McCombs 7 & 8: The Power of the Mass Media (Assignment date: 6-15-16)

          After reading chapters 7 and 8 of The News and Public Opinion by Max McCombs, it is made clear (with plenty of justification to boot) that the mass media can dictate public opinions and affect political races to a moderate to large extent. A presented example of this is a media theory/practice called priming. In this theory, an issue that a person believes is more important than others will be used as a determining factor for their view on a particular figure. The media can sway the direction that the priming takes by putting out stories pertaining to an issue of the media's choosing. This can be seen in the current 2016 elections in the form of immigration policy. Because of his ludicrous wall proposal, Donald Trump not only managed to garner nation wide publicity, but he also gathered a large following of (albeit heavily uneducated) voters. These voters were, as a matter of fact, concerned about the flaws in the U.S. immigration policy, or at least wanted to make all Mexicans leave the country to "protect jobs." This stands in stark contrast to his primary competitor Hillary Clinton, who plans to put in place a citizenship program for illegal Mexican aliens, and also stand by President Obama's affirmative action immigration plan, which was recently ruled unconstitutional by the supreme court. As a result, she has not gotten nearly as many voters from her stances on immigration as Donald Trump has.

            Chapter 8 touches on news coverage of candidates in a political race. It presents the conclusion that the public opinion of a candidate can be swayed by not only the amount of coverage provided by the media, but also by the tone in which the coverage is presented. In the case of a news agency having a particular agenda, or a bias in favor of a particular candidate, it can lend more coverage towards said favored candidate in a positive light. In contrast, it can also reduce the coverage of the opposing candidate, and then when coverage is done on them, the company can talk about them in a negative tone, therefore attempting to sway the viewing population in the way the media company wants. An example of this can be found in the New York Times in the form of an extreme bias in favor of Hillary Clinton, and against Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Many commenters have actually dared to call out the Times for their lack of coverage on Senator Sanders, while the coverage on Donald Trump is almost always negative.