Danielle Peters Blog #4

I decided to watch Fox6 News at 10pm. Below is my findings in which they are summarized:

FOX6 NEWS at 10pm (30-minute runtime) 3 male / 1 female anchors 16 total coverage stories/ segments 10 stories – 6 bad/ 3 good/ 1 bad/ good (presidential debate) 7/ 10 times white males presented the stories (age 28-45) 3/ 10 times one female (mix race) (age 27-35) some narration, however the males will end the story   Titles/ stories were “Man Drowns in Lagoon” “Woman Critically Injured in Shooting” “Homicide Trial Scheduled to Begin” “Potential Jobs Coming to Century City (Business Park)” “Presidential Debate” “Robo-Advisor” “Race for the Cure” “Boating Accident, 3 Baseball Players died” “Arnold Palmer Died” “Harvest Fair” 6 segments – 3 good/ 1 bad/ 2 weather which was bad (storms), but paraphrased as an overall good 5/ 6 times white males presented the segments and narrated them (age 28-45) 1/ 6 times a female (mix) helped introduced a segment with a male Titles/ Segments were “Home Opener” “Fox6 Storm Center” “Weather Experts” “Fox6 Sports Blitz” “Brewers Blast” “Swan Song for Braun” “Emotional Win (for Packers)”

Analysis:

Majority of the stories/ segments that shown footage contained twice as more white men than women of any race or men of different race. When it came to stories like “Harvest Fair” or “Race for the Cure,” women and children were mostly shown. Even in the story, “Woman Critically Injured in Shooting,” the camera was focused on male police officers. Yes, this does make sense; however, there was no family or other people around. Why can’t there be female officers in the scene? Was there any female officers at the scene? – Well, we will never know because FOX6 is showing what they want to show. Another thing was when the “bad” stories/ segments came on they explained it quickly and swiftly and moved on to the next story which was better than those; therefore the spent more time on those.

I do believe that the Cultivation Theory is true in this case because of how they presented the news stories and the weather. As “Fox6 Storm Center” and “Weather Experts” weather segments were on, they explained the storms that already came as serious, but okay. I think they wanted to express to viewer that storms are serious, yet the storms are okay and you shouldn’t worry about it. I thought it was kind of confusing and humorous. I did find one bit that was well said. The segment “Arnold Palmer Died” told what happen, when it happened, and ended with old videos of him in his earlier days smiling and golfing (with a fade-out transition to commercial). I thought about the segment and wondered: what else did he do outside golfing? I know he is a well-known golfer, but that is all FOX6 said about him. That made me wonder if that was the only thing that people can relate him to, but according to this media outlet it was only golfing. So that made me expand (gatekeeping function) on Arnold Palmer. Maybe the segment (with a little bit of information provided) was meant to make viewers expand and relay information.

Overall, FOX6 did distort reality to their audiences and presented stories locally about the greater Milwaukee area to relate to their audiences. They did show bad and good stories with some distortion and short time limits on bad stories calling them “developing Stories”. FOX6 is a media outlet that effects its local viewers and brings them informational, interpretation, and bonding functions to their stories/ segments. I did find a link that somewhat relates to this broadcast I saw. Click Here.

Danielle 

Photo Credit:

Left: imsbarter.com

Right: fox6news.com