http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/nightly-news-full-broadcast-september-23rd-772237379897
After viewing the NBC Nightly News, link to video attached above, I was not surprised to find that 8 out of the 12 stories they covered were negative, three stories were neutral but provoked suspicion, and they ended the segment with one positive story. By ending the segment with a positive story, they are applying the recency-primacy theory to put a positive spin on their mostly "mean world" report. The NBC Nightly News serves mainly an informational function of media.As far as gate-keeping, NBC reported mostly negative events. This impacts the viewers reality of the world and probably contributes to the "mean world syndrome" which is the belief that the world and the people in it are more dangerous than it really is. This ties into the cultivation theory which claims that the media "shapes our social reality by giving us a distorted view on the amount of violence and risk in the world." Em Griffin, A First Look at Communication Theory, 7th ed. (Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill, 2009), 352–53.
One of the negative stories was about a video released about the Charlotte police shooting of a black 43 year old man. The video is ambiguous about what is going on which allows viewers to draw their own conclusions. These home videos are becoming very popular and are often ambiguous which tends to polarize people such as the "blue lives matter" vs "black lives matter" vs "all lives matter" debate.
Another negative story showed the suspect of the bombing in New York which most would stereotype as a terrorist due to his ethnicity, which was not mentioned. They just showed a picture of him. This could also play into the mean world syndrome influencing people to think and behave differently towards perceived races and ethnicity.
Another polarizing topic NBC covered is the different ways in which the presidential candidates are preparing which fuels debates about the presidents.
Most of the news cast covered stories of people who are white, middle aged, and appear to be middle class. One of which was about a man who was victimized by gift card scams. Another was about a woman who wants to sue Saudi Arabia for allegedly funding Al Queda. They included Pippa Middleton being victimized by hackers. This contributes to the Cultivation theory and how heavy viewers of media tend to identify with the people portrayed in the media when in reality, heavy viewers tend to be working class and politically conservative. I have observed patterns of behavior in people that could be influenced by media, especially pertaining to the mean world syndrome theory.
I think by adding a positive story at the end of the broadcast, it immediately counters against the barrage of negative news that had been given to the audience at the beginning of the show. It's interesting how some broadcasters narrow down their findings based upon the race or age of the victim. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI always found it interesting how they always end the broadcast with a positive story, it's like when you watch a scary movie and you need to watch something funny to balance it out- though it's more of a distraction in a sense.
ReplyDeleteI have also noticed majority of the stories on the news are white middle aged and middle class.