The media, in all its forms, is more prevalent in society today than it has ever been. With the rise of the internet the traditional media forms such as newspapers and magazines are expanding in order to reach out to more people. With this more and more people are using it as an outlet for the ‘alternative’ news, rejecting the facts presented by the traditional mass institutions.
Many believe that these institutions of mass media use their output as a form of control, such as censorship, telling the public only what they want the public to know and propaganda, bending or distorting the facts to suit their own agendas.
A prime example of this is the Fox news network and it’s coverage of the early days of the Iraq conflict. It presented the war as a continuing success, showing footage of Iraqi teenagers ‘training for the Olympics’ in order to persuade viewers of the good America was doing in the region. Further evidence of this can be seen on Outfoxed, available on youtube.com.
The anchorman of Fox news, Bill O’Reilly, openly criticises anyone who questions the methods of the Americans, bullying and personally attacking guests leaves viewers in little doubt that, at least in Foxs’ eyes, these people are the enemy.
This leads to a distortion of how Fox viewers view the world and even their political stance on certain topics. For example, in 2003, a survey carried out by PIPA/The Knowledge networks, showed that 67% of Fox viewers believe that there are links between Al-Qaeda and Iraq, compared to 16% of PBS-NPR viewers.
Clearly with the case of Fox there is evidence to suggest that the American government is being supported in it’s policies by certain aspects of its media, extending to actually misleading viewers with distorted news. This proves the Mass Manipulative model can be applied to modern day media institutions.
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