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¶ … Fox News
Please revise/edit the submitted research paper rough draft and add 4 additional pages of content.
The paper organization is as follows:
FULL literature review and an extended discussion of the actual findings, briefly compared to those previously predicted and indicated in rough draft.
In a stunningly short period of time, Fox News went from being the potentially disastrous offshoot of America's "fourth network" to literally the most watched news network in the country (Nielsen, 2012; Sterling, 2004, p. 654). The network bills itself as "Fair and balanced," but there are times when this tagline seems less than an actual description of the network and more of a cruel joke. Regardless of one's political leanings, even a cursory glance at Fox News' products, whether on television or the Internet, suggests that contrary to its tagline, the network is anything but balanced. Instead, Fox News demonstrates a conservative bias, and because this bias is so contrary to the stated position of the network, it positively demands analysis and discussion. By examining Fox News' output in conjunction with relevant research on the topic, it becomes clear that not only is Fox News conservatively biased in its editorial and manifest content, but also that this bias has actually produced tangibly negative results for its viewers.
Literature Review
It is important to examine previous work on this subject, because earlier researchers have provided useful starting points for an examination of Fox News. Perhaps the most crucial pieces of prior research, at least in terms of demonstrating the importance of social science research into media organizations, are those studies which have examined the correlation between cable news viewers and...
Five different studies have attempted to examine any possible connection between a viewer's news station of choice and his or her level of knowledge, and each have produced stunning results concerning Fox News.
In particular, these studies revealed that in areas as diverse as the 2003 Iraq War, anthropogenic climate change, health care, the so-called "Ground Zero mosque," and the 2010 election, Fox News viewers were far more likely to hold untrue or inaccurate beliefs than regular viewers of any other major news station (Mooney, 2011). Of course, one must be careful to point out that correlation does not equal causation, so one cannot definitively say that watching Fox News is what made these viewers less informed, but the fact remains that this correlation is troubling, particularly if one believes that the point of the news media is to inform and educate. Moreover, some have argued that less-informed viewers deliberately choose to watch Fox News. Put simply, if a particular news audience is consistently misinformed on topics pertaining to political persuasion, then it seems reasonable to presume that this audience's news of choice is likely tainted with political positions, rather than factual ones.
The studies mentioned above are evidence enough to warrant an investigation into Fox News' potential bias, because the fact that Fox News viewers are consistently less well-informed, and specifically on the topics most vociferously debated by partisans, suggests that the network's bias is strong enough to influence the factual content of the media it produces. Prior research validates this presumption. For example, a content analysis of news channels' coverage of the run-up to the Iraq War found that Fox News outdid CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC in its use of "pro-war" terminology while mentioning casualties or death far less frequently (Harmon & Muenchen, 2009, p. 25-26). While most of American…
A separate study comparing the reporting bias of CNN and The Fox News focused on the characterization and information reported about the Muslim Brotherhood, the leading political opposition group, during the Egyptian revolution and directly following Mubarak's resignation in January 2011 in Tahir Square (Glover, 2011). The research employed a content analysis of the television broadcast transcripts in order to understand the scope of the coverage and the discrepancies in reporting during the Egyptian crisis. (Glover, 2011) The analysis illuminated bias in both news channels, however, a higher frequency of exaggerated extremism was seen in reporting by the Fox News channel (Glover, 2011).
Research that analyzes the media coverage of the 2008 presidential primaries and election produced similar results, finding that Fox News appeared more willing "to cite outside polls [concerning a politician's approval rating] if they were damaging" to Democrats (Groeling, 2008, p. 655). This study was admittedly limited, as it only focused on each network's "flagship" show (which in the case of Fox News was determined to be Special Report), but it nevertheless bolsters the evidence of Fox News conservative bias, especially when taken in the context of other studies. Furthermore, this kind of content analysis is helpful when determining bias in the future, because it helps to demonstrate how bias can be revealed in more than just words; whereas the Iraq War study did find bias revealed through word choice, this later study found it the use of particular polls, demonstrating how media bias can course through nearly every facet of an organization without necessarily appearing blatant or intentional.
The studies mentioned above all looked to particular topics or issues in order to determine bias by looking for key words; thus, the Iraq War study examined words and phrases concerning the war, while the study of the presidential race examined the use of polls and how things were framed. Because this study is examining the network's bias in general, rather than its treatment of any given topic, it is necessary to examine its coverage of a number of different issues. Only then will one be able to convincingly argue that Fox News is indeed conservative, rather than strictly pro-war or pro-Republican. This is necessary because what makes media bias such as that demonstrated by Fox News so detrimental to society is the way that it allows news organizations to function as their
66). Furthermore, social software will only increase in importance in helping organizations maintain and manage their domains of knowledge and information. When networks are enabled and flourish, their value to all users and to the organization increases as well. That increase in value is typically nonlinear, where some additions yield more than proportionate values to the organization (McCluskey and Korobow, 2009). Some of the key characteristics of social software applications