In the Nov. 9 Road to the White House: Politics, Media & Technology, the Trojan debate team and the panel of Annenberg faculty addressed the issue of narrative framing in media.
On the panel were faculty members Gordon Stables, Thomas Hollihan, Marc Cooper, and students Joel Lemuel, and Avi Munoz.
Hollihan led the discussion by defining the role of the press in today’s media.
“The press don’t tell us what to think but they do tell us what to think about,” Hollihan said.
In relation to the presidential campaign, the news narrative have also had influence in what the public should be aware of.
“The media construct a news narrative and it becomes self-sealing. It determines the outcome of the 2012 campaign because the press tells people what to worry about. To discount foreign policy and just focus on the economy,” Hollihan said.
The panel also addressed the issue of a divided narrative among different channels of media. FOX and MSNBC are geared toward different audiences and therefore portrays events in different lights.
When referencing the Herman Cain scandal, Hollihan said, “If you are living in a particular media focus in this country, you’re not going to get a complete picture of this story.”
Marc Cooper, however, focused more on the responsibilities that he thinks the media should take in today’s world.
“Our civic life is more restricted on myths and our political scene is crowded with clowns, we need a press and a media that answers questions. Not to pose questions but to answer questions,” Cooper said.
The conclusion from the panel though is that even though the press demonstrates a lot of influence through the stories they’re framing, the problems stems from the fact that people are disengaged from the political process. “We have a generation of low-information voters because people feel detached,” Cooper said. And we need to get people to care and interested again.
This article was written by Sammi Wong, BA Print and Digital Journalism ’14.