Kathleen Nystrom

Media Research and Culture

Assignment 2
19 April 2017

Umbrella Ideology
While there are clear ideological conflicts between different media sources, there is
an overall umbrella of thought that all media tend to fall under. This phenomenon is best
exemplified in the news coverage of the US 2016 election. The media was under high
scrutiny during this whirlwind of an election, especially in the United States. From breaking
election news, such as updates on Hillary Clinton’s email scandal or the release of Donald
Trump’s recorded voice objectifying women, to poll updates, everything released by the
media was questioned. The media had a tough job to play under the pressure that society
and the “fake news” propaganda placed on them. On top of that, they were faced with the
pressure to be profitable. With similar forces acting against them, most news agencies
provided very similar news stories to the public. The media released almost the same
amount of coverage to specific candidates and portrayed similar bias towards each
candidate. However, they still differed in the amount of bias they portrayed towards
specific candidates and issues.
Overall, the broad ideology of media seems to be to make profit. This is evident in
the fact that all media provided Donald Trump, one of the more fascinating candidates of
the century, with the most news coverage (Patterson, 2016). During the primaries, Donald
Trump dominated all news coverage across all ten American news agencies as documented
in a study conducted by the Shorenstein Center. There was not one week when Ted Cruz,
Marco Rubio, or John Kasich reached Trump’s level of coverage (Patterson, 2016). After
Trump became the presumptive nominee, he continued to receive more coverage than
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders across all ten agencies. Trump was overwhelmingly
covered as the most newsworthy candidate. This shows that during the election, the media
all had the same idea: Trump sells and Trump should receive the most news coverage.
It is also noteworthy that every news agency in the Shorenstein Center’s study
provided predominantly negative coverage of both Clinton and Trump. This means that
while Trump received the most coverage, the dominant ideology among media was
negative views of each presidential candidate. However, there is a noticeable difference
between the percentage of negative and positive coverage of the candidates between
different news agencies. For example, Fox News, a well-known conservative-leaning
source, published 81 percent negative coverage of Clinton and 19 percent positive
coverage. Comparatively, their coverage of Trump was 73 percent negative and 27 percent
positive (Patterson, 2016). This shows that while the majority of coverage of Trump and
Clinton was negative across media, there are still differences in the level of negative
coverage. There is a similar comparison to be made in the more liberally leaning media,
such as CBS. CBS provided Trump with 89 percent negative coverage and 11 percent
positive. They provided Clinton with 61 percent negative and 39 percent positive coverage.
This shows that while both candidates received negative news coverage by CBS, the news
agency seemed to still lean in more support of Clinton. There is a large difference between
the level of positive and negative attention that each news agency gave to the candidates.
This shows that while there is a dominant negative ideology, some media might lean one
way or the other as evident by their level of negative or positive coverage of candidates.
This is perhaps how certain agencies gain the identity as being liberal or conservative news
sources.
Then, there must also be a closer look at the global media’s coverage of the US
presidential candidates. In China, it appears there was similar coverage of the candidates as
in America. According to a study done by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International
Studies, which looked at People’s Daily, Xinhua, Global times, Guangming Daily, and China
Young Daily, Chinese propaganda covered Trump significantly more than Clinton. However,
at the same time, there was substantially more positive coverage of Clinton than Trump.
Similar to media in the US, the Chinese media tended to focus on scandals rather than the
candidates’ actual policies. According to the study, the most common words used while
covering Clinton were “email,” “investigation,” “Russia,” “FBI,” “husband,” and “lawsuit”
(Parker, 2016). The most common words mentioned in Trump’s Chinese coverage were
“Russia,” “Putin,” “intraparty,” “immigrants,” “tax payments,” “slander,” and “women.” This
shows that there was a dominant ideology on what topics needed to be covered in the US
election. It also shows that there is a dominant ideology that scandal is more newsworthy
than policy when it comes to election media. According to a Harvard study, there was a
similar phenomenon happening in US media. Around the time of the Democratic
Convention, policy-proposals accounted for less than 1 percent of Clinton’s news coverage.
Collectively, her policy stands accounted for only 4 percent of coverage (Patterson, 2016).
This shows the overall media ideology that scandals are profitable and the most important
topic for them to cover.
There also seems to be a general consensus, especially outside of the United States,
that Trump winning the election is a negative outcome for the US. The day after the
election, newspapers around the globe had negative headlines about the election. The Daily
Telegraph of Australia’s cover page read, “God Save America,” (Pollotta, 2016). The New
Zealand Herald had an image of Trump imitating the style of Barack Obama’s past
campaign posters that read, “Dear America…No You Can’t!” (Pollotta, 2016). The Daily
Telegraph of Britain published a headline stating “Divided America, bitter to the end,”
(Abad-Santos, 2016). This shows that world wide, there was the dominant ideology that
Trump would be bad for America. American papers seemed to attempt to remain neutral
on the election results, with headlines reading “Trump Triumphs” and “It’s Trump!,”
(Abad-Santos, 2016). There is further evidence of media’s ideology in the pictures that they
chose to publish. For example, the day after the election, newspapers either showed images
of sobbing Clinton supporters or cheering Trump supporters. Those who published images
of celebrating Trump supporters, such as the Daily Morning News in Dallas or the Arizona
Daily Sun, portrayed a cheerful and hopeful image for America’s future. However, the
papers that showed the dismal scenes at Clinton headquarters, such as the Philadelphia
Daily News, portray melancholy and despair for the upcoming years. Most of the largest
American newspapers, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, had
seemingly neutral images of Trump celebrating his win. This shows that while there seems
to be a dominant ideology in the larger media, the smaller media are able to differ a bit
more in their news coverage. The smaller papers and the foreign papers appeared more
likely to portray differing ideologies on the election.
However, there was an overwhelmingly clear ideology that Trump’s win was a
complete surprise. There was the universal and incorrect news coverage that predicted a
Clinton win, and then shock when Trump won. The majority of polls the week leading up to
the election showed Clinton ahead by several points. From the LA Times, The Independent,
the Telegraph, CNN, Fox News, and Business Insider, virtually every major news network
was predicting a Clinton win. They were, of course, incorrect. There was some major flaw
that occurred in the polling data in the 2016 election, and somehow every media source got
it wrong. Further, virtually every media reacted with shock the day after the election. The
Irish Times referenced the election as “the shock win,” in its top three article headlines
posted on November 9 (Abad-Santos, 2016). The LA Times’ cover page the day after the
election read, “Stunning Trump Win.” The Montgomery Advertiser printed, “Believe It,” in
large capital letters. The words “stunning upset,” were written on numerous top
newspapers’ headlines. The Birmingham News had even pre-printed its cover page to read,
“Madam President.” While there might have wavering levels of negative coverage on the
candidates, there was an obvious consensus that the election was a shock. This means that
whatever ideology went in to making these media’s polls was broadly accepted and deeply
flawed.
It seems that people perceive the media as either vastly different, or all the same.
People either say “I would never watch Fox News, it is far too right-wing for me,” or “I’m
sick of all this election coverage, it’s all the same.” However, a deeper look at the actual
output of media shows that they are both broadly the same yet minutely different. While
there are differences in the day-to-day headlines and the amount of negative news
coverage given to which candidates, there are clear overarching trends in media. There is
evidence of similar coverage on issues, such as the coverage of controversy rather than
policy, and evidence of similar tones, such as majority providing negative coverage of
candidates. So while there are ideological conflicts, the media are still under the same
umbrella of dominant ideologies.
Reflection
Before starting the paper, I thought I had a good idea of the ideologies of certain
news media and how they covered the US election. In my mind, Fox news supported
Donald Trump with full force and MSNBC had only good things to say about Hillary Clinton.
However, I was surprised to find that neither news agency had very positive coverage of
either candidate. Rather, my perceived bias was due to the fact that Fox gives more positive
coverage of Trump than MSNBC gave of him, and visa versa for Clinton. However, despite
how this shows some differing ideologies, there was the surprising, broader ideology of
negative coverage of all candidates. I was surprised to find that there is, in fact, an
overarching ideology, despite the minor differences in the media’s bias.
While doing research, I thought it’d be best to simply use articles that I found while
clicking through news websites. However, I then remembered that in my political science
class last year we studied the report by Thomas Patterson, which analyzed the coverage of
the 2016 election. This study, along with the FSI study, was very helpful in showing the
ideologies of the American news agencies using actual data. Both studies provide
comprehensive evidence of which news agencies covered which candidates and how much
and in what manner. They are very helpful sources in analyzing the news coverage of the
US election. I also found them very interesting and they made sifting through articles found
within the media sources analyzed a bit easier.
I am also new to the Harvard referencing system, but I think that I got the hang of it
towards the end. My usual biggest obstacle with papers is the conclusion. In fact,
sometimes I don’t even include a conclusion. However, I felt this paper needed one. It
probably took me just as much time to write the conclusion as it did the rest of the paper.
References
Abad-Santos, A. (2016). What front pages of US newspapers look like the morning after Donald Trump’s
presidential victory. [online] Vox. Available at: http://www.vox.com/presidential-
election/2016/11/9/13572686/donald-trump-front-page-us-newspapers [Accessed 18 Apr. 2017].

