To what extent do you believe that the media has influence over the opinions of audiences? [15]
The ability to represent events, places, and people is a power that is heavily incorporated within the media industry. Since audiences look towards the media to gain information regarding these topics, it would be more than reasonable to assume that since the media has the ability to control what information to spread, they are the ones who influence the opinions that audiences will build regarding these topics as well. This essay will explain and concentrate on various instances wherein the media has had an effect and been the driving factor influencing the public opinion on certain people, specifically celebrities, and events such as global issues and conflicts.
The media provides a portrayal of many different people, which includes celebrities and stars. Depending on how the media presents them, the opinion of audiences on these celebrities is bound to change with it. According to Richard Dyer's theory of Stardom, audiences will be interested in celebrities due to their "real personas", which include aspects such as their love life, their ordinariness, their success story, as well as their downfall. All these aspects are separated from their reel persona, which is where they exist in their career, while their real personas are who they are outside of their careers. A prominent example of a star who has been in the limelight of recent media attention would be the American Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. Swift rose to stardom in the mid 2000's, and gained a loyal following due to her songs that focussed on her personal experiences with love, breakups, relationships, and more. Today, she is one of, if not the biggest artist of this generation, and one of the most influential women in the world. However, the media portrayal of Swift hasn't always been as bright and positive as it is now. Previous controversies, especially those with American rapper Kanye West, saw Swift fall from the public eye after media outlets, mainly tabloids like MTV and TMZ, published heavily exaggerated stories of the controversy, in which Swift was labeled a hypocrite and a liar, after commenting on West's usage comment regarding how he made her "famous" in one of his songs. The public had lashed out heavily on Swift, which saw Kanye West's fans, as well as her own fans spread hate against her, with hashtags of snake emojis and "She's a snake!" trending on social media sites such as Twitter (Now X). The controversy blew over quickly however after her album "Reputation" released in 2017, wherein she had addressed the controversy directly, and had her audience back on her side. Back in the present however, Swift's glare is once again at an all time high, with the Pop industry almost revolving entirely around her, even being given the title of Time Magazines "2023 Person of the Year." This current spotlight heavily revolves around her personal life, specifically her widely public relationship with NFL star Travis Kelce, which became public in October of 2023. Media coverage of her has been incredibly positive almost ever since, with magazines, news sites, and news channels all gushing over Swift finding the "Perfect" one for her after a string of failed, and also heavily publicized, relationships. The attention that she receives for this from audiences can be once again explained by Dyer's Stardom theory, specifically the fact of how audiences become obsessed with a star due to their love life and relationships, as they may also want to have relationships like that in their own lives. Media corporations also benefit highly from this as the more articles they can produce about the couple, the more revenue they generate from audiences clicking on their sites and reading their articles. Overall, Swifts rise, fall, and rise again provides a great insight into how the media can help change audience opinions on celebrities, and how they stand to gain from the subsequent attention as well.
Global events are also heavily portrayed and focussed on by media corporations and news organizations. When a global issue occurs, audiences and society look towards media corporations for information regarding the event. This gives corporations the power to portray the events in a way which benefits them, which is usually by creating a Moral Panic around these events. A moral panic can be described as a widespread and irrational fear about a certain event, social group, place, etc. Moral panics happen frequently in the media, of which a recent example would be the Israel-Palestine conflict that began in October of 2023. The Palestinian militant group "Hamas" had initiated the conflict by firing missiles into Israel, where shortly thereafter Israel had launched a full scale counter attack into Gaza. This was covered by news organizations across the globe, with many different viewpoints of the conflict based on the beliefs and values of the news organizations themselves. Islamic and middle eastern news corporations heavily backed the Palestinian cause, criticizing Israel for its oppressive and immoral occupation of Palestine, whereas Western media organizations, especially those in the United States, glaringly try to paint Israel as the victim of the conflict. American right wing media organizations like Fox News quickly published articles calling Hamas a "Brutal terrorist organization", and spreading the message that the entire Palestinian population were cruel and barbaric, cherrypicking specific videos, photos, and stories where Hamas soldiers had been seen murdering Israeli civilians, while not looking at the far more common instance of the same thing occurring with Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians instead. A hostility complex was then created against the entire Palestinian people, leading the majority of American audiences to now see not just Hamas, but Palestine as a whole as "folk devils". The next and most important stage of moral panic then occurred, and still occurs today, where news organizations share heavily exaggerated, and even made up stories of the suffrage of Israeli people, their hostages, and the jewish community across the globe, focussing on their suffering and how Israel needs to "wipe out" Palestine. This is majorly due to the United State's strong alliance with Israel, and the US's warmongering nature, as everyday the conflict continues, the more weapons the US gets to sell to Israel, and the more money they generate. Both right-wing and left-wing media have shared this view of villainizng Palestine, and further generating hatred and hostility towards Palestinians and Middle easterns as a whole, which in part stems from the fact that the United States have the largest Jewsih population in the world outside of Israel, and how a large portion of incredibly powerful people (politicians, businessmen, etc.) who run the United States, are Jewish. This moral panic that creates fear in the general population against Palestinian people stands to benefit these American media organizations, as the more fear there is, the more often it is that people click on news articles and watch the news, which subsequently generates more revenue for said corporations. This goes to show how media corporations benefit from and why they can and will use their power to alter public opinion to their own advantage. On the other hand though, activism on social media sites like X and Instagram has led to many individuals seeing through the fear mongering nature of these news organizations, with millions of American citizens voicing their opinions through country wide protests that aimed to stop the war in Palestine, and called for the immediate stoppage of all US support of Israel and their war crimes.
