© Media Watch 10 (3) 675-686, 2019
ISSN 0976-0911 E-ISSN 2249-8818
DOI: 10.15655/mw/2019/v10i3/49698
US Presidential Elections 2016: A Comparative Study of Media Coverage of CNN and FOX News
Rohail Asghar¹, Mohsin Hassan Khan², Rashid Ali Khuhro³,
Hamedi Mohd Adnan4, & SARA Hamad Alqurainy5
1Superior University, Lahore, Pakistan
³University of Sindh, Pakistan
2,4,5University of Malaya, Malaysia
Abstract
The Presidential Elections in the United States have always remained the focus of attention for public and media. By playing the role of watchdog in the American society, mass media looks keenly and deeply on the policies, personal life, and character of Presidential Candidates during Presidential Elections of the country. The study examines and compares news coverage of the United States of America’s (USA) Presidential Elections-2016 of two most Papular cable news television networks, i.e., FOX and CNN. This quantitative content analysis study purposively selected ninety news stories which were aired during the USA Presidential Elections-2016 from August 7, 2016, to November 7, 2016. The chosen news stories were analyzed according to the Framing theory’s episodic and thematic frames. The findings reveal that the CNN, a leading supporter of Hillary Clinton, frames her more episodically and more thematically to Donald Trump in its stories. On the other hand, the FOX News stories presented Donald Trump more in the episodic frames and Hillary Clinton in more the thematic frames. The study concludes that both news channels, FOX and CNN have mostly framed both USA Presidential Elections’ candidates; Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton episodically by focusing more on their scandals and controversies related to their personal lives or character rather than on their policies and debates.
Keywords: US Presidential Elections 2016, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, FOX, CNN, episodic, thematic
References
Arif, M., & Hayat, N. (2018). International Media Framing of China’s Domestic Politics: An Analysis of Aljazeera English and BBC News. Media Watch 9 (1) 89-105, 2018
Auletta, K. (2003). Vox Fox: how Roger Ailes and Fox News are changing cable news. The New Yorker, 26. Retrieved from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/05/26/vox-fox
Collins, S. (2004). Crazy like a fox: The inside story of how Fox News beat CNN: Portfolio.
DellaVigna, S., & Kaplan, E. (2007). The Fox News effect: Media bias and voting. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 122(3), 1187-1234.
Esser, F., & Hemmer, K. (2008). Characteristics and dynamics of election news coverage in Germany. The handbook of election news coverage around the world, 289-307.
Francia, P. L. (2018). Free media and Twitter in the 2016 presidential election: The unconventional campaign of Donald Trump. Social Science Computer Review, 36(4), 440-455. doi: 10.1177/0894439317730302
Gamson, W. A., & Modigliani, A. (1989). Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: A constructionist approach. American Journal of Sociology, 95(1), 1-37.
Gopalkrishnan, S. (2017). The Trump Campaign Computational Propaganda Challenge for the Indian Parliamentary Elections 2019. Media Watch, 9(1), 79-88.
Gross, K., & D’ambrosio, L. (2004). Framing emotional response. Political Psychology, 25(1), 1-29.
Iyengar, S. (1994). Is Anyone Responsible?: How television frames political issues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Khan, M. H., Adnan, H. M., Kaur, S., Khuhro, R. A., Asghar, R., & Jabeen, S. (2019). Muslims’ Representation in Donald Trump’s Anti-Muslim-Islam Statement: A Critical Discourse Analysis. Religions, 10(2), 115.
Leubsdorf, C. P. (1976). The Reporter and the Presidential Candidate. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 427(1), 1-11.
Livingston, S., & Bennett, W. L. (2003). Gatekeeping, indexing, and live-event news: Is technology altering the construction of news? Political Communication, 20(4), 363-380.
Matheny, T., Poe, P., Fisher, M., & Warren, S. (2018). Chaos and stability in Donald Trump’s acceptance speech. Media Watch, 9(3), 260-266.
McCombs, M., & Ghanem, S. I. (2001). The convergence of agenda setting and framing. In Framing public life (pp. 83-98): Routledge.
Patterson, T. E. (2016). News coverage of the 2016 general election: how the press failed the voters. Retrieved from https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-general-election/
Patterson, T. E. (2017). News Coverage of Donald Trump’s First 100 Days. Retrieved from https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/news-coverage-donald-trumps-first-100-days
PEW Research Center. (2004). News Audiences Increasingly Politicized: Choice of president matters more in 2004. Retrieved from https://www.people-press.org/2004/06/08/news-audiences-increasingly-politicized/
Rutenberg, J. (2003). War or No, News on Cable Already Provides the Drama. New York Times. Retrieved fromhttps://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/15/business/media-business-advertising-war-no-cable-already-provides-drama.html?mtrref=www.google.com.pk&gwh=971B2CAA5F2EF59224974AF8B3868F92&gwt=pay
Scheufele, D. A., & Tewksbury, D. (2007). Framing, agenda setting, and priming: The evolution of three media effects models. Journal of communication, 57(1), 9-20. doi:10.1111/j.0021-9916.2007.00326.x
Semetko, H. A., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2000). Framing European politics: A content analysis of press and television news. Journal of communication, 50(2), 93-109.
Shah, D. V., Watts, M. D., Domke, D., & Fan, D. P. (2002). News framing and cueing of issue regimes: Explaining Clinton’s public approval in spite of scandal. Public Opinion Quarterly, 66(3), 339-370.
Hamedi Mohd Adnan (Ph.D., University of Malaya, Malaysia, 2001) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communication Studies, University of Malaya, Malaysia.
Rohail Asghar is a lecturer in the Department of Media and Communication Studies, Superior University, Lahore, Pakistan.
Mohsin Hassan Khan is a doctorate candidate in the Department of Media and Communication Studies, University of Malaya, Malaysia.
Rashid Ali Khuhro is a lecturer in the Center for Rural Development Communication (CRDC), University of Sindh, Pakistan. Currently, he is pursuing his PhD in the Department of Media and Communication Studies, University of Malaya.
Sara Hamad Alqurainy is a doctorate candidate in the Department of Media and Communication Studies, University of Malaya.