Upon first glance, the purpose of the news media is to provide facts to the citizenry to encourage educated civic engagement within the country. However, a closer examination of the news media indicates that there are a number of problems that exist in regards to this particular thesis. Media and democracy have a much more complex relationship than is often understood by the average layperson, and this can have negative consequences on the educational level of the public, as the average person may not have the knowledge or understanding of the complex relationship between government, democracy, and media to appropriately assess the information that is made available by the media. In the United States, the media is used as a tool by governments, individuals, and businesses to promote a variety of different agendas. Understanding the agenda of a particular news network and the relationship that network has with the various power players in the industry is important when considering the information coming from that network.
Ideally, news media would present only facts to the viewer, and allow the viewer to determine his or her own viewpoint vis-a-vis those facts. However, media is much more biased than that. The common refrain among people in the United States, regardless of political orientation, indicates that most people believe that democracy is associated with the freedom of the press. Freedom of the press is not necessarily guaranteed in a democracy, however; in the United States, there are too many influences acting upon the news media to truly consider it an entity independent of the government’s overall political and fiduciary interest. Gunther and Mughan write:
This association of democracy with a free press and authoritarianism/totalitarianism with a media enslaved is overdrawn and has never been fully convincing. The media in nondemocratic regimes, for example, never enjoyed the pervasiveness, penetration or omniscience popularized in George Orwell’s 1984 In the same vein, the media in democratic societies have never been fully free of government controlNonetheless, social scientists’ understanding of the relationship between media and politics has been fundamentally shaped by these sharply divergent ideal types. (Gunther and Mughan 5).
Before discussing the partisan nature of the American media, it is important to note that media issues are never as simple as the public perception would indicate. Accepting first that the news media is not free from outside influence is important, and opens the door to the discussion of the partisan nature of American news media s a whole.
Curran suggests that media in the United States has traditionally appeared more liberal than the general population, but notes that this trend has changed, particularly in the past few decades (Curran 74). While print media has almost always tended to be more liberal than the average, moderate American, television media varies heavily in political stance. Part of the reason for this change is the sudden increase in the number of options that are available to the American citizen today insofar as news is concerned. Gil de Zuniga, Correa and Valenzuela write, “in the past 2 decades, cable television and the Internet have exponentially increased the choice of media content available in U.S. households This growing choice of content has led to a fragmentation of audiences” (Gil de Zuniga, Correa and Valenzuela 598). Gil de Zuniga, Correa, and Valenzuela go on to determine that while many news media outlets are generally neutral, some, like FOX News, are excessively conservative in their commentary, while defining themselves as “Fair and Balanced” (Gil de Zuniga, Correa and Valenzuela 600).
The results of their study, while limited to the issue of immigration and the impact of FOX News viewership on opinion regarding Mexican immigration determined that regardless of the viewer’s political stance, FOX News viewers are more likely to have a negative view of immigration than those who viewed the less-biased news channels (Gil de Zuniga, Correa and Valenzuela 610). The importance of this finding cannot be overstated in regards to the issue of democracy and media. FOX News has a well-documented history of biased reporting, and the discovery that biased reporting-- even among liberals who do not agree with much of what FOX News reports-- affects viewer opinion is telling. This discovery indicates that bias in the media is very important, and it can change public opinion easily, swaying democratic opinion unnaturally in one direction or another. Clearly, this bias is not limited to conservative news sources swaying liberal audiences-- it can just as easily be shifted in the other direction-- but the study focused on conservative media swaying liberal viewers.
