MSNBC

This thesis examines the ways in which political journalists in the USA and UK talk about issues of truth and power as it relates to journalism’s role as the Fourth Estate. The theoretical basis comes from a critique of the two major structures underpinning the Fourth Estate, that of epistemology (the study of truth) and ideology (broadly, the study of power and ideas). This involves unpacking and critically examining the ability of news media to convey ‘true’ information and the ideological formations in which the news media production practice is situated. The epistemological theories of Realism, Pragmatism, Antirealism and Hyperrealism will first be elucidated in an in-depth theoretical discussion, focusing on the contributions of Baudrillard. Four major theories of ideology, that of personal ideological bias, chaos, control, and ideology as fetishistic disavowal will be examined, this time focusing on the work of Žižek.
This theoretical discussion is complimented by an analysis of interview questions relating to epistemological concerns and to ideology. The empirical data consists of twenty interviews conducted with political correspondents in the USA and UK. A version of critical discourse analysis is used to examine the ways in which journalists talk about the issues raised by the questions, what is termed their ‘discursive strategies.’ The categories for analysis are grounded in the discursive strategies used by the journalists themselves, examined to elaborate not simply the explicit content, but the deeper implicit meanings inherent in the way they answer.
This provided both an original theoretical discussion and an original set of empirically-derived data. It also allows us to further understand the role of journalism as the Fourth Estate, the types of ‘truth’ it brings to us, the types of ideologies that underpin the news production process via news media professionals, and how the system is maintained despite its inherent contradictions.

Cable news networks have become an increasingly important source of political news in the United States. They wield considerable influence on public opinion, particularly in relation to current issues involving social roles and gender dynamics. This study offers insights into how the choice of topic in political cable news interviews may be influenced by the gender of participants. A corpus of 40 political cable news interviews was compiled and analyzed on the basis of various combinations of male and female interviewers and interviewees. Corpus software was implemented to extract keywords that were then grouped to identify prominent topics according to gender. Topics discussed exclusively among male participants were more issue oriented (i.e., immigration, healthcare, the economy, and gun control) as compared to those discussed exclusively among female participants that were more in social nature (i.e., personal matters, the Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination, and tech giants in the context of social justice). Results showed that topics emerging from the female participants’ discourse were aligned with some widely held perceptions of women’s speech. At the same time, other features of the female participants’ speech appeared to be driven largely by their professional and institutional roles, and thus, not aligned with stereotypical perceptions. The findings have implications for the role of media and cable news in contemporary American society in avoiding the perpetration of gender-related topic bias.

On April 18, 2017, David Neiwert presented a talk to the University of Central Florida titled “The New Age of Eliminationism in America: How the Internet Feeds Radicalization and Dehumanization.” The next day, he sat down for a discussion with Dr. Barry Mauer, Interim Director of the Texts and Technology Doctoral Program and a codirector of the Citizen Curator Project, which is sponsoring exhibitions about Eliminationism and resilience on the anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub shooting.
Neiwert summarized his April 18th talk as follows: The politics of elimination — embodied in nativism, white supremacism, and similar authoritarian ideologies -have long been part of the American political fabric, but in recent years have come bubbling forward in the wave of hate-crime incidents associated with the 2016 election, as well as mass killings such as those in Charleston, S.C., and at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Historically fueled by dehumanizing rhetoric and belief systems, eliminationism has become a common theme in rising rightwing ideologies around the globe, spread especially through the phenomenon of online radicalization, both among Islamist radicals and alt-right white nationalists. Neiwert’s talk will explore this history, and suggest ways of countering the spread of this kind of hate.

News channels (Fox News Channel, MSNBC, and CNN) have long held the position as a source of providing political and social news for the typical layman and educating the public. These news organizations are widely respected for the content of their news coverage and are regarded as highly efficient and reliable by many. However, these esteemed news channels, which are available by many local television providers, may not always provide news coverage impartially and may also be introducing bias. These biases intended or not, can significantly affect the way one perceives the real-world – representatively or not – and sense of security. The type of news coverage presented or emphasis of particular events are broadcasted is not the issue, per se, but is dependent upon the political ideologies of news channels and the agenda control they wield. The bias occurs when specific events and/or coverage are overemphasized or made salient, and thus can distort the true frequency and prevalence of the event. In this study, many hypothesis and other explanations will be considered for why heavy media consumption may lead to bias is personal ideologies.