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

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counted as such. These numbers suggest that CNN is situated furthest left on the continuum, while Fox News places somewhat to the right of BBC. The decision by Sebelius, an Obama administration official, to overturn the FDA recommendation is of most interest to Fox News, for which it constitutes the second largest category with nine occurrences (23.7 percent of the total number of Themes, see Table 8). In comparison, the BBC and CNN articles both include only two occurrences (9.1 and 12.5 percent respectively). One interpretation of this is that Fox News aims to highlight the conflict created by a supposedly liberal administration restricting the over the counter sale of emergency contraceptives. Indeed, Fox News discusses the ill-effects of the decision on the upcoming Obama campaign: (72) The move shocked women's health advocates, a key part of President Barack Obama's Democratic base (73) The move will anger many Democrats. ... But it could also serve to illustrate to independents, whose support will be critical in next fall's presidential election, that Obama is not the liberal ideologue Republicans claim. This focus by Fox News may be an attempt to influence readers to view Obama in a negative light and can be seen as a pro-Republican act. Neither the BBC article nor the CNN article includes any mention such ill-effects. Quite the opposite: the first third of the BBC article discusses Obama's approval of the decision. In addition to Obama, other proponents as well as opponents of Sebelius' decision are of interest since the proportion of space dedicated to the two sides may be revealing of bias. The BBC article includes 11 instances of supporters in Theme position (50 percent of 22 total; e.g. Critics of the drug) and only twice (9.1 percent) includes critics (e.g. Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the FDA). Corresponding numbers are four (25 percent) supporters and three (18.8 percent) critics in the CNN article (e.g. Proponents) and six (15.8 percent) supporters (e.g. some critics) and five (13.2 percent) critics in the Fox News article - a much less notable difference. Based on these numbers, it would seem that all three news websites are right-leaning, based on their support for Sebelius' decision, with BBC the furthest right on the continuum. 80
Beyond the instances of supporters and critics of the decision in Theme position, proportions of positive and negative views 21 of the decision overall reveal the following results. The BBC article includes eight (72.7 percent) decision-supporting instances (e.g. Republicans have praised the move), five of which consist of support from Obama, and only three (27.3 percent) negative views of it (e.g. overturning the agency's decision was unusual). The CNN article includes two (33.3 percent) positive views (e.g. I do not believe enough data were presented) and four (66.7 percent) negative views of the decision (e.g. emergency contraception can be safely used by adolescent women). Finally, the Fox News article has six (40 percent) positive views (e.g. the president supports the secretary's decision) and nine (60 percent) negative ones (e.g. Sebelius' decision is "medically inexplicable"). Against the hypothesis, then, these numbers suggest that BBC is the most conservative website with CNN and Fox News placing further left on the continuum. As hypothesized at the beginning of this section, however, the Obama-critical sentiments in the Fox News article skew the results in this case because one must criticize the decision that conservatives would typically applaud in order to be critical of the Obama administration. Additionally, the fact that one third of the BBC article consists of description of Obama's approval of the decision can also be considered pro-Democratic because it points to there not being an internal conflict in the Obama administration concerning the decision. That is to say, the BBC article may aim to highlight the strength and unity of the administration under Obama's lead despite the controversial decision. These two factors change the analysis somewhat, with BBC placing less right and Fox News less left on the continuum. The final Theme category, other, is one of the most interesting ones numerically. While the BBC article only includes 3 such Themes (13.6 percent), the CNN article includes 6 (or 37.5 percent) and the Fox News article includes 15 (or 39.5 percent) that fall into that category. One reason is the introduction of a new entity, the maker of the Plan B drug, by Fox News (e.g. A Teva-funded study and The company). Overall, Teva is mentioned once by CNN and five times by Fox News. The CNN 21 Positive and negative views of the decision are counted according to the number of paragraphs which were labeled either positive, negative, or expressing neither view. 81
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"It's Barack Obama Who's Soft" <str
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Table of Contents 1 Introduction...
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1 Introduction In the past two deca
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2 The news media The news is often
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2.2 An outline of media discourse a
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ecomes clearer how newsworthiness (
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3 Critical Discourse Analysis In th
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(Wodak 2001: 4). The key linguists
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grammatical and lexical analysis of
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3.3 Critical Discourse Analysis and
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In addition to the distorted view t
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it can be argued that her own inter
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One type of conservatism, classical
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In their study, Covert and Wasburn
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percent respectively; Morris and Fr
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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 and 58: highlight the connection between th
Page 59 and 60: The fact that the headline includes
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: does not refer to the drug in this
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
Page 115 and 116: kaikenkattavimpia, puolueettomimpia
Page 117 and 118: (Halliday ja Matthiessen 2004: 64-6
Page 119 and 120: Obamasta enemmän kuin Fox News (16
Page 121 and 122: keskuudessa. Yleisesti ottaen demok
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Political Bias on BBC, CNN, and Fox News - Doria

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