"
"In spite of China's large investment of financial and human capital in the 2008 Olympics and mostly positive Western media coverage, most people's opinions were unchanged by the information flows surrounding the Beijing Olympics ... National
identity is a perception that is independent of the brand that a given country hopes to promote ... Old
stereotypes are hard to displace and often result in inaccurate and unjust portrayals"
This quote is excerpted from a dissertation summary by Pamela Rutledge on her Media Café site. It is most pertinent to the ongoing debate in Congress, not about U.S. relations with China or Iran (although that will surely come up in the future on other legislative and policy matters), but as regards the Obama Administration's recommended stimulus package and the complete and non-deviating, unanimous rejection of same from the Republican party in the House and all but three Republican votes in the Senate.
Are we dealing with old stereotypes by the Republicans, of Democrats' mindless reflexive spending now that they're back in power, or are we dealing with Republican ‘Nyetism'(Russian for "just say no to everything) to anything the Democrats and Obama put up that will make him look good and, by Republican reasoning, them look bad in the 2010 elections? Watching Republicans follow verbatim talking points (pork, pork, pork, nothing for infrastructure, spending bill, etc.) on news shows, listening to them in session on C-Span and in news clips on talk shows, suggests --nay, declares! -- the Republicans-as-Nyetists' model.
According to Jamison Foster at Media Matters for America, observing the stimulus debate in the House, "the Democrats included billions of dollars' worth of tax cuts in an effort to appeal to Republicans, and they dropped provisions the Republicans objected to, like funding for contraceptives. The Republicans, on the other hand, offered an alternative that consisted of nothing -- absolutely nothing -- other than tax cuts. And keep in mind that government spending on things like unemployment benefits and food stamps is far more stimulative than tax cuts, according to economist and McCain campaign adviser Mark Zandi, among others."
But networks like FoxNews, a media bag man for the Republicans, pleads that it covers both sides (nuances aside) to the spending bill fairly and accurately. Really? Not really. Research in psychology over the years has shown that when you present two sides to an issue and you present the second or opposing side not immediately following the first but hours or days later, the first presentation tends to be more influential, especially for people who generally support the first position. This is called a primacy effect.
For the second or latter position to be most persuasive, it must follow closely in time the first position presentation. If it is, this is called a recency effect.
If you're a news station which wants to promote a political agenda but still wants to argue that it presents a fair and balanced point of view, which would you pick as your strategy? You got it, you'd pick the first and present the FoxNews-as-Republican bagman side first and then announce that the opposing side will be presented sometime later in the day. It will, but later is too late for "fair and balanced" to be other than smoke in orifices.
This is what FoxNews has been doing for the past few weeks (years, if you take the long view) as the stimulus package was being debated. This is NOT what other cable news stations generally do; most often they present both sides simultaneously or in sequence, with no side gaining an advantage in terms of order of presentation (i.e., first or second) over time or on any given day, hour or program. I'm now talking about news during the day. In prime time and later, cable news stations like FoxNews and MSNBC are really ideological battle zones and killing fields, with little pretense to "objective" news reporting. CNN, alas, is too muddled and fuzzy headed to classify. But objective and nuanced it's not.
Since previous research has shown that FoxNews viewers watch FoxNews more religiously and for longer slabs of time than do fans of other news networks and that FoxNews viewers are more often factually incorrect about political issues or policy statements or interview statements, it is not surprising that, like their media and elected officials, they are more likely to present "talking points" (points of view, buzz words, identical interpretations and word choices) than are non-FoxNews viewers. Speaking of talking points, CNBC, to its discredit, feels and sound like it's produced by the Wall Street Journal (now owned by FoxNews owner Rupert Murdoch, the worlds uber media mogul) a good deal of the time.
You hear these talking point-driven comments on news shows, see them or hear them read in letters to the editors segments or in email comments to Internet articles or on FoxNews or in emails from viewers on other news shows (although to its credit, Fox Business Channel is less ideologically stuck and driven than its sister channel). This is in part due to the fact recent research suggests that less partisan viewers don't watch news as much as more partisan viewers and more partisan viewers and reporters and pundits talking to each other, rather than sampling diverse points of view, tend to become even more polarized and more partisan. In psychology this is called both Groupthink and attitude polarization.
This croup cohesion or mental cloning is made increasingly possible and pervasive by the use of media such as 24-hour cable news shows, ideologically based internet chat rooms and newsletters, text and internet alerts, and other listserv recommendation platforms like Twitter, Facebook, etc. Birds of an ideological feather, etc.
In other words, spreading the ideological or polarized or inflammatory word never was easier and faster. And it is certainly how Republicans like House Minority leader John Boehner was able to get to his message to collegial foot solders in congress right before President Obama arrived at the meeting with to discuss the administration's Stimulus Package in hopes of furthering bipartisanship and solicit their support for the package he was to discuss with them. His message: vote nyet! Haven't read it yet? Doesn't matter. Vote nyet! Turns out, in the end, after the vote, according to Fox Business News reporter, Eric Bolling, these Republicans still hadn't read it. Didn't have to. They had their marching orders.
Meanwhile, former Florida Republican congressman and MSNBC morning host, Joe Scarborough, labeled the Obama Stimulus package a "steaming pile of garbage." Fox hosts day and night, day after day, Republican interview after Republican interview, among the likes of Eric Cantor, House Republican Minority Whip, beat the drum for the package as nothing more than a rich, wasteful dish of "pork ala Bama," a wasteful spending bill rather than a jobs bill.
But it's not just Foxian Republican bias I'm getting at here. A trend is easily discernible: The media, especially print and TV, have apparently enjoyed the battle between the Obama Administration and the Republican congressional minority, and have, according to recent research, spent far more time interviewing this "talking point minority marching band" than their cacophonous, brassy, "no-alternative plan" composition deserves. It's an empty musical march with nothing to provide an audience but the heat of drama, rhetoric, and conflict, leaving a void of harmony and light. Great for news programs, perhaps, but not so great for our nation, given its quagmire of crises, and a president who seems to honestly be trying to do something about it.
This is not Fourth Estate news gathering and reporting anymore, it's simple pandering, dumbing down, nothing more than sportscasting and competition for eyeballs, ratings, and revenues. TV News Game Rules:
Tell ‘em what they don't need to know but enjoy watching and hearing.
What they need to know? Nyet! -- too complex, too boring, too taxing.
