Kyle McDermand
One of the latest proposed plans offered by the Obama administration is a reform of the student loan system. President Obama has proposed a plan that would ease the stress on college students when they are asked to pay back their school loans. The two main points of the plan is the minimum percentage of the borrowers monthly income used for loan repayment will be lowered from 15% to 10% and complete school loan forgiveness after 25 years of continuous payment will be cut down to 20 years. With the 2012 presidential election looming over his head, this is an effort for President Obama to gain support for his reelection, targeting the college age group. His proposed plan has been acknowledged by all the major media outlets, specifically Fox News and CNN. Though both outlets claim to be unbiased when reporting the news, Fox News even advertises slogan, “Fair and Balanced”, the two each lean toward their own respective political corners. Fox News tends to have a conservative outlook when reporting and CNN tends to have liberal outlook. This difference in political views is apparent when the two media outlets cover and report Obama’s latest plan. I took three articles from each of the agencies that covered the student loan plan.
Fox News:
1) http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/11/04/such-deal-for-fine-print-obamas-college-loan-plan/
2) http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2011/11/03/options-for-students-to-pay-down-their-college-loans/
What I first noticed about the articles, was the word choice for their respective titles. The titles of the CNN articles contained the words “life-saver”, “loan relief” and “help”. The Fox News articles used words that differed in nature like “ease”, or “paydown” and in the first article “fine print” which shed a different light than the word choices of the CNN articles. One of the articles by CNN was about the viewpoint of a 2012 GOP presidential candidate, Newt Gringrich, on Obama’s plan. That article, the title contained the term Ponzi Scheme with quotation marks around it.
I thought this was interesting because there was no reason for the quotation marks. Right away when I saw this I thought back to the Austin Powers movie where Dr. Evil says the word “laser” and uses his fingers, in a way people would suggest, denote quotation marks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voSpOrimkMY
This right away, put me into a comical mood and I ended up watching Austin Powers clips for an half hour.
I Wiki’d the use of apostrophe and found that apostrophes can be used to:
· Distance the writer from the terminology in question so as not to be associated with it, for example, to indicate that a quoted word is not official terminology, or that a quoted phrase presupposes things that the author does not necessarily agree with
· Indicate special terminology that should be identified for accuracy's sake as someone else's terminology, for example if a term (particularly a controversial term) pre-dates the writer or represents the views of someone else, perhaps without judgment (contrast this neutrally-distancing quoting to the negative use of scare quotes)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark
The word choice is very important especially in the title of the article. The words “life-saver” and “help” found in the titles of the CNN articles gives the article a positive feeling to the reader. Right away a reader gives a positive reaction to the article and while reading the article, is focused on the positives being reported about the student loan plan. In the Fox News articles which use words of lesser value like “ease” and “paydown”. A reader would more likely have a lesser positive feeling of these articles as opposed to the CNN articles which almost glorify how good this plan is. The quotation marks around Ponzi scheme in the title of the Gringrich article is used to mock Gringrich and his view. When most people hear Ponzi scheme, they think Bernie Madoff and illegal. The fact that Gringrich is suggesting that Obama’s plan is a Ponzi scheme is a huge exaggeration and stupid comparison because, why would the President of the United States propose a plan that incorporates a Ponzi scheme. The article makes light of this by adding the quotation marks to the words in an act to make it a nugatory statement. Making Gringrich seem ignorant and outlandish gives support to Obama and his reelection. Manipulating words and representing them in a certain way is an easy and undetectable way for the media to promote idealogies.
