User:LBird BASc/sandbox/ATK/Seminar6/Evidence/Evidence in the Media

Evidence in Mass Media

The function of mass media is to deliver information through various platforms. News is a type of media, which aims to broadcast recent events and provide a sense of objectivity. Nevertheless, conflicting evidence can be found in media, where data and facts are manipulated in order to highlight a particular issue or processed in order to fit a certain political propaganda, to promote a party, ideology or conceal an event. Even though people can use the internet to find different sources and evidence regarding an event, mass media such as the news still has a significant influence on people's views. Therefore, interpreting data and information from media outlets can be misleading. Below, examples of these instances in terms of quantitative evidence will be discussed.

Quantitative evidence

Statistics and data is an aspect of evidence that can easily be manipulated in the media. A vivid example is the manipulation of public opinion polls in order to achieve a certain viewpoint in a news report. An example is Ipsos statistics about American opinion on Trump’s immigration policy. Two news magazines published contrasting articles regarding the same data. TIME magazine stated that “Most Americans Don’t Think President Trump’s Immigration Ban Will Make Them Safer”, whilst Breitbart claimed that “ Public overwhelmingly supports Trump push to limit migration.” Thus, different media outlets are able to create their own readings of data in order to appeal to their readers instead of providing accurate and unbiased information.

Alternatively, there can be a manipulation of graphical data. An example is the Fox news report about unemployment levels after Barack Obama became president. A graph shows a steep increasing line, with equal spacing between the dates, even though the time passed between the dates is very different. Therefore, to the viewer it may appear that unemployment levels are constantly rising, whilst in reality they are levelling off.