Advanced Essay #2: Manipulation

Most evenings, while I am upstairs doing homework, I hear the inaudible sound of the news playing on the TV downstairs. And in some of those evenings, there is some breaking news that causes my parents to turn up the volume to get all of the details that the reporter is telling the viewer – or, in some cases, the details that the news wants the reporter to tell the viewer. In these cases, I can hear my parents saying things like, "That's a lie!" or "This didn't happen!" There are times when I decide to go downstairs to see what's being said on the news, and, when they finish telling whatever news story, a discussion follows talking about all of the blaring issues about the story the news told its viewers, or the blaring issues not told.

The idea of the media twisting stories, even just the slightest bit, is essential for the citizens in our society to be misinformed. In James Baldwin's If Black Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is? he described how different languages in one region can affect the power dynamics. "It goes without saying, then, that language is also a political instrument, means, and proof of power." (Baldwin)  In the United States, language, along with other factors such as race and gender, have been used as a way to give advantages to one group of people while creating hardships for the other groups.

Education gaps has been a major issue that affects families and individuals and how they view and interpret news. Socioeconomic class is one major factor in the quality of education. According to the Economic Policy Institute, students who are in lower social classes struggle more with reading than students in higher classes. Lower reading levels then results in students, eventually growing up to adults, who are less prepared for interpreting all of what is thrown at them. Lower education means students who are not able to, or do not want to, dig deeper into the meaning of, for example, a news story or a post on social media about an event. The education gaps, mostly put up against lower class citizens, is what allows for the manipulation of people. Most families will enroll their kids into public school, and public schools deal with being underfunded and generally having lower quality education.

For the school system to give lower quality education to students in a lower social class means these students are easier to manipulate by means of media. When students are taught less content, it is more difficult for them to be able to connect the dots when it comes to analyzing the world. Analyzing news usually requires background knowledge, or at least the ability of fishing for what is correct and what is incorrect – or what is "real news" and what is "fake news." The use of misinformation and lack of student support in schools sets up students for not being able to distinguish between right and wrong. Certain media, such as social media, conspiracy theorists, and even some news networks, use this lack of student education to their advantages in order to "sell" their news to those viewers.  

The news, in some ways, could be seen as a business. On television, there are promos to watch certain people at certain times, which usually are tagged with catch phrases such as "The best news," or "Trusted by viewers." The business factor of the news is another factor that affects the way news networks present news. Certain news networks cater to their own audiences. According to the Pew Research Center, "those with consistently conservative views" watch Fox News, a conservative and right-leaning news network. Most viewers who have more left-leaning views turn to CNN, MSNBC, or New York Times, which are more left-leaning news networks. This means that Fox News will more likely choose stories that are more critical of the left in order to retain its viewers, and CNN will choose stories that are more critical of the right to retain its viewers.  However, there is more diversity in the political views of the viewers that watch networks like CNN or MSNBC, while 60 percent of Fox News viewers are strongly conservatives. News networks, in order to appeal to their audiences, usually choose certain stories to make public, or will cover certain stories with different lights. In the 2016 presidential election, for example, right-leaning media covered left-leaning candidates – most notably Hillary Clinton – far more critically than left-leaning networks. However, they covered right-leaning candidates with very little criticism. This meant that those who view right-leaning media strongly disliked Clinton, or any other left-leaning candidates. Left-leaning media was critical of the right-leaning candidates, but also not as critical of left-leaning candidates.

The use of education and business has been a way for the general public to be manipulated by media and the government. Our sources of information are usually divided on political views, therefore changing what information is presented to viewers and how that information is handled.

Works Cited

• Baldwin, James. “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me What Is?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 29 July 1979
  
• Mitchell, Amy, Jeffrey Gottfried, Jocelyn Kiley, and Katerina Eva Matsa. "Section 1: Media Sources: Distinct Favorites Emerge on the Left and Right." Pew Research Center's Journalism Project. October 20, 2014. Accessed December 2017. http://www.journalism.org/2014/10/21/section-1-media-sources-distinct-favorites-emerge-on-the-left-and-right/.
• “Early Education Gaps by Social Class and Race Start U.S. Children Out on Unequal Footing: A Summary of the Major Findings in Inequalities at the Starting Gate.” Economic Policy Institute, www.epi.org/publication/early-education-gaps-by-social-class-and-race-start-u-s-children-out-on-unequal-footing-a-summary-of-the-major-findings-in-inequalities-at-the-starting-gate/.