Media Analysis
Politics is an event that is experienced every day. New stories concerning politicians are presented in the news as the individuals compete to outsmart each other. Recently, the New York Times published an article; Warren Dares face-book with Intentionally False Political ad. Since the presidential elections in the United States are next year, there have been a lot of campaigns. Ms Warren accused the social media platform of allowing politicians to run ads that were misinformed for the company’s gains (Kang and Kaplan). This had great impact on the citizens, political parties and the news context. Besides, it extended the curiosity of people towards other issues which were not to be considered.
The news article affected the perception of the citizens on their political leaders. Although the ad was to test the policies that face-book had on identifying false information, it changed people’s minds on how they see their leaders; their honesty and abilities. Warren talked about politicians who spread known lies in social media (Kang and Kaplan). The campaign period is critical to voters since it is the time they get to evaluate their leaders depending on their manifestos and visions for the country. When such information comes out, it causes confusion among people and they lose trust in their leaders. When citizens lose trust in politicians and government, they mislay interest in important matters such as voting thus weakening democracy.
Warren’s story created a form of virtual war between different political parties. The Biden campaign wanted face-book, twitter, and YouTube to pull down an ad that Trump campaign had been running a few weeks ago about corruption allegations on Joseph, R. Biden Jr (Kang and Kaplan). Trump’s ad had caused a wave of reactions among people since it involved the son of a well known political personality. Interestingly, Face book declined the request saying that any information from politicians was an important part of the news. Whether the statements are true or not, they give the news significance. The running of these ads was a cause of disagreements among politicians of different parties.
The greater news context was also not left behind. The article affected the way the news is reported. It clearly shows that many media houses have no way of confirming if the information is true or not (Ireton and Posetti 26). A good example is a reason that face-book gave regarding the Trump ad. The news context focuses on giving people political news so that they can be relevant. Since politics is in our everyday life, people are always eager to hear about it. Including the political news, whether it is relevant to the public or not, is a way of appealing and attracting people so that they can follow the particular media.
The sourcing of the article was done from face-book, twitter, and YouTube. It was done with the aim of attracting the attention of people and making them concentrate on that particular issue. The timing of this story was meant to influence the minds of the voters since the election is almost and people have to make decisions on who to vote for (Leigh 3). At this time, citizens are under pressure to decide on the best candidate to elect as their president. The author of the publication gained great benefit from the sale of the article since many people were interested in it. The author also conducted a few surveys from twitter to prove the credibility of the information. Ms. Warren’s tweets are incorporated in the story so that people can confirm that indeed the information is true. Also, the author surveyed the amount of money used by Warren to pay for political ads during her campaign.
The partisanship of the article is depicted by the pictures if the twitter account of Ms. Warren. Furthermore, referring to the past political events makes the article to be relevant in the news. Information from face-book on the responses that it gave to Ms. Warren also confirms the credibility of the article. The article was framed in a political stand so that it could stand out. Designing an article is one way of defining the success of its sale (Ireton and Posetti 34). Although in her tweets, Ms Warren did not mention any political personality, the media’s interpretation made the issue look like it was directed to a particular person. Referring to political events in the past also gave the article a political course. The article also included people from different political parties so that it could create a great discussion of the issues presented.
To conclude, the news is made with the purpose of drawing the attention of the public. Political news is created to keep people interested in the overall news. Newsmakers use strategies such as statements from politicians to make the news more appealing. Understanding the appropriate time to publish specific news is the key to having the public attention. Researching for information and incorporating the use of proof makes the news be credible and trusted. Social media platforms are among the areas where news is sourced from.
Works Cited
Ireton, Cherylyn, and Julie Posetti. “Journalism, ‘Fake News’ & Disinformation.” United Nations Educational Scientific, and Cultural Organization, 2018, pp. 7-121.
Kang, C., and T. Kaplan. “Warren Dares Face-book With Intentionally False Political Ad.” The New York Times – Breaking News, World News & Multimedia, 12 Oct. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/technology/elizabeth-warren-facebook-ad.html.
Leigh, Vienna. “How to Write a News Story.” 2009, pp. 1-7.
Appendix
Warren Dares Face-book With Intentionally False Political Ad
