Argumentative Synthesis - Report Example

Argumentative Synthesis The two essays, Bias in the News Media and News Media Assumptions about Language and Discourse, try to make a case for the non-existence of objectivity. In fact even a politician is biased due to his or her representation of a voice, an ideology – a political party. Groseclose and Milyo documented their study which they carried out to determine biasness in the news and media (1191). An important thing to note is that they used “ideological scores” in order to test their hypothesis. Similar is the case with journalism where objectivity simply does not exist because bias is an inherent part. However, biasness does not imply fallaciousness or unfairness. It is important, though, to learn the skills to detect biasness. Bias in the News Media explains the various kinds of biases or rather frames that frame the works of professional journalists. On the other hand, News Media Assumptions about Language and Discourse, explains the role of language and communication in “framing” the message thereby introducing the bias. Therefore, both essays try to make the argument that journalism, including all forms of media electronic or print, introduces certain biases because nothing, in fact, is objective. Thus, both essays build up on the argument that objectivity does not exist. Objectivity is a concept which is non-existing in reality. That is, an objective point of view simply does not exist. Our ignorance of the fact does not nullify its existence. The introduction of bias is almost unavoidable. The mere fact that individuals are “historically, politically, economically, and socially” situated coupled with the transmittal of communicative messages along a particular medium and in a context, introduces bias in the message (Rhetorica, n.pag.). Journalism practices have few of their own intrinsic biases which are present structurally. The author prefers to refer to them as frames because they literally frame the messages that are presented through news media, the television. It is the presence of these biases which influence the messages to be presented in a certain way. The author lists down various biases that shape news on the television. The first and foremost is the mere fact that most news channels are businesses focused towards making money. This form of capitalism and money-centered attitude affects their choices such that they are motivated to deliver only those products, services, or messages that are desirable by the consumers in terms of maximizing profits. Such an inclusion simply points towards a logical fact which is why the author makes use of logical rhetoric in order to convince the readers that news media agencies do, in fact, introduce biases due to their structural infrastructure. By establishing the various biases that “frame” news media, television and journalism, the essay establishes that objectivity is not possible due to the presence of biases. Next, News Media Assumptions about Language and Discourse, explains the introduction of bias into the news media, not as a result of structural biases, but due to language and discourse. The author explains that language itself is an instrument of introducing bias because human communication is entirely dependent upon language. And journalism seems to exploit language and discourse without proper consideration of the theoretical backgrounds of language. It simply constructs words that are crafted to represent ideas within words thereby limiting the recipient of the language to the reality represented by the words. An important part of this essay is that the author has cited material from George Lakoff’s work called Moral Politics. This is important in appealing the readers about the argument which is being advocated in the essay. The cited work mainly states how journalism erroneously claims that its work is literal, when in fact it also presents many figurative cues. It also states that journalism falsely claims that the language it makes use of is neutral, that is, free from biases. Because language is constructed around a “conceptual system” it is almost impossible to make use of language without its reinforcing the conceptual system around which it is based. By using the references to a published piece of work, the author strengthens the argument by using rhetoric. Similar was the case with the previous essay where rhetoric was used in order to logically convince the reader about the presented argument. Thus, these two features are similar in the two essays where logical appeals have been made. Bias in the News Media explains how the visual aspect works in creating biases. Because much of the electronic media is based around the television, the visual element of media cannot be ignored as it introduces the visual bias. This means that news channels are often flooded with news that is well documented in terms of photographic coverage. The news that is covered well or visually recorded hardly makes it onto the television screens. The reason behind this is that people might not be interested in any news that is not presented visually. The result is a disproportionate attention to only those hyped news that are captured on camera. Another bias is that of the narrative bias where the news must be told in a rather story-like fashion with possible heroes and villains of the story and a proper formatted structure. The author’s thesis remains and that is to establish that journalism and news media do in fact lack objectivity due to their inclusion of biases. Journalism is only used as an example to reflect upon the absence of objectivity of viewpoint. In this case, journalism proves the point due the presence of various inherent and introduced biases. References to theory have also been made to augment the credibility. In short, the essay is excellently structured to first present a rationale and then going on to support the argument logically. The essay has been started with internal biases within journalism. The other essay makes the same argument but by adding up to the previous one by including concepts of language, discourse, and communication. A quite visible feature of the two essays is their development of the argument which has successfully made use of rhetoric and has supported their arguments through support from theories and carefully analyzed information. The two essays have been synthesized very well. Both the essays are developed very well and the arguments have been presented with full backing from credible sources. The inclusion of logical information helps in creating an appealing argument that is likely to convince the readers in favor of the case that is being advanced. Logos, as rhetoric, has been used in both the essays. The structure allows the essay to complement the thesis of the other essay. The case made in both the essays forwards the same argument, that is, objective viewpoint is non-existential. Once the statement has been made the author had to present further argument below in order to explain the reasons why objectivity is a non-existing phenomenon. The essays followed the main thesis and Bias in the News Media broadly started with listing down all the structural biases that are inherent in journalism as a news media field. Next, the essay, News Media Assumptions about Language and Discourse, explained the false assumptions that form the basis of journalism which is why objectivity viewpoints are a distant reality. In fact, the use of biased language presents information as belonging to a certain conceptual system. Thus, reality is shown from different perspectives that have been shaped by leniency to a particular side. Therefore, both essays present a persuasive argument of their view that objective viewpoints do not exist. The presence of biases, established in the essays, affirm the fact that unbiased views are impossible. Works Cited Groseclose, Tim, and Jeffrey Milyo. A Measure Of Media Bias. The Quarterly Journal of Economics (2005): 1191--1237. Print. Rhetorica. Media/Politial Bias. N. p., 2014. Web. 11 Jul. 2014. Read More