well. You would watch either one and they would show their broadcast for five or seven minutes at a time and then they would have three to four minutes of rapidly shown commercials. It is obvious to see that both stations are operated through commercial success and they tone down the quantity and quality of substance in their live news shows because of the almighty dollar. All in all the importance of money will ultimately weigh supreme in businesses and the average viewer will suffer because the substance is dulled down to fit into a time restrained segment.

Continue reading "CNN News vs. MSNBC Live" »

Posted by Aaron at 3:15 PM | Permalink

I chose CNN on television and a self-proclaimed independent internet news source called Democracy Now . My question is this: Which medium of news influences the other? Most network and corporate news giants have accompanying news websites, that mimic their television versions in content and quality. I would like to know if an independent web-based news source would also tend to mimic television news, or if it maybe the other way around.

Continue reading "CNN v DemocracyNow" »

Posted by sophear at 12:34 PM | Permalink

Critics of news outlets often note the “slant� of news outlets. They note that the news on these outlets is often overwhelmingly liberal or conservative. I understand how overt that can be in obviously political articles (the elections, national issues) but I thought it would be interesting to research how different non-political articles would be. Does the slant still show in stories where there is no obvious political grounds? If a child loses his puppy is a conservative news source going to report on different aspects of it than a liberal news outlet? If they do report on different aspects, why? Are there intrinsic reasons that someone with a different political stance would report a politically free situation in a different way?

Continue reading "CNN vs. FOX NEWS" »

Posted by Crystina at 8:18 AM | Permalink

OPINION ON IRAQ’S FUTURE POST MIDTERM ELECTIONS

INTRODUCTION

I chose to look at the political ideology of two blogs on the same issue. I chose this because I have never read or studied any blogs before. I hear about blogs all the time through school and friends that post/read them frequently so I want to see what they have to offer. I am also very interested in the issue of the war in Iraq and this will be a good way to read up on some different opinions on this issue.

Continue reading "Political Ideology:War in Iraq" »

Posted by James at 8:04 AM | Permalink

For this assignment, I have watched an interesting documentary called “Peace, Propaganda, & the Promised Land: US Media & the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict.� This documentary was made by the Media Education Foundation, which is an independent organization that aims to provide documentary films and other sources in order to foster critical thinking and analysis about the interconnectedness of mass media and the corporate world, as well as political interests of different factions which have substantial influence on the media. This documentary was instrumental in making me decide which direction I wanted to go with this assignment. The two sources that I decided to focus on are the online Al Jazeera and CNN networks. My aim is to look at the ways in which these two media sources differ in covering the Middle East, hence, I only focused on their “Middle East� headline sections. How are the two sources different in covering the Middles East and the current conflicts in the region? In what ways does CNN, and similar American news media, shape American assumptions about the Islamic world? In what ways do both networks hegemonies problematic representations which further dichtomize the West and the East? These are some of the questions I would like to address in this project.

Continue reading "“Covering Islamâ€?: Al Jazeera vs. CNN" »

Posted by Sadia at 8:03 AM | Permalink

I chose to examine the online Op-Ed sections of the NY Times and the Star Tribune. By doing this, I hoped to gain greater perspective on the role of each paper and the types of readers each attracted. Looking at the subjects that the Op-Ed section covers in each paper reflects what the readers are interested in and how they view subjects covered within that particular paper. These sections illustrate not only what type of readers read each paper, but also what each paper covers and with what bias. Each paper also employs regular Op-Ed journalists, so by looking at the credentials and prestige of each journalist may also reflect upon each paper’s role in society.

Continue reading "NY Times OP ED vs. Star Tribune OP ED" »

Posted by Jessica at 7:38 AM | Permalink

In selecting a pair of media journals to compare and contrast, I chose CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, and Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor. I sought out two broadcasts that I believed would represent opposite ends of the political spectrum in their partiality; the assumption being that Anderson Cooper would lean more liberally, and O’Reilly would espouse conservative views. Each program was one hour long, and they were aired on the same night.

