Political Bias on BBC, CNN, and Fox News - Doria

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present but also to what is absent 14 in the headlines. When considering BBC's and CNN's Obama related headlines, both websites can be observed discussing what Obama has said and done. This kind of reporting is completely absent from Fox News' reporting, where instead metaphors and substitutes, such as White House and Obama Administration, are used in all four headlines. What is more, the BBC and CNN headlines feature Obama as the active participant (e.g. Actor) in clearly positive situations, of which the below examples are only a few: (41) Obama orders action to address shortages of vital drugs (42) Obama looks to cut costs by scrapping government 'swag' (43) Obama: Iraq war will be over by year's end; troops coming home (44) Obama pledges additional $50 million to fight AIDS The reason these headlines can be defined as positive is that cutting government swag 15 and the return home of the troops, for example, would not be considered bad by either party. It is fairly reasonable to assume that at least a few pro-Obama articles would have been posted on the Fox News main page despite the different structure of the website in comparison to BBC and CNN. Even if most (pro-)Obama articles were directly posted on the topic-specific pages without an appearance on the main page, that practice in and of itself also speaks of anti-Obama bias. Therefore, the complete absence of these types of positive Obama related headlines in the Fox News data is taken as a strong sign of bias by Fox News against Obama. Finally, a specific account of a few headlines is necessary. Two of the four Fox News headlines suggest a slight anti-Obama stance, of which the clearest example is a headline which features Gingrich, a Republican presidential hopeful: (45) Gingrich: 'It's Barack Obama Who's Soft' 14 When the analysis reveals that two of the websites have a specific piece of information and the third does not, the third is suggested to have omitted the information. Conversely, when only one website has the information, it is suggested it has specifically chosen to include it. This practice is applied throughout on the basis that since the three websites constitute the relevant discoursal practice, then any nonconformity can be analyzed as having potentially biased undertones. 15 Swag is a term for merchandise such as Congress themed mugs or pens that are given away to promote a positive image of the government. 54
The fact that the headline includes a quote makes the effect less immediate, but, considering that neither BBC nor CNN includes a similar quote, it suggests that Fox News chose to present this view of Obama. Another Fox News headline is less clearly biased and, in fact, an alternative analysis must be presented. In the case of White House's Push for Equality, the word push can be analyzed as an aggressive tactic and, as such, a negative act by the White House. It can also be analyzed as a positive aggressive tactic considering that the push is for equality of homosexuals, which is generally considered a good cause. Compared to the corresponding CNN headline, however, the Fox News headline is less positive. Instead of the word push, CNN uses the word promote (Clinton, Obama promote gay rights). The choice of words can be argued to signal a positive view of Obama's actions and, thus, a more pro-Democrat stance than the Fox News alternative. Additionally, as per the conservative concern for traditional family values (section 4), it can be argued that Fox News may have aimed for the negative interpretation by implying such equality is undesirable. Thus, it is fair to conclude that in the case of Obama, the hypothesis of a liberal CNN and conservative Fox News is supported by not only the thematic structure analysis but also the other observations of patterns. Finally, the Occupy Wall Street movement 16 is the most reported about topic on all three websites. Because of the large quantity of data on the subject, this segment is broken up into smaller parts: analysis of headlines where some rendition of Occupy Wall Street or protesters occurs in Theme position is done separately from those in which they appear in Rheme position. In the BBC data which has 26 (or 22.4 percent of 116) headlines about OWS, 18 (or 69.2 percent of 26) have some rendition of Occupy Wall Street or protesters in Theme position, whereas there are only six (or 23.1 percent) in which they appear in Rheme. Two headlines mention neither. In the case of CNN, there are 42 (or 34.7 percent of 121) headlines of which 24 (or 57.1 percent of 42) have at least one of the entities in Theme compared to 13 (or 31 percent) that have them in Rheme. Five headlines mention neither. Finally, of the 69 OWS headlines in the Fox News data (comprising 59 percent of 117 total), 34 (or 16 OWS is generally considered to be a liberal movement that opposes free-market capitalism which from the point of view of Republicans is the founding basis of the economic system (for reference, see section 4). 55
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"It's Barack Obama Who's Soft" <str
Page 3 and 4:
Table of Contents 1 Introduction...
Page 5 and 6:
1 Introduction In the past two deca
Page 7 and 8: 2 The news media The news is often
Page 9 and 10: 2.2 An outline of media discourse a
Page 11 and 12: ecomes clearer how newsworthiness (
Page 13 and 14: 3 Critical Discourse Analysis In th
Page 15 and 16: (Wodak 2001: 4). The key linguists
Page 17 and 18: grammatical and lexical analysis of
Page 19 and 20: 3.3 Critical Discourse Analysis and
Page 21 and 22: In addition to the distorted view t
Page 23 and 24: it can be argued that her own inter
Page 25 and 26: One type of conservatism, classical
Page 27 and 28: In their study, Covert and Wasburn
Page 29 and 30: percent respectively; Morris and Fr
Page 31 and 32: transitivity and Theme are not defi
Page 33 and 34: BBC is part of the establishment, a
Page 35 and 36: the United Nations in 1997; ibid.).
Page 37 and 38: initial methodology, an appropriate
Page 39 and 40: in the headline analysis when the s
Page 41 and 42: The popularity of Hallidayan SFG pa
Page 43 and 44: Lexis in general as well as colloca
Page 45 and 46: 8.1.1 Theme in the headlines The ge
Page 47 and 48: As the above examples demonstrate,
Page 49 and 50: Verbal processes result in two Them
Page 51 and 52: CNN, and 8.8 on Fox News (numbers w
Page 53 and 54: all four CNN headlines refer to the
Page 55 and 56: The topic of illegal immigrants 12
Page 57: highlight the connection between th
Page 61 and 62: The lack of such explicit presence
Page 63 and 64: Instead, when the police are identi
Page 65 and 66: Finally, to provide a comprehensive
Page 67 and 68: Another aspect of Theme to discuss
Page 69 and 70: Starting with the Theme structure a
Page 71 and 72: When considering the way the law is
Page 73 and 74: trillion in savings over the course
Page 75 and 76: ing in more revenue by spurring eco
Page 77 and 78: mentions taxes 11 times, which cons
Page 79 and 80: While the BBC article does not cont
Page 81 and 82: easy access to all types of birth c
Page 83 and 84: does not refer to the drug in this
Page 85 and 86: Beyond the instances of supporters
Page 87 and 88: at all. It could be argued that if
Page 89 and 90: was not expected to be present at a
Page 91 and 92: hidden agendas varied considerably,
Page 93 and 94: irreplaceable, the additional suppo
Page 95 and 96: maintain, however, that the methods
Page 97 and 98: Primary sources BBC Online. 116 art
Page 99 and 100: Chilton Paul and Wodak Ruth (eds) 2
Page 101 and 102: Harris Paul 2006. OJ 'confession':
Page 103 and 104: Schoetz David 2010. David Frum on G
Page 105 and 106: Appendices Appendix 1. Table detail
Page 107 and 108: Cedillo called Saturday's signing "
Page 109 and 110:
Appendix 3. Finnish summary - suome
Page 111 and 112:
ideologian käsitteisiin (Blommaert
Page 113 and 114:
(Democrats 2008: i). Konservatismii
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kaikenkattavimpia, puolueettomimpia
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(Halliday ja Matthiessen 2004: 64-6
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Obamasta enemmän kuin Fox News (16
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keskuudessa. Yleisesti ottaen demok
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mahdollista tämän tutkielman puit
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Political Bias on BBC, CNN, and Fox News - Doria

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