Page 27 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

Public Trust, Media, and the "War on Terror"

Media Influence Outside the National Newspaper

High levels of news consumption are evident at many levels where media insti-
tutions operate. Forty percent of Americans report that they listen to radio news
regularly. Radio call-in talk shows alone reach seventeen percent of the Ameri-
can public, although their demographic mainly consists of middle-aged conser-
vative men.44 As mentioned earlier, cable and Internet news have benefited from
substantial audience growth. By 2004,39 percent of Americans reported watch-
ing cable news channels on a consistent basis!' In addition, nearly three out of
ten Americans now rely on Internet news sources, an increase of 5 percent since
2002.4~ As recently as 2004, 42 percent of Americans explained that they fol-
lowed the news online at least some of the time.47 However, it should also be
noted that regular consumption of cable news is rather small, typically averag-
ing only between one half of a million to 1.5 million people per day for outlets
such as ChN and Fox News. These outlets have been characterized as "narrow-
casting" to focused audiences, at least in terms of their attempts at maintaining
small core audiences who follow the respective networks daily.48
Whatever news medium one chooses to examine, it is undeniable that, when
taken collectively, they play an important part in influencing American public
opinion. On any given day, Americans are just as likely to tune-in to television
news programs as they are to watch television for general entertain~nent!~ But
corporate media outlets have not taken advantage of their large number of view-
ers simply to "educate the public," as is sometimes suggested or implied in high-
minded journalistic rhetoric. The media's most important objective remains, as
with any corporation, the maximization of profit. Without steady and increasing
corporate profits, media conglomerates would retain the enormous strength and
reach that they do today. Much of the public seems to be well aware of the cor-
porate media's primary concern with profits; when asked "what news organiza-
tions care about more," 75 percent of respondents polled answered that corpora-
tions consider "attracting [the] biggest audience" to be more important than
"keeping the public informed."
The studies cited in this chapter are valuable in that they empirically dem-
onstrate that there is an established association between media coverage and
reporting, and the formation of public attitudes and opinions related to various
current events and societal trends. And while there is much value that comes
along with the quantitative research discussed, there are also a number of limita-
tions to many of these works. For such a tremendous amount of data that has
been collected in such scientifically oriented academic studies, many of the aca-
demic works on "agenda setting" and media effects on the public have come to
rather narrow conclusions about the nature of media coverage, and typically
ignore the study of corporate media ownership itself, in their selective focus
upon "scientific and objective study" of media.
Despite decades of empirical research, most academic studies typically fail
to present many important conclusions concerning the power of the media out-
side of very general and pedestrian assessments that the media has some vague
effects on the populace at large in terms of assisting in "setting the agenda" for