Continue reading "Anderson Cooper and Bill O' Reilly" »

Posted by Sam at 7:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I. Introduction
Much like the Kennedy-Nixon debates of our grandparents’ generation, media depictions of politics has been a determining factor in current ideology because the media controls the information that is given to the masses. More importantly, the media controls the context and connotations of this information. Since newspapers, Internet news, and television enjoy immediacy when delivering the news, they often forgo analysis in favor of instant factual information. This can be detrimental to politics because issues become skewed and biased due to the short amount of time and space offered in the average news article. Periodicals tend to offer more analysis because they do not have an obligation to cover all of the news events and can afford to focus on a few key issues. Also, periodicals allow the author more time to write an article and conduct research because they are not printed daily. Although periodicals inherently offer more analysis than other news forms, they do not offer information free from bias. I will argue that the depth of analysis does not affect the ability for a source to be biased.

Continue reading "The Economist v. The Nation" »

Posted by Kimberly at 5:11 AM | Permalink

I chose to compare the 6 pm local news on channel 11 (KARE 11) with the local news in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. I watched the local news on TV for November 14, 2006, and I read the Star Tribune for November 15, 2006. The reason I chose these two mediums to compare was because I figured the newspaper would give further detail on most stories and it would be interesting to see which details the television news chose to use for their broadcast. The local television news runs for only 30 minutes from 6:00 to 6:30, 10 minutes of which was commercials. However, reading the paper took me much longer. I didn’t keep a minute by minute log for the newspaper like I did with the television news but I spent all-together a little over an hour reading. The newspaper obviously has several sections that were not relevant to the local news stories I was looking for but I browsed through most of them anyway to see if I noticed any of the same stories that were discussed on the TV news. After comparing news stories and seeing little difference between the two, I chose to compare the actual mediums I used for this assignment.

Continue reading "KARE 11 Local News vs. Star Tribune Local News" »

Posted by Tina at 2:41 AM | Permalink

Initially, my drive was to compare the coverage of Bill O’Reilly’s The O’Reilly Factor to that of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, but my attention was drawn to Keith Olbermann while looking around on Youtube for coverage. The difference between Bill O’Reilly’s style of commentating and Keith Olbermann’s style presented such a stark contrast that I sacrificed the laughs of John Stewart to satisfy my intrigue of this contrast. Rarely do my sources of information come from anywhere other than NPR lending me to side very little in the partisan scheme of things, so watching most any television news (other than public) is somewhat of a strange world of shock to me. As such is the case I took two news sources so diametrically opposed to each other that the two just beg for direct comparison.

Continue reading "Olbermann vs. O'Reilly" »

Posted by Jonathan at 2:16 AM | Permalink

I chose to compare Tuesday’s elections results from the Minnesota Daily, a student-run and written newspaper and The Pioneer Press, the city wide St. Paul newspaper. I chose these because I wanted to evalute the emphasis put on city-wide and state-wide politics by students and by adults. Being a student myself, and living amongst others, I had a few ideas of how the results might turn out.

Continue reading "Elections results from the Minnesota Daily versus the Pioneer Press" »

Posted by Anne P at 12:25 AM | Permalink

What does the nation say the day after the election? On November 8, 2006, it was that the Democrats were taking control of the House and that more Democratic Governors were being elected around the country. I analyzed the Star Tribune and The New York Times the morning after the election and I wanted to see how these two papers responded to the results and what their headlines were going to contain. I wanted to see what each paper focused on and what topic the stories were going to revolve around.

Continue reading "StarTribune and The New York Times" »

Posted by Katie at 12:09 AM | Permalink

I chose to analyze the differences between world news broadcasts and local news broadcasts. I watched (on two separate occasions) the ABC World News and KSTP Channel 5 local television news. I chose these to compare these because I thought it would be interesting to look at the different amounts of time each spends on certain issues and the differences between what each considers to be important topics of the day.

