College Paper Help

[Stand Your Ground]

My girlfriend needs help with some questions on a college paper. She has to write an essay on Norberto Bobbio's The Left And Right: The Significance of a Political Distinction. Was wondering if anyone could help. You don't have to go into detail just a jist would help. These are the questions:

1. How does media impact the process of generating public opinion?
2. Can you give examples of American media outlets that belong to the left or right (as defined by Bobbio)?
3. In your opinion, has the American media been able to offer an unbiased account of political events in the country, and why?
4. Apart from ideology, what other factors influence public opinion?

[Stand Your Ground]

Anyone? Could use the help.

[Lyev]

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/marxism/marxism01.html
This is OK I guess.

[Fulanito de Tal]

1. How does media impact the process of generating public opinion?
The media provides the information that the general public uses to make opinions on. It also tells the public what is important. The former is called agenda setting.

2. Can you give examples of American media outlets that belong to the left or right (as defined by Bobbio)?
I don't know how Bobbio defined anything. NYTimes is considered left and FoxNews is considered right within the US.

3. In your opinion, has the American media been able to offer an unbiased account of political events in the country, and why?
ABSOLUTELY NOT. As with everything in the US, the primary motivation behind any commodity is the profit motif. When you watch the news, you are buying a product. Not so much in that you have to pay for it, but they sell air time and pages to companies that advertise. They also only provide information that maintains the capitalist mode of production. Furthermore, the only parties that receive any attention from the media are the Democratic and Republican Parties with the TEA Party being highly over represented lately.

A sneaky way that the media advertises is through the plot of a story. The Office does this a lot. Every time Michael Scott goes to Chili's, that's a Chili's commercial. Movies and shows are also use to control public opinion. For example, South Park: Bigger, Longer, And Uncut portrays Saddam Hussein in a bad light. Another example would be that Russians are almost always the bad guy in a movie. Or name a movie in which the popular girl in high school is curvy black girl with short hair and a confident attitude and all the white guys want to get with her. That doesn't happen. Women are told to be submissive, skinny, white, and have straight hair among other things.

4. Apart from ideology, what other factors influence public opinion?
Employment rate, crime, trust, poverty, ethnicity, age, education, industry, almost any demographic variable as a whole, etc.


I hope this helps.

[Os Cangaceiros]

You might want to watch a documentary called Orwell Rolls In His Grave, if you have the time. It's actually kind of a cheap, crappy documentary, but it's almost entirely related to the questions you've raised. (Although unfortunately an awful lot of it is dedicated to the media's coverage of the Gore/Bush elections)

[Stand Your Ground]

Thank you comrades, this has been a great help, I am in debt to you.

[gorillafuck]

1. How does media impact the process of generating public opinion?By deciding what information to provide, what information to not provide at all (equally important), distorting the truth to tell something that is true but leave out complimentary information that's necessary for a greater understanding (sort of goes with the first two things), and at times completely fabricating information.


2. Can you give examples of American media outlets that belong to the left or right (as defined by Bobbio)?Dunno who Bobbio is.


3. In your opinion, has the American media been able to offer an unbiased account of political events in the country, and why?
No, mainstream media is almost always biased in favor of the United States government, and when it turns against the government it is generally because public opinion has already gone too far against the government to be brought back, as happened in Vietnam. It is a way of saving face and not appearing as spokespeople for US policy. Generally speaking though certain stations or media individuals will have a certain loyalty to the GOP or Democratic Party regardless of what's going on, though.


4. Apart from ideology, what other factors influence public opinion?Can you elaborate on what you mean by that?:confused:

[Fulanito de Tal]

Here's an example of how the media provides a biased account by avoiding to cover certain news-worthy issues. Currently, there is a sit in protest at the Wisconsin State Capitol over a law that affected unions. The governor told the police to clear the capitol out starting at 4 pm. It is after 4pm their local time and the police have stated that they will side with the protesters. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/wisconsin-war-declared-t150095/index.html?p=2034479#post2034479)

Where is CNN's coverage on this? Not even a bs story to spin it around.

http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h111/durancm/Nomentionofprotests2.jpg

[Stand Your Ground]

Can you elaborate on what you mean by that?:confused:
I think the question meant public opinion about politics, but I'm not quite sure.