Applying Hall to Three News Programs

For this assignment I tried to watch a diverse group of news programs in order to get a better understanding of what is going on with representation in news shows. I chose to watch three news programs on February 10^th, 2012 so that I could see which stories were covered in depth by each news program. I watched Democracy Now, The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, and The O’Reilly Factor on Fox. Democracy Now is an extremely Liberal and progressive radio and TV show which features Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales. The Rachel Maddow is another liberal show, however being that it is on MSNBC (prime time network television) it can only be a certain amount Liberal. Lastly, The O’Reilly Factor is a very traditionally Conservative program on an extremely Conservative network. This turned out to be a great idea because I was able to see very easily the kind of Hall’s representation technique each program adopted.

Democracy Now was the first show that I watched. This program seemed very reflective in my opinion. The show starts with a 10 to 15 minute segment where Amy goes over the headlines from all over the world. On 2/10/2012 those included the $25 billion mortgage relief fund that has been supported by Obama, 8 civilian children killed in a NATO strike on Afghanistan,  work conditions in Apple’s Foxconn facilities in China and the protests surrounding these allegations, and even things like addressing the growing gap between rich and poor as was a headline in the New York Times on Friday Morning. This segment gives the viewer an understanding of a large number of issues going on in the world that many other programs just do not offer. The  show then covers some of the issues more in depth, for this episode it was the $25 billion dollars for the mortgage relief fund and the work conditions in Apple’s Chinese Foxconn facilities.

But no...really...there were 12 suicides last year AT the Foxconn facility...clearly the workers were trying to say something to whoever was listening...

 There were multiple guests for each segment which helped to emphasize that the show is much more of a conversation about the news rather than a yelling match or a “story telling” time for the host. There is a lot that each person on the show adds to the conversation about the issues and it gives the viewer the chance to see another side of the issue that is not covered really on mainstream news stations. I can mention that neither of these top two stories from Democracy Now were even mentioned on Maddow or O’Reilly.

Next I watched The Rachel Maddow Show. As far as Hall’s representation techniques go I would say that this program falls under intentional. Anyone who watches Rachel on a regular basis knows that she has a clear political agenda and opinion that frames how she comments on what is going on in the world. To my surprise, nearly the entire program was about election politics. This was shocking to me, especially since I had just watched Democracy Now and noticed that not one of the 8 or so headlines was about election politics or the GOP. She spoke about the issues from her own standpoint—clearly disagreeing with the Republican candidates—etc, etc. This really seemed intentional to me—the clips she showed of Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum—she selected those clips in order to emphasize her point and opinion and get the “liberal” view out there rather than presenting the issues in the election in a clear and unbiased manner.

The last, and in my opinion, the least was The O’Reilly Factor. This episode Laura Ingraham was taking the reigns for Bill as he was out. I found the representation technique surprisingly hard to detect in this particular episode—however after considerations I would classify it was constructionist. The most emphasized stories were about the GOP and the new legislation that Obama introduced in order to require all religious institutions to provide contraception to women regardless of their beliefs and the changes made to this later when he stated that the institution wouldn’t be required to pay for the contraception if they did not want to—the insurance companies could foot the bill.  There was a guest on the program, a Reverend from Cambridge, MA, who supported the new legislation and this startled and upset Ingraham. She attacked the Reverend saying that she was “pro-abortion” also, and that she must have been one of those members of the clergy who had supported the legislation from the beginning (insinuating that the Reverend was wrong in her opinion). There was just such a clearly defined agenda that did not include anyone, including a guest, to deviate from it at all.

I can't help but think...Why didn't Fox or MSNBC cover anything about the protests against the treatment of workers or news about Foxconn facilities in China...?

I think that it most times that I watch the news, especially the local news I notice that there is much more of a constructionist approach however I believe that due to the fact that elections are “coming up” most stations are focused on covering every second of that nonsense. I highly recommend Democracy Now as a regular news program because in all this election haze we are missing tons of information and events that are slipping by right under our noses—everything from the XL pipeline to what is going on with Iran and Syria. We have become so confused as a people by being exposed and un-exposed to critical moments in our history due to these different techniques of representation—it is time that we start to realize what is going on and how to change it.