The media provides a portrayal of many different people, which includes celebrities and stars. Depending on how the media presents them, the opinion of audiences on these celebrities is bound to change with it. According to Richard Dyer's theory of Stardom, audiences will be interested in celebrities due to their "real personas", which include aspects such as their love life, their ordinariness, their success story, as well as their downfall. All these aspects are separated from their reel persona, which is where they exist in their career, while their real personas are who they are outside of their careers. A prominent example of a star who has been in the limelight of recent media attention would be the American Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. Swift rose to stardom in the mid 2000's, and gained a loyal following due to her songs that focussed on her personal experiences with love, breakups, relationships, and more. Today, she is one of, if not the biggest artist of this generation, and one of the most influential women in the world. However, the media portrayal of Swift hasn't always been as bright and positive as it is now. Previous controversies, especially those with American rapper Kanye West, saw Swift fall from the public eye after media outlets, mainly tabloids like MTV and TMZ, published heavily exaggerated stories of the controversy, in which Swift was labeled a hypocrite and a liar, after commenting on West's usage comment regarding how he made her "famous" in one of his songs. The public had lashed out heavily on Swift, which saw Kanye West's fans, as well as her own fans spread hate against her, with hashtags of snake emojis and "She's a snake!" trending on social media sites such as Twitter (Now X). The controversy blew over quickly however after her album "Reputation" released in 2017, wherein she had addressed the controversy directly, and had her audience back on her side. Back in the present however, Swift's glare is once again at an all time high, with the Pop industry almost revolving entirely around her, even being given the title of Time Magazines "2023 Person of the Year." This current spotlight heavily revolves around her personal life, specifically her widely public relationship with NFL star Travis Kelce, which became public in October of 2023. Media coverage of her has been incredibly positive almost ever since, with magazines, news sites, and news channels all gushing over Swift finding the "Perfect" one for her after a string of failed, and also heavily publicized, relationships. The attention that she receives for this from audiences can be once again explained by Dyer's Stardom theory, specifically the fact of how audiences become obsessed with a star due to their love life and relationships, as they may also want to have relationships like that in their own lives. Media corporations also benefit highly from this as the more articles they can produce about the couple, the more revenue they generate from audiences clicking on their sites and reading their articles. Overall, Swifts rise, fall, and rise again provides a great insight into how the media can help change audience opinions on celebrities, and how they stand to gain from the subsequent attention as well.
Global events are also heavily portrayed and focussed on by media corporations and news organizations. When a global issue occurs, audiences and society look towards media corporations for information regarding the event. This gives corporations the power to portray the events in a way which benefits them, which is usually by creating a Moral Panic around these events. A moral panic can be described as a widespread and irrational fear about a certain event, social group, place, etc. Moral panics happen frequently in the media, of which a recent example would be the Israel-Palestine conflict that began in October of 2023. The Palestinian militant group "Hamas" had initiated the conflict by firing missiles into Israel, where shortly thereafter Israel had launched a full scale counter attack into Gaza. This was covered by news organizations across the globe, with many different viewpoints of the conflict based on the beliefs and values of the news organizations themselves. Islamic and middle eastern news corporations heavily backed the Palestinian cause, criticizing Israel for its oppressive and immoral occupation of Palestine, whereas Western media organizations, especially those in the United States, glaringly try to paint Israel as the victim of the conflict. American right wing media organizations like Fox News quickly published articles calling Hamas a "Brutal terrorist organization", and spreading the message that the entire Palestinian population were cruel and barbaric, cherrypicking specific videos, photos, and stories where Hamas soldiers had been seen murdering Israeli civilians, while not looking at the far more common instance of the same thing occurring with Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians instead. A hostility complex was then created against the entire Palestinian people, leading the majority of American audiences to now see not just Hamas, but Palestine as a whole as "folk devils". The next and most important stage of moral panic then occurred, and still occurs today, where news organizations share heavily exaggerated, and even made up stories of the suffrage of Israeli people, their hostages, and the jewish community across the globe, focussing on their suffering and how Israel needs to "wipe out" Palestine. This is majorly due to the United State's strong alliance with Israel, and the US's warmongering nature, as everyday the conflict continues, the more weapons the US gets to sell to Israel, and the more money they generate. Both right-wing and left-wing media have shared this view of villainizng Palestine, and further generating hatred and hostility towards Palestinians and Middle easterns as a whole, which in part stems from the fact that the United States have the largest Jewsih population in the world outside of Israel, and how a large portion of incredibly powerful people (politicians, businessmen, etc.) who run the United States, are Jewish. This moral panic that creates fear in the general population against Palestinian people stands to benefit these American media organizations, as the more fear there is, the more often it is that people click on news articles and watch the news, which subsequently generates more revenue for said corporations. This goes to show how media corporations benefit from and why they can and will use their power to alter public opinion to their own advantage. On the other hand though, activism on social media sites like X and Instagram has led to many individuals seeing through the fear mongering nature of these news organizations, with millions of American citizens voicing their opinions through country wide protests that aimed to stop the war in Palestine, and called for the immediate stoppage of all US support of Israel and their war crimes.
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