State of the Fragmented Union

Despite CNN's supposed "exclusive" coverage of the event, FOX News and C-SPAN were also streaming live footage of the State of the Union on their respective networks, providing insight and opinions before and after the President's speech. C-SPAN's coverage was quite impartial as always, but not FOX and CNN, which together illustrate the idea of "high choice media": people of certain beliefs and political views can watch and read news in so called "echo chambers"  where their beliefs are reinforced and over time intensified. As a media studies student, I put aside my political beliefs and watched a little bit of both the more liberal-leaning CNN and conservative FOX to see how these two sources differed and ultimately contribute to the fragmentation and polarization of American politics.

The preliminary coverage for both networks were relatively the same: CNN and FOX had panel-like discussions between liberals, conservatives and perhaps a few moderate analysts. But after the speech, the thoughts differed considerably.

While watching FOX, I heard people saying that Obama did nothing special and that he dropped the ball at a time when he could have gone out of his comfort zone and really sparked a movement toward a better nation. Charles Krauthammer was particularly negative about Obama's speech, basically saying that he played it safe and did not bring anything new to the table. One would expect harsh criticism  like that coming from the conservative network. On the bottom of the screen was a text box showing Obama's main points in the most simplistic, mundane sentences possible. I guess this is to help those who were unable to follow the speech, but it seems like FOX was making Obama's message boring and uninspiring.

I switched over to CNN to find Wolf Blitzer leading a panel discussion of contributers from mixed political preferences. The first thing I heard was "transformative speech," which was the total opposite of what I had heard on FOX not even a minute earlier. What next caught my attention was Piers Morgan, an entertainment journalist and new host of Piers Morgan Tonight on CNN. Now he may be quite politically educated, but he is a British talk show host helping to represent the conservative side of the post-State-of-the-Union debate. I may just be trying too hard to find faults in the media, but it seems like CNN didn't make the conservative side of the debate as strong as it could have been, or, as strong as the liberal side.

So in the end I found two huge news networks covering the same story in similar fashions, but yielding completely different opinions and thoughts on the matter. Personally, this experience has reinforced the idea that these large media networks purposefully appeal to a certain politically-minded demographic. And why wouldn't they considering pandering to a group of people and telling them what they want to hear ensures a steady revenue? These partisan networks are dragging this nation farther and farther away from political harmony: a utopia where both sides of the political debate are knowledgeable of and understand the views of the opposing side. As sources of biased information and analysis become more powerful, so will the forces that are polarizing politics and fragmenting the nation.


The information obtained for this article pertaining to high choice media can be found here.