The word choice is very important especially in the title of the article. The words “life-saver” and “help” found in the titles of the CNN articles gives the article a positive feeling to the reader. Right away a reader gives a positive reaction to the article and while reading the article, is focused on the positives being reported about the student loan plan. In the Fox News articles which use words of lesser value like “ease” and “paydown”. A reader would more likely have a lesser positive feeling of these articles as opposed to the CNN articles which almost glorify how good this plan is. The quotation marks around Ponzi scheme in the title of the Gringrich article is used to mock Gringrich and his view. When most people hear Ponzi scheme, they think Bernie Madoff and illegal. The fact that Gringrich is suggesting that Obama’s plan is a Ponzi scheme is a huge exaggeration and stupid comparison because, why would the President of the United States propose a plan that incorporates a Ponzi scheme. The article makes light of this by adding the quotation marks to the words in an act to make it a nugatory statement. Making Gringrich seem ignorant and outlandish gives support to Obama and his reelection. Manipulating words and representing them in a certain way is an easy and undetectable way for the media to promote idealogies.
Also, the CNN articles contain large pictures at the beginning of each article, two of which are pictures of Obama in a pose of a serious and influential manner. The picture below shows president Obama speaking in front of a large group of people.
The article on CNN that reports Gringrich’s opinion of the plan, posts a picture of Gringrich that is less flattering than the pictures of Obama used in the other articles.
It looks like as if Gringrich has a sly smile on his face and his hands are up as someone would do if they were unsure of something. Newt Gringrich doesn’t look near as powerful and influential as Obama does in his photos. Then there is Fox News with only one photo of Obama in one of the three articles and it is very small in size in comparison that that of the photos on CNN.
This photo of Obama is not as flattering as the photos on CNN. In the picture, Obama has his mouth wide open and kind of looks like his tongue is sticking out. His hand is raised and it reminds me of a little kid in school raising his or her to be called on by the teacher.
Along with the word choices in the article titles, the pictures can set the “mood” for the reader as well, without them realizing it. In a culture that idolizes power and beauty, the pictures that the media uses of the people they are covering is a good way for them to promote their propaganda. The large pictures in the CNN articles demand the attention of the reader. The pictures of Obama in the CNN articles are impressive; the one of him in front of the crowd shows how important he is. Along with the article that says how wondrous his student loan plan is and how sympathetic he is to people in debt creates an image of how great of a man he is in the reader’s mind. The photo of Obama in the Fox News article and the photo of Newt Gringrich in the CNN article, try to accomplish the opposite. Both pictures are odd and not too flattering photos of the two men. The two photos are in articles that are not to supportive of the men either. This presentation of the articles helps the reader buy into their views of the matter.
The article that reports Gringrich’s views is much shorter than that of the other CNN articles concerning Obama’s plan. As opposed to the other articles that go in depth into the plan and the benefits of the plan, Gringrich’s article doesn’t go into any detail as to why Gringrich disapproves of the proposed plan. The support for or against the bill isn’t too apparent in the articles other than CNN does not say anything negative about the plan and the Fox News articles doesn’t report the benefits of the bill to the extent that CNN does. Although one of the articles from Fox News does completely disagree with the plan and shares the negatives of the proposed plan.
The article that reports Gringrich’s views is much shorter than that of the other CNN articles concerning Obama’s plan. As opposed to the other articles that go in depth into the plan and the benefits of the plan, Gringrich’s article doesn’t go into any detail as to why Gringrich disapproves of the proposed plan. The support for or against the bill isn’t too apparent in the articles other than CNN does not say anything negative about the plan and the Fox News articles doesn’t report the benefits of the bill to the extent that CNN does. Although one of the articles from Fox News does completely disagree with the plan and shares the negatives of the proposed plan.
As unbiased and neutral these articles may seem, they are political propaganda articles. The words in the articles may not be politically one sided but the representation of the articles is and they are doing what the media sources want them to do and that is making readers side with their views. The media are political propaganda artists and help create history by sharing their views with the public. Fox News and CNN are using these articles to help promote the political party that they find ideal. These articles are helping in the decision of the 2012 presidential election. Though minimal in influence these articles may seem to have on a voter, these articles add up with the hundreds of other similar articles that subconsciously send a message and help a reader form an opinion.
