Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Hidden Agendas on Election Day
Today is ELECTION DAY! for many of us it is the last day of having to be annoyed by campaign commericals, for the of us it is a time where we get to cast our votes on the important issues. The article I choose was from CNN.com called "Democrats privately admit house loss looks likely" talks about the importance of this election like many, which has the power to turn over the control of congress to the opposite party. The reason I choose this article was because it made me think about a lot of small different components and one larger term that we focused on in class. When reading this article the reporter talks to random people about casting their votes because of the relevance it plays in their lives as attentive audience members. This article also has a strong hold in agenda setting, it makes people think about the election then shows how President Obama is trying to get his message out, then it goes back to Rand Paul who is talking about how Obama has failed at doing what he promised, and then the end of the article talks about the open offices that need to be filled and upon reading this you feel like you should vote Republican because the staff writer made you think that way. The larger part of this article in my opinion explains the concept of free media. Which is unasked for media, that can really never hurt the candidate. I think this did a good job of talking about President Obama as well as Tea-Party supported Republican candidate Rand Paul and former President Bill Clinton. The article shows the efforts each man has taken and it also states their objectives on Election Day. The importance and significance I see with the free media is that the inattentive publics can be pushed towards the republican party because of agenda settting and the Republican Party is gaining free media to help them gain the victory that they want.
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Election Day is over and it seems somewhat quieter. Naturally this election has been the main focus of most media outlets. I think that this article also highlights the idea of the junkyard dog that we discussed earlier in the semester. As Courtney mentioned the article uses random sources and unofficial sources to get information and ‘dirt’ on the election. The title itself suggests the media wants to get the ‘dirt’ – ‘Democrats privately admit house loss looks likely.’ When the media covers political events and news like a tabloid magazine using junkyard tactics it can be an effective way of getting the attention of the inattentive public. On Election Day mobilizing the inattentive public to vote is important and this article may help to do this by capturing their attention through junkyard dog media coverage.
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ReplyDeleteAfter reading this article I saw several aspects of the mass media perspective to political communication in it. Agenda Setting is very prevalent in this article. It sets up what will be covered in the article and clearly shows what the author is trying to persuade the audience and viewers to believe. This article has been set up to try and get the audience to sway toward the Republican Party. It clearly states that the Democratic Party has failed at making necessary changes in this country and knows that they have not won in Congress' most recent election. The agenda setting of this article is clearly to get the inattentive audiences attention and pursuade them toward voting Republican. The article has been constructed to grab people attention by framing the story with a catchy title to show the audience that it is about slamming the Democratic Party while making the opposing Republican Party seem on top of their game in the most recent election.
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