Continue reading "World News vs. Local News" »

Posted by Nicole at 11:39 PM | Permalink

There is no questioning the power of media in our world today. It shapes our views, beliefs, and opinions and makes us the people we are today. Throught the years, media has evolved and taken on new faces, however, the scope of media ownership has narrowed from hundreds of small owners to six giant conglomerates. The driving force behind this shift, as we all know has been capitalism. Many believe that the quest for money has clouded the truth with bias and made news programs play to the interests of the people, subjecting viewers to a distorted view of the world based on the programs they watch. For this project, I will compare two different distorted views of the topic of Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation.
The media sources I chose for this study were USA Today and BBC News. I chose these because I wanted to see how each source covered a specific political issue within the US which had potentially global effects. Especially when a defense secretary in a highly publicized and controversial war resigns after his party loses control of congress.

Continue reading "USA Today Vs. BBC on the Rumsfeld Resignation" »

Posted by Justin at 11:29 PM | Permalink

I Introduction

For my Media Journal, I have chosen to compare the website of the New York Times with the main Indy Media website, www.indymedia.org. The point of this is to compare a national media source, which often gets criticized for being “liberal� or “on the left,� with a media source that is of the left, by the left, and for the left. Specifically, the point of this is to show that there is nothing “leftist� about corporate owned big-money media. Perhaps it would be better to compare some of today’s “left� news sources to historical leftist and/or revolutionary newspapers and pamphlets, but because of media consolidation, this is about the best comparison we have today. A newspaper accused of being liberal versus a community of activists working on their own, against corporate media, to bring out stories from their communities as well as other stories that “left� newspapers wouldn’t touch.

Continue reading "The New York Time vs. IndyMedia.org (For-profit vs. Collective, Community Based News)" »

Posted by Steve at 11:29 PM | Permalink

I chose to compare CNN and Foxnews for this assignment. I watched both of the programs on TV and compared what they talked about and how they talked about them. I chose these particular news channels, because I believe they offer the most as far as broad aspects of news, of any US news broadcasting company. I intended to look for something about the election to be the main thing I would look for when doing this assignment, but I found that to be completely covered up by the war in Iraq.

Continue reading "CNN vs. Foxnews" »

Posted by Leah at 10:53 PM | Permalink

Introduction
I decided for this assignment to look at the national and international response to the 2006 Midterm Elections. To find my sources I used the internet because it was easy for me to access. The sources that I chose where form various news sources. In choosing the sources I tried to a range of news sources, liberal to neutral to conservative, so I could get balanced coverage. For my US news sources I choose CNN, Fox News, NPR, and Associated Press. For my foreign sources I choose BBC News, Al-Jeezera, Le Monde Diplomatique, and CBC. The main things I looked at is what was reported a few days before the election, the day of the election, and a few days after.

Continue reading "Midterm Elections-National vs. International Coverage" »

Posted by Nigel at 10:24 PM | Permalink

I chose to do a comparison of the North Korean nuclear missile crisis between ABC Online World News and BBC Online World News. I want to compare the North Korean nuclear missile crisis because I wanted to see what kinds of news coverage were out there pertaining to issues in Asia countries. From my experiences, I don’t think that there has been a lot of time allotment devoted to news concerning Asia. Many times it’s more concentrated on news in Europe or in the Middle East even before 9/11. What I wanted to get out of this was to see how different the articles from ABC News were from the ones from BBC News. What was the American perspective towards this issue and how does that differ from the British view. Do both news organizations do a good job in representing the world view?

Continue reading "BBC World News vs. ABC World News" »

Posted by chinGu at 8:29 PM | Permalink

While I began to work on the media journal assignment, I had one question in mind; How does the information people get from the media impact their worldview? And I also wanted to see if ownership of this media mattered at all. I decided to do my research by comparing coverage of the war in Iraq by the New York Times (nytimes.com) to the Guardian Unlimited (guardian.co.uk). I visited both websites, I have read countless of their article regarding the war in Iraq and I have found interesting similarities as well as some differences. As I conducted this empirical research, and as I spent time viewing both websites, I hoped to better understand how the media operates, and how politics play a role in it.

