Reflect or Shape - Essay Example

Do the Media Reflect or shape Public Opinion? By Introduction Over the years commentators have had varied opinions on the issue of public opinion. This has been in relation to whether there actually exists a public opinion or not. Some individuals have argued that public opinion is a creation of the media used to inflence the view of other members of the society on specific issues. In the earlier years, public opinion was a collection of views, opinions, and beliefs collected from individual members of a society. Due to advancement in statistical techniques, this has considerably evolved. Public opinion is currently defined to be a shared view of a definite population on a given subject; this could consist of a given ethnic composition (Noelle-Neumann, 1993). Public opinion has often been used to influence voting patterns during electoral periods, but the influence that public opinion holds goes way beyond politics and elections. It influences culture, literature, arts and even fashion (Bratton et al. 2004). The major issue however, is if public opinion does actually exist and the role of the media on the issue of public opinion. This has becomes a very controversial subject, in relation to whether the media is responsible for the creation of this public opinion or the media just reflects the opinion. The media and its activities have come under sharp criticism of the years. Some people consider the media responsible for creation of trends on consumption, politics and other issues (Noelle-Neumann, 1993). The media often chooses a particular point of view and represents it as the opinion of the public. This has the impact of influencing people to look at certain issues from particular angles. During election period, blame has from time to time been put on the media for swaying voters to vote in a particular fashion in the pretext of opinion polling (McFall, 2002). The media and public opinion The media on numerous occasions has insisted that the reports they give represent public opinion. This is in relation to what majority of citizens think or what people would want to be done. The media has constantly denied that the perspective they give on issues creates some sort of public opinion. However, when the media airs a story, individuals who had no opinion or knowledge on the matter will begin to show interest. Individuals who take close interest on issues after they have been aired on radio, television or in print media are likely to look at the issue from the angle of the media practitioners. This in essence is creating a public opinion. The media however, claim that is does not create the opinions and only marginally influences the opinions individuals already have on issues. From autonomous judgement, though it is obvious that many stories done by the media are aimed at creation of opinions on issues. In newspaper columns, most of the views are expressed with the view that the reader will be able to associate with the views. This takes places on numerous issues but is mostly visible during electioneering period (Lippmann, 2007). Some sections of the media even though have no intentions of altering public opinion on matters, they would always want to be able to influence the readers view on certain issues. This may not be deliberate but from historical times, the media has often been used to sway the public’s view on specific issues. There are many justifications to do this but the main reason is always to achieve some level of financial success. Media outlets will always therefore look for the most favoured view on an important topic and try to make it popular. This often results in increased sales for newspapers, increased viewership for television channels and the listeners to a radio station may increase. This increase will attract more advertisers resulting in commercial success. Other media outlets though have a different agenda for wanting to influence public opinion on issues. This is to make their clients to embrace certain views, beliefs, preferences and attitudes. This strategy may not cause any considerable harm if used to spread beliefs on other spheres of life. Nevertheless, on political matters, it could be interpreted as manipulation. Most media outlets that have various political interests will endeavour to give the clients information that can influence the way they will cast their ballot (Hallin & Mancini, 2004). The debate as to whether media actually creates or reflects public opinion also has numerous sides to it. Most media practitioners would always want to a give the clients what they would love to read, see or hear. Some newspapers outlets prefer to publish very scandalous or controversial information. A closer analysis of such entities numbers would reveal that they are making brisk business. The paper is however giving to the clients what they would like to read. In such cases the media houses will argue that they are not in any way influencing the opinions of consumers on the issues, but are merely reflecting opinions the society already have on the subject. Controversial information about leaders, wealthy personalities and celebrities has been known to have an immense ability to attract the attention of readers (Herbst, 1998). This desire to consume controversial information contributes immensely to the media feeding the public with this sort of information. Another clear indication that the media only serves to reflect what is already in the public domain is how long the papers that contain scandals last in the market. These papers stay in the market for longer periods as compared to papers that write on other issues like business or finance, which probably last for shorter periods in the market. If media had the ability to influence the reader’s opinions as claimed then financial publications would also trigger investments in other unconventional areas that they feature. This however does not occur because the public already has predetermined information on investment issues and only look to the media for confirmation. If a media house were to publish information that has a considerable level of truth and was not at all