First of all, I love the story you chose for your project. It really pertains to the lives of students so it was really interesting to read. Second, using Fox and CNN was a really good idea. Everyone knows that Fox is a little less than "fair" and "balanced", and I've definitely caught CNN sounding pretty biased at times as well. I like that you paid such close attention to word choice- it really makes a difference in how the story sounds and the opinions that are generated from listening to it.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the differences in the pictures CNN and Fox used were interesting, yet extremely likely to go unnoticed by most of their readers. When I looked at the picture Fox used, my first reaction was that Obama's hand being up made it look like a Nazi salute more than a child waiting to be called on in class. I viewed it as Fox's way of subtly calling Obama power-hungry. I loved the article choice though.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Beth. I thought it was very interesting the way you interpreted each picture and correlated them with how CNN and FOX view Obama differently. You and your group were right on target when you said something about how "society idolizes power and beauty" and relating that to what pictures were chosen. As soon as a viewer sees an unflattering or controversial picture, the mood for the article is set. They will have a negative or damaging view of the article itself. And vice versa for a flattering and powerful picture. I think back to the story and images I used for story and this completely agrees with my view of the story. Nice work!
ReplyDeleteFox I thought tended to blast Obama making it come off as a political stunt to win the vote of those young individuals right out of college. The crowd likely having a difficult time finding work due to the shaky economic climate of America.
ReplyDeleteCnn on the other hand seemed to embrace it a bit more, citing many stats and figures about how much debt the newest graduates are facing. They tended to use tea party candidates as their focus saying that they were the ones that felt the new policy would just add onto taxpayers and burdening them in other ways.
I was surprised that Fox and CNN focused on student debt, rather than the Universities prohibiting affordable college for many people. The policies wouldn't do anything to keep tuition in check, if anything, it will just make things worse. Student's will be less careful knowing that all will be forgiven 20 years from graduation, and Universities will have all their bills paid as usual since the Government can keep writing student loans out to the masses.
I really like your story choice because it pertains to us as college students and made it very intriguing to read. Your analysis really shows how the media are political propaganda artists because even though we are consumers of these "media products", we sometimes do not realize how influential and powerful their messages are...as well as their efforts to help us form an opinion which they hope reflect their views. Your analysis of the differences in the pictures was interesting as well.
ReplyDeleteIt was difficult for me to figure out what your actual argument was or your position on what your research brought to light for you. However, I thought you did a very good job at looking at these forms of media and analyzing with such specificity.
ReplyDeleteFor example, your analyses of the arm raised Obama exemplified how closely you were looking at these articles.It shows that you continuously critiqued the smallest details, that helps an excellent argument. But what made things unclear, was your own framing on your own data. Passively being reminded of a school child is different than rhetorically persuading readers that if looked at through a specific lens, these articles bring to light the aparatus through which news is constructed.
The way you analyzed the pictures definitely goes along with the saying 'a picture is worth a thousand words.' Out of all the footage from a press conference, why did the publisher choose to pick that picture? They try to say something based on the picture they chose, and it's unfortunate that so many times they have the power to make a picture look like something else or to be an unflattering representation--think tabloids.
ReplyDeleteDanielle completely took the words straight out my mouth, your project exemplifies the axiom, "a picture is worth a thousand words". The reader's eyes when skimming through a newspaper or magazine for areas of interest, often hit the bolded headlines and corresponding pictures first. These first glimpses form an impression on the reader, and set the stage for the more in depth information/analysis to come. These first glimpses color our perception of what follows, which is as several people have alluded earlier in this thread, somewhat unfortunate as it seems that we as readers are molded and influenced by whatever subconscious cues that are sent to our brains by the various presentations of the media. It is hard to analyze the media from an objective viewpoint when the media manipulates the entrenched culture and our instantaneous brain connections to color our subsequent message we garner from the particular media at hand.
ReplyDeleteTrue that pictures often will affect a reader's opinion more than the actual text, simply because in the rush of today's culture, many don't actually critically read the text in an article. It's super easy for me, when I go thru an article, to just skim the headlines and look at the pictures. The first impression a picture can have can easily be the main argument in an article.
ReplyDelete