Continue reading "The war in Iraq: The New York Times vs. The Guardian Unlimited" »

Posted by Abdullahi at 8:27 PM | Permalink

I chose to compare the top world news stories between both American and British newspapers using The New York Times and The Guardian-Unlimited as my media sources. I deliberately chose to compare an American and a British newspaper, because I wanted to see the differences in how both sources report, display, and interpret what is a top world new story in their papers. Are they really focused on world issues, or are they more focused on their personal issues abroad?

Continue reading "New York Times vs. The British Guardian-Unlimited" »

Posted by Matthew at 8:06 PM | Permalink

I chose to compare two different sources of the media the television and the internet. I went to the CBS website and I also watch FOX local news for one hour. I am very interest how the internet has taken over our outlet of news. It has becoming more and more popular for people to search in the internet for news. The television presents theirs views, while the internet has multiple views. The most interesting things I found out was both of them have more similarities than differences and the internet news make us less interactive with other people.

Continue reading "Internet vs. Televison" »

Posted by vi at 7:12 PM | Permalink

I chose to compare Newspaper stories, both national and local, from different states. I deliberately chose states that I knew would differ in political affiliation, in order to compare and contrast the differences between liberal and conservative states and their respective media. The conservative states that I chose were Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas and the liberal states that I chose were New York and California. I specifically looked at recent coverage of the war in Iraq and related issues in newspapers in each state, taking articles that had been published in the last three to four months. When looking at the recent stories I found many interesting differences between the liberal and conservative states. Each state seemed to have a different approach, or focus, of their stories about the war; however, these portrayals followed a noticeable pattern between the liberal and conservative states.

Continue reading "Conservative vs. Liberal Representation of Iraq in Newspapers" »

Posted by Manda at 2:54 PM | Permalink

I chose to compare foxnews.com with bbc.co.uk in their coverage of the 2006 mid term elections because I wanted to see if there was any difference in how two major news sources covered the elections. The internet has become both a major tool and a major hinderance to the user. It is convenient, ready to surrender information at a mouse click, but at the same time it encourages a sort of “fast food� approach to the news, where there can be very little substance because of the emphasis of time and volume over anything else. I wanted to see if this is a localized thing, to our country alone or if it's an international affair.

Continue reading "Fox News versus BBC" »

Posted by Katusa at 12:30 PM | Permalink

In looking at divisive issues in the media, the debate over the Theory of Evolution is never far from the forefront. The population in the United States is almost evenly divided on the issue, with just less than 50 percent saying that evolution is well supported by science. One particular setting of this debate is the state of Kansas, which over the last seven to eight years has had a tumultuous relationship with the topic, particularly in its treatment in public schools. This entry examines the differences in treatment of the Kansas evolution debate by two sources. The first is a Kansas newspaper, the Topeka Capital-Journal. The second is the BBC. These sources were picked with the intent of comparing a relatively small, local, and parochial viewpoint with that of a very large, international, removed news source.

Continue reading "Evolution and Intelligent Design in Kansas" »

Posted by Brian C. at 12:53 AM | Permalink

I chose to report on the differences in viewpoints from two sources. One being an American source and the other being a British source. I wanted to find out whether there are differences in the reporting methods of these medias in relation to the Middle East in general, not just Iraq. I also wanted to find out if people who blogged were different in their opinions as well. i wanted to know this becaus eii was curious to see if report things differently would make people think differntly according to what's being reported.

Continue reading "BBC vs. New York Times on Middle East" »

Posted by Dan at 10:24 PM | Permalink

I chose The New York Times and Democracy Now! as my media sources. The New York Times is a U.S. daily newspaper that is distributed internationally. It is owned by The New York Times Company, which publishes fifteen other newspapers. On the other hand, Democracy Now!, a non-profit organization, is a national, daily, independent TV and radio program. Democracy Now! is credited in pioneering the largest public media collaboration in the U.S. I chose these two media sources because it pits a corporately owned newspaper with an independent TV/radio news source that can also be downloaded completely off-line. I wanted to investigate the differences in coverage of headline news for a single day and see how they differed on the coverage of the issues and if different issues were covered in each source.

Continue reading "New York Times and Democracy Now!" »

Posted by Amelia at 12:52 PM | Permalink