Independent.ie. (2016). How newspapers worldwide reacted to US Election night - Independent.ie. [online]
Available at: http://www.independent.ie/world-news/north-america/us-election-2016/how-
newspapers-worldwide-reacted-to-us-election-night-35201180.html [Accessed 12 Apr. 2017].

Parker, C. (2016). FSI - Analyzing China's media coverage of U.S. politics. [online] Fsi.stanford.edu. Available at:
http://fsi.stanford.edu/news/analyzing-chinas-media-coverage-us-politics [Accessed 12 Apr. 2017].

Patterson, T. (2016). Harvard study: Policy issues nearly absent in presidential campaign coverage. [online] The
Conversation. Available at: http://theconversation.com/harvard-study-policy-issues-nearly-absent-in-
presidential-campaign-coverage-65731 [Accessed 12 Apr. 2017].

Patterson, T. (2016). News Coverage of the 2016 General Election: How the Press Failed the Voters - Shorenstein
Center. [online] Shorenstein Center. Available at: https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-
general-election/ [Accessed 12 Apr. 2017].

Patterson, T. (2016). News Coverage of the 2016 Presidential Primaries: Horse Race Reporting Has
Consequences - Shorenstein Center. [online] Shorenstein Center. Available at:
https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-presidential-primaries/ [Accessed 12 Apr. 2017].

Pollotta, F. (2016). How newspaper front pages documented historic election results. CNN. [online] Available
at: http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/09/media/election-2016-election-night-newspaper-headlines/
[Accessed 18 Apr. 2017].