scandalous the paper is likely to generate lesser sales, people only buy newspapers that contain information that they would to know. When this information is presented the way, they think it should therefore; most will keep off what does not meet this criterion (Price, 2008). The underlying factor though is that the information spread by most media outlets is not always to create or divide opinion but media houses do this to sell. Some commentators argue that media does not prey on public opinion to generate sales but does this by manipulating the emotion of the readers or listeners. Emotion is said to be a key driver in the media business (Bishop, 2004).This is because emotion touches the very heart of the human being. Information only will therefore not be sufficient to cause a purchase. This is the major reason as to why most stories by the media concentrate on scandal, protest and outrage. The facts are hidden between the lines and only very keen observers will always be able to identify these. Newspaper headlines are therefore often dressed with a considerable level of emotion that allows the reader to form an opinion of the story before even reading it. Media and opinion polls Opinion polls have often generated massive media coverage. This is due to the interest people show toward opinion polls. Many media houses often use the polls as a strategy to lure clients. This strategy is usually extremely successful, as most normal human beings would always want to get other peoples perspectives on various issues. Opinion polls on political issues are some of the most popular among people. Individuals would always want to gauge that popularity of their preferred candidate or the opinion of other people on various political issues. The information relayed by opinion polls is however not portraying the people’s opinion. Opinion polls conducted by television stations use a random sampling method to carry out their study. Opinions of several of the respondents who have taken part in a study are selected on a random basis. These are then used as a representative sample for doing the analysis. This is without due consideration of the sampled persons geographical location. The pollsters can therefore not purport that the population sampled represent the views of the entire population. The information often given to pollsters may also not be similar to the opinions the individual holds on the matter. The polls are often so general and most of the times ask leading questions that provide only the option to agree or to disagree on the issue. There is no room given for providing and individuals own personal opinion. An individual who has a contrary opinion to the ones shown will therefore say that they disagree. This individual opinion is therefore included in the poll as an opposition to the issue, while in actual sense the individual did not give any opinion on the matter (Strömbäck, J. 2012). Opinion polls also have another disadvantage; the pollster do not considers how many respondents took part in the poll in comparison to the entire population. When fifty individuals take part in polling exercise and forty-five of them, agree to the question while the rest disagree. The media will purport that an overwhelming number of people supported the agenda and will only inform the public that ninety five percent of the entire participants agreed to the issue while the remaining five percent disagreed. A population of fifty people cannot act as a representative sample for a population of over one hundred million people. Out of the fifty respondents, there may also have been individuals with a varied opinion who may have been considered to disagree. Various people have varied opinions on particular issues, the amount of importance given to issues by individuals also vary. Some people have strong opinions in matters of society and politics while others show little concern. These polls do not provide respondent with the opportunity to express what view they hold and how much passion they have for these views. Some respondent may respond negatively to certain question because they have no idea about what is being asked. On the other hand, those who would wish to indicate how strongly they hold a particular issue are no afforded the opportunity to also do so. Opinion polls are not the appropriate way to represent public opinion. The subject of opinion polls also bring to the fore the issue of whether there really exist a public opinion. This is because most of the polls have leading questions; they never provide the respondent the opportunity to respond to a particular question appropriately. This is because majority of the questions asked are often very leading. Given that, the respondent is only given two angles from which one can respond to the questions. The media has essentially taken and issue and given it two perspectives. The data collected is thus a representation of only the two perspectives provided. An individual who has a completely divergent view on the matters will thus not be able to participate and their opinion will therefore not be taken into consideration (Bourdieu, 1993). The media therefore essentially uses opinion polls to try to create a non-existant public opinion on certain issues. This is the case especially with political campaigns. In these cases, the media uses bogus polls to influence voting patterns in favour of their preferred candidate or one who represents the policies they believe are in their favour. This is a very effective political strategy. Most voters always want to vote with the majority of other voters, information that appears to be biased towards a particular candidate may thus result in majority of the voters swinging in the candidates favour. The role of the media in agenda setting and framing Much debate has often resulted from the issue of how people perceive the information shown in the media. The influence the media has on issues most of the time occurs accidentally while other forms of media do it deliberately. Despite, the intended action it is abundantly clear however that the influence of the media on issues is unavoidable. The society should hence consider