|
Kevin E. Magee
Media & Society
September 11, 2003
Stage #1: Research Project Topic
Title: Understanding Media Bias
in the News and its Affect on Presidential and Congressional
Campaigns
and Elections
Issues at Hand:
This research project will pull examples of media bias
from a number of issues in Media Debates: Great Issues
for the Digital Age, but the main issues are from Chapter 6 “Media
Bias and Political Leanings” and Chapter 7 “Media
and Elections.”
Thesis: The media’s biased
coverage and reporting of government elections has an extremely
large influence on
the outcome of elections
due to inaccurate polling, selective reporting, and
detrimental labeling of candidates pursing a position in
public office.
Description of Project:
Bias in the media and its affect on the campaigns
and elections for public office is a very
relevant subject
to today’s society as well as the immediate
future. As the Presidential campaign draws near,
this project
will hopefully help
people to discover some of the good and bad ways
media covers campaigns and elections. With this discovery,
the American
public will be
armed with the knowledge to recognize media bias
when
they see it and be able to make their own decisions
about a
public official
based on the facts they receive instead of the opinions
they have been fed for so many years. I hope to post
all of my
research and
findings on the world wide web as well as supply
some video clip interviews with various members of
the media
world
from the New
River Valley.
Experience and Interest:
I have been interested in the idea of media bias
for a little over a year now. Last year I
enrolled in a class titled Media and Politics taught by Dr. Brown, a member
of the Radford University’s Communications
Department. While enrolled in this class, we discussed
media bias
and read many publications
such as Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media
Distort the News by Bernard Goldberg and Coloring
the News by
William McGowan as
well as numerous articles dealing with a media tilt
both to the left and the right. Ever since this class
sparked
my interest in
the topic, I have been consuming media more and more
everyday. From starting to listen to talk radio to
searching out
different publications on the internet, I have found
that media bias
is not just a surface issue but can go very deep
to the notion that some
members of the media are just plain lying. My hope
with this project is not to make everyone agree with
everything
I say,
but show others
the necessity of consuming as much media as possible
and forming their own opinions on the issues that
make up this
world around
us.
|