The purpose of democracy is to give a voice and to give agency to every participant in society. In the American representative republic, the democratic aspect of society is designed to give every individual agency, while still protecting the rights of the minority members of society. The problem with a biased media lies in the fact that viewers without the knowledge of the bias can easily be swayed from their opinion on important matters by misinformation or biased information. Doris Graber writes, “Neither citizens nor media are capable of performing the roles expected of them The fact that democracy can persist despite citizens and media that fall short of the expected performance suggests that political culture may be more important than citizen wisdom and media excellence. Rallies in civic activism during crises may also be a major factor in the durability of democratic governance in the United States” (Graber 139). In short, the media is not performing the tasks that it is meant to perform, but neither is the citizenry; however, democracy and the democratic process persists despite the lack of participation by the citizenry and the bias of the media. This indicates that there are more important things at play than the bias of the media and the calm indifference of the populace, but it does not indicate that these things are entirely unimportant to the proper function of a democracy. The United States has an incredibly low voter turnout rate for a democratic country, and this low voter turnout is partially the fault of the media, according to Graber (152); the media instills in the public a feeling of inadequacy and impotence that lends itself to a low rate of voter turnout, particularly when it comes to national elections.
Time and again studies have been done that demonstrate that the average American is woefully under-educated about the world and the inner workings of the government. Curran (231) suggests that this under-education is not a failure on the media’s part, but a success-- that the media purposefully confounds the American public about certain issues by pushing a biased agenda, rather than educating the public with clear facts and opinions supported by evidence. Gil de Zuniga, Correa, and Valenzuela (609) support this thesis as well, suggesting that the media giant FOX News and its ilk are closely controlled by corporations and individuals with political agendas, who will benefit greatly from an under-educated, fearful and supportive public. While some may consider this opinion greatly overblown, there is considerable evidence to suggest that many mainstream media sources do have political and business agendas that are best served by their news correspondents refusing to stray from a particular party line, whether that party line is conservative or liberal in nature (Grondin 350). Very few mainstream news sources can be considered truly neutral sources.
News media does not provide citizens with any type of information that can truly be considered unbiased. While they do provide citizens with information and the level of bias varies heavily from network to network, the intelligent viewer must do his or her own research into incidents to truly glean all the important facts. It is well-documented that news media in American exists to serve particular political and financial interests, and thus the information presented often has a bias. Democracy in the United States exists despite the American news media, not because of it; most truly free press exists on the Internet, rather than on mainstream news channels. However, even on the Internet, it is important to verify factual information before accepting an opinion or article as fact, as anyone can post any kind of information on the Internet with very few possible repercussions.
Works cited
Coleman, Stephen. "Can the New Media Invigorate Democracy?." The Political Quarterly, 70. 1 (2002): 16–22. Wiley. Web. 26 Nov 2013.
Curran, James. Media and democracy. Oxford: Routledge, 2011. Online.
Dahlgren, Peter. "In Search of a Talkative Public: Media, Deliberative Democracy, and Civic Culture." IAMCR, (2002): Online.
Dennis, Everette E and Robert W Snyder. Media & democracy. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1998. Online.
Gil De Zuniga, Homero, Teresa Correa and Sebastian Valenzuela. "Selective Exposure to Cable News and Immigration in the US: The Relationship Between FOX News, CNN, and Attitudes Toward Mexican Immigrants." Journal of Broadcasting \& Electronic Media, 56. 4 (2012): 597--615. Print.
Graber, Doris. "The Media and Democracy: Beyond Myths and Stereotypes." Annual Review of Political Science, 6. (2003): 139-160. Annual Reviews. Web. 26 Nov 2013.
Grondin, David. "Understanding Culture Wars through Satirical/Political Infotainment TV: Jon Stewart and The Daily Show's Critique as Mediated Re-enactment of the Culture War."Canadian Review of American Studies, 42. 3 (2012): 347--370. Print.
Gunther, Richard and Anthony Mughan. Democracy and the media. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Online.
Jenkins, Henry, David Thorburn and Brad Seawell. Democracy and new media. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003. Online.
Kellner, Douglas and Jeff Share. "Critical Media Literacy, Democracy, and the Reconstruction of Education." UCLA Center for Change, (2007): Web. 26 Nov 2013.
Tambini, Damian. "New Media and Democracy: The Civic Networking Movement." New Media & Society, 1. 3 (1999): 305-329. SagePub. Web. 26 Nov 2013.