possible ways of how to limit this influence. Media though has not been able to show considerable ability to change people’s opinions on issues; the media is hugely responsible for what kind of information is transmitted to the public. Agenda setting is the mechanism through which problems within the society increase or decrease the level of interest generated by the society. Agenda setting is therefore very important in that considerable control over a particular agenda would mean that there is considerable grip on all the possible outcomes. The media is therefore a key player in matters of setting agenda. The media is able to take an issue and make it a matter of intense public interest. In political campaign, the media may have limited ability to sway voters to cast their vote in a particular manner. However, if the media continuously raises issues on the credibility of a particular candidate, the public may also begin to question the eligibility of the said individual. The media is therefore responsible for setting public agenda. An n important factor though is that given that the media is responsible for setting public agenda on various issues. a critical link to the issue of agenda setting would therefore be if the media sets public agenda what criteria is used to set agenda for the media. There are varieties of variables, which have considerable impact on the agenda the media sets. This is in relation to the content the media disseminates to the public. The content often show by the media consist of every day occurrences translated and relayed to the audience as news. Other contents can be attributed to other key players within the business who include advertisers, the government, owners, media workers and other key players. The media is however in other quarters considered not to be responsible for any agenda setting by in real sense just a channel for the agendas already set to be distributed to the mass market. this would mean that media has no key role in setting agendas but only acts as an intermediary between other parties. This scenario presents the media as just a passive player on matters relating to agenda setting. Framing of issues is also a critical role played by the media, the way then media captures a story and presents it to the intended audience would make the audience to view the matter from this particular angle. On important agendas, the media is able to apply an extensive magnitude of weight on the way that the recipients of a certain pieces of information will view the information given to them. The media can therefore play a considerable role in influencing the views of citizens on certain agendas through proper framing of the message that they intend to pass (Saris & Sniderman, 2004). Public opinion has over the year’s generated immense debate. This is in relation to whether there exists an opinion that can be classified as public opinion. Public opinion is however considered in some quarters to be a media creation meant to make the consumers think in a particular fashion. Public opinion has also been abused while influencing consumers toward buying particular commodities. However, on matters of election is where considerable doubt has arisen in relation to the credibility of the polls used by pollsters to try to sway voters. Some of these polls are no representative and may amount to hoodwinking the voters to get them to vote in a particular fashion. The media is however a very important tool for agenda setting and framing. The media is responsible rallying citizens behind a particular course. Apart from setting the agenda, the way in which an agenda is framed will have considerable bearing on how the public perceives the information (Entman, 2003). Bibliography Bourdieu, P. 1993Sociology in Question, London: Sage. ‘Public opinion does not exist’, pp: 149-158.
 Bishop, G. F. 2004. The illusion of public opinion: Fact and artifact in American public opinion polls. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield. Bratton, M., Mattes, R. B., & Gyimah-Boadi, E. 2005. Public opinion, democracy, and market reform in Africa. Cambridge [u.a.: Cambridge University Press. Entman, R. 2004 Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion and US Foreign Policy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fishkin, J.S. (2009) When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Entman, R. M. 2003. Projections of power: Framing news, public opinion, and U.S. foreign policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Herbst, S. 1992 ‘Surveys in the public sphere: Applying Bourdieu’s critique of opinion polls’, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 4(3): 220-229. Herbst, S. 1998 Reading Public Opinion: How Political Actors View the Democratic Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lewis, J. (2001) Constructing Public Opinion. New York: Columbia University Press. McCombs, M.E. (2004) Setting the Agenda: the Mass Media and Public Opinion, Cambridge: Polity Press. Hallin, D. C., & Mancini, P. (2004). Comparing media systems: Three models of media and politics. Cambridge [u.a.: Cambridge University Press. Lippmann, W. 2007. Public opinion. United States: Filiquarian Pub., LLC. McFall, S. 2002. Media. Danbury, Conn.: Grolier Educational. Noelle-Neumann, E. 1993 The Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion – our social skin, 2ndedition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Price, V. (1992) Public Opinion, London: Sage.
Zaller, J. (1992) The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge: CUP. Price, V. 2008 ‘The public and public opinion in political theories’, in Donsbach, W. and Traugott, M.W. (eds.) The Sage Handbook of Public Opinion Research, London: Sage, pp: 11-24. Strömbäck, J. 2012 ‘The media and their use of opinion polls: Reflecting and shaping public opinion’, in Holtz-Bacha, C. and Strömbäck, J. (eds.) Opinion Polls and the Media, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp: 1-22. Saris, W. E., & Sniderman, P. M. 2004. Studies in public opinion: Attitudes, nonattitudes, measurement error, and change. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. Read More