ANALYZING NEWS MEDIA CONTENT USING THE SPIRAL OF SILENCE THEORY AND POLITICAL-ECONOMIC THEORY

The mass media today is regarded as the main ingredients of democracy in the world. This is simply for their role in supplying the public with the relevant information be it political, economical or social, and their ability to check public officials to ensure that the public is not undercharged. The mass media also provides the public with the bulk of information regarding social problems. They also provide forums where discussions can be initiated to provide solutions to issues affecting the society. The mass media today, plays the significant role of watching out for the society. They do this to ensure that elected officials and those entrusted with public offices do not commit errors and wrongdoings when undertaking their duties. For this reason, the mass media should be independent, unbiased, courageous and fair in their undertaking. This means that their reports, stories that and information feed to the public should be a fair representation of realities on the ground. Thus, their information should not be influenced by those in authority or the privileged segments of the society. This paper is intended to examine and analyze the theories that guide mass media in determining their stories, and help evaluate whether mass media can be fair, free and unbiased to enable them perform their roles in today’s society.The spiral of silence theory postulates that some groups within the society remain silent while others are outspoken in public forums such as the mass media. According to the theory, groups with unpopular opinions remain quite due to the unpopularity of their opinions while those with popular opinions become outspoken. In mass media, according to the spiral of silence theory media outlets express popular opinions while those issues that are deemed unpopular disappear from the public limelight. Considering that one of the main objectives of the media is to inform the public, issues that express the minority view are left out due to their unpopularity (Baran & Davis, 2012). This means that what is considered as the relevant news by the media outlets is determined by how popular or unpopular an issue is, and not how informative a story or an article is. Those issues or opinions that are seen as popular by the consuming public are given more weight and coverage than all the other issues regardless of how useful and new they are to the public. This answers the question why most popular media outlets seem to carry similar stories as their headlines. The spiral of silence theory can, therefore, be used to examine how some items in the media are given more weight than others. The theory postulates that opinion and issues that are seen as popular among the consuming public become the main new items, while those issues that express the opinions of the minority barely get mentioned (Baran & Davis, 2012).The year 2012 is a presidential election year in the USA. The public media forums are, therefore, dominated by political news especially the nomination of the candidates, and the predictions of how they are likely to perform. The Washington post, for instance, on Wednesday 4th carried a headline covering the New Hampshire presidential nomination debate. The article indicated that Mitt Romney was the favorite republican candidate, and in the New Hampshire State, the other candidates attacked his much touted record (Harrison, 2012). Although he is yet to win the republican presidential party nomination, the media outlets are already fronting him as the popular candidate. The headline was replicated in many of the popular media forums within the country. This does not mean that the story was the most significant happening in the country. However, being the electioneering year, such a story is considered by most media outlet as the most popular. This is due to the fact that the entire nation is expected to be focused on the election news as they unfold throughout the year.The spiral of silence theory here can, therefore, be said to come into play. In that, the media outlets are likely to focus on such stories as their main feature since they are popular with the public. The technological advances today also allow media outlets to conduct opinion polls to gauge their leadership opinion on the popularity of various candidates taking part in the nominations. The popular candidates as indicated by the opinion polls are, therefore, likely to enjoy more coverage that those deemed less popular. Media outlets, therefore, appear to front the candidates that they perceive popular with their leadership giving the positive coverage than others (Baran & Davis, 2012). This is used as ruse to maintain readers and acquire new ones. Politics and political scandals are also popular with the masses. Therefore, stories where candidates or political leaders are caught up in murky affairs or scandals become main stories overnight and media outlets seem to compete on who can cover the story from many angles. Other issues and happenings in the society, therefore, get relegated to small prints within the papers regardless of their importance. In other words, the mass media seem to feed the public with what they want and not necessary the most informative issue.The spiral of silence theory works on the assumption that people fear rejection due to their unpopular opinions. They, therefore, choose silence. Rejection to mass media outlets means fewer consumers of their news and stories as compared to those of their competitors. This has commercial implication since they have to sell their papers to the public to attract advertising revenues, which are some of their major sources of incomes (Baran & Davis, 2012). Expressing unpopular or the minority view would, therefore, imply fewer readerships as compared to those that are popular. Conversely, this means lower revenues, which can mean mass media outlet being run out of the industry, ironically for choosing to be informative rather that provide popular news. The spiral of silence theory, therefore, queries the credibility and independence of the mass media.Political economy can be said to describe the way values are produced, exchanged, distributed and consumed and how power is exercised, distributed, produced and exchanged. The theory of political economy in mass communication evaluates how the elite tend to monopolies the information and, therefore, knowledge. According to this theory, media productions are determined by economical considerations (Luhmann, 2000). This, therefore, means that the elite members of the society or the rich and powerful determine the information that the media gives to the public. In other words, the media depends on advertisement revenues to survive. Those revenues accrue as a result of their favorable relationship with the owners of resources thus what the public consumes is mainly determined by those who pay for the advertisements. Economics is, therefore, a vital determinant of the stories that will carry the day. This perhaps explains why the media outlets are mostly dominated by election items whenever an electioneering year approaches since the elite also wield political power or have vested interest in the various candidates taking place get to influence the media (Stacks & Salwen, 2008). Candidates require a lot of resources to run successful; campaigns and most of the funds that are raised eventually end up paying for advertisements in the various media outlet.Elections, candidates and media outlets have mutually beneficial relationships, and media outlet can influence the outcome of an election by shaping the public’s ‘opinion through their stories and depiction of preferred candidates. Indeed different media outlets have their customary party or candidate whom they provide support. The story on Washington post is, therefore, geared towards shaping the opinions of the public in a certain way. This is exemplified by the reference that Mitt Romney as the favorite to win the republican nomination, although the nominations have just begun (Harrison, 2012). In other words, the paper and the article are intended to shape the public view of the candidate as the likely winner and in the process win their votes.Some of the major roles that the mass media outlets are entrusted with are those of informing the public, acting as the society’s watchdogs in public affairs and presenting fair and unbiased information. To enable this, simply implies that the mass media should be free of influences in their reporting, opinions and determining which stories to cover. This, however, is more theoretical than practical or realistic when on evaluates who stories are determined by media outlets using the two theories.  According to the spiral of silence theory, groups with unpopular opinions remain quite due to the unpopularity of their opinions while those with popular opinions dominate the public forums. The mass media, express popular opinions while those issues that are deemed unpopular disappear from the public limelight. Therefore, one of the main objectives of the media, which is to inform the public, becomes compromised by the popular opinion or public demand. This means that there is a higher possibility of sweeping weighty issues under the carpet if they are deemed unpopular. Similarly, the political economy theory also presents possible scenarios where stories or news get determined on monetary gain basis rather that the value of the information. This implies that the two theories indicate the possibility of manipulating what is news worthy to the society for economic and popular reasons