Fox News and American Politics

Fox News and American Politics

Author: Dan Cassino

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-14

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 1317479998

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In recent years, scholars have argued that the ability of people to choose which channel they want to watch means that television news is just preaching to the choir, and doesn’t change any minds. However, this book shows that the media still has an enormous direct impact on American society and politics. While past research has emphasized the indirect effects of media content on attitudes – through priming or framing, for instance – Dan Cassino argues that past data on both the public opinion and the media side wasn’t detailed enough to uncover it. Using a combination of original national surveys, large scale content analysis of news coverage along with data sets as disparate as FBI gun background checks and campaign contribution records, Cassino discusses why it’s important to treat different media sources separately, estimating levels of ideological bias for television media sources as well as the differences in the topics that the various media sources cover. Taking this into account proves that exposure to some media sources can serve to actually make Americans less knowledgeable about current affairs, and more likely to buy into conspiracy theories. Even in an era of declining viewership, the media – especially Fox News – are shaping our society and our politics. This book documents how this is happening, and shows the consequences for Americans. The quality of journalism is more than an academic question: when coverage focuses on questionable topics, or political bias, there are consequences.


Hoax

Hoax

Author: Brian Stelter

Publisher: Atria/One Signal Publishers

Published: 2020-08-25

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 1982142448

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INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An NPR Best Book of the Year “A thorough and damning exploration of the incestuous relationship between Trump and his favorite channel.” —The New York Times “A Rosetta Stone for stuff about this presidency that doesn’t otherwise make sense to normal humans.” —Rachel Maddow, MSNBC “Stelter’s critique goes beyond salacious tidbits about extramarital affairs (though there are plenty of those) to expose a collusion that threatens the pillars of our democracy.” —The Washington Post The urgent and untold story of the collusion between Fox News and Donald Trump from the New York Times bestselling author of Top of the Morning. While other leaders were marshaling resources to combat the greatest pandemic in modern history, President Donald Trump was watching TV. Trump watches over six hours of Fox News a day, a habit his staff refers to as “executive time.” In January 2020, when Fox News began to downplay COVID-19, the President was quick to agree. In March, as the deadly virus spiraled out of control, Sean Hannity mocked “coronavirus hysteria” as a “new hoax” from the left. Millions of Americans took Hannity and Trump's words as truth—until some of them started to get sick. In Hoax, CNN anchor and chief media correspondent Brian Stelter tells the twisted story of the relationship between Donald Trump and Fox News. From the moment Trump glided down the golden escalator to announce his candidacy in the 2016 presidential election to his acquittal on two articles of impeachment in early 2020, Fox hosts spread his lies and smeared his enemies. Over the course of two years, Stelter spoke with over 250 current and former Fox insiders in an effort to understand the inner workings of Rupert Murdoch's multibillion-dollar media empire. Some of the confessions are alarming. “We don't really believe all this stuff,” a producer says. “We just tell other people to believe it.” At the center of the story lies Sean Hannity, a college dropout who, following the death of Fox News mastermind Roger Ailes, reigns supreme at the network that pays him $30 million a year. Stelter describes the raging tensions inside Fox between the Trump loyalists and the few remaining journalists. He reveals why former chief news anchor Shep Smith resigned in disgust in 2019; why a former anchor said “if I stay here I’ll get cancer;” and how Trump has exploited the leadership vacuum at the top to effectively seize control of the network. Including never before reported details, Hoax exposes the media personalities who, though morally bankrupt, profit outrageously by promoting the President’s propaganda and radicalizing the American right. It is a book for anyone who reads the news and wonders: How did this happen?


Fox Populism

Fox Populism

Author: Reece Peck

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-01-03

Total Pages: 563

ISBN-13: 1108693563

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Fox Populism offers fresh insights into why the Fox News Channel has been both commercially successful and politically effective. Where existing explanations of Fox's appeal have stressed the network's conservative editorial slant, Reece Peck sheds light on the importance of style as a generative mode of ideology. The book traces the historical development of Fox's counter-elite news brand and reveals how its iconoclastic news style was crafted by fusing two class-based traditions of American public culture: one native to the politics in populism and one native to the news field in tabloid journalism. Using the network's coverage of the late-2000s economic crisis as the book's principal case study, Peck then shows how style is deployed as a political tool to frame news events. A close analysis of top-rated programs reveals how Fox hails its audience as 'the real Americans' and successfully represents narrow, conservative political demands as popular and universal.


Network Propaganda

Network Propaganda

Author: Yochai Benkler

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-09-17

Total Pages: 473

ISBN-13: 0190923644

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This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Is social media destroying democracy? Are Russian propaganda or "Fake news" entrepreneurs on Facebook undermining our sense of a shared reality? A conventional wisdom has emerged since the election of Donald Trump in 2016 that new technologies and their manipulation by foreign actors played a decisive role in his victory and are responsible for the sense of a "post-truth" moment in which disinformation and propaganda thrives. Network Propaganda challenges that received wisdom through the most comprehensive study yet published on media coverage of American presidential politics from the start of the election cycle in April 2015 to the one year anniversary of the Trump presidency. Analysing millions of news stories together with Twitter and Facebook shares, broadcast television and YouTube, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the architecture of contemporary American political communications. Through data analysis and detailed qualitative case studies of coverage of immigration, Clinton scandals, and the Trump Russia investigation, the book finds that the right-wing media ecosystem operates fundamentally differently than the rest of the media environment. The authors argue that longstanding institutional, political, and cultural patterns in American politics interacted with technological change since the 1970s to create a propaganda feedback loop in American conservative media. This dynamic has marginalized centre-right media and politicians, radicalized the right wing ecosystem, and rendered it susceptible to propaganda efforts, foreign and domestic. For readers outside the United States, the book offers a new perspective and methods for diagnosing the sources of, and potential solutions for, the perceived global crisis of democratic politics.


Retaking America

Retaking America

Author: Nick Adams

Publisher: Post Hill Press

Published: 2016-02-23

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 1618688510

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Political correctness has ripped through America, turning life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness into lifelessness, suppression and the pursuit of mediocrity. Meanwhile, Europe is in its death throes, completely infected by the political correctness disease. Australian Nick Adams believes only America has the cure. But the race is on. Will America be able to save itself in time, and lead a stunning turnaround–or will it succumb to a European fate? With creativity, flair and his trademark wit, Australian Nick Adams deftly exposes why political correctness is behind every problem in America today, and why it is every American’s patriotic duty to defy politically correct mandates. He explains Americans face a momentous choice in this election year, and lays out a roadmap for an American renaissance.


Broken News

Broken News

Author: Chris Stirewalt

Publisher: Center Street

Published: 2022-08-23

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 1546002812

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"One of America’s most experienced and exemplary journalists has written an unsparing analysis of the dreadful consequences -- for journalism and the nation -- of ‘how the news lost a race to the bottom with itself.’” -- George F. Will In this national bestseller, Chris Stirewalt, a former Fox News political editor, takes readers inside America’s broken newsrooms that have succumbed to the temptation of “rage revenue.” One of America’s sharpest political analysts, Stirewalt employs his trademark wit and insight to reveal how these media organizations slant coverage – and why that drives political division and rewards outrageous conduct. The New York Times wrote that Stirewalt’s book "is an often candid reflection on the state of political journalism and his time at Fox News, where such post-mortem assessments are not common..." Broken News is a fascinating, deeply researched, conversation-provoking study of how the news is made and how it must be repaired. Stirewalt goes deep inside the history of the industry to explain how today’s media divides America for profit. And he offers practical advice for how readers, listeners, and viewers can (and should) become better news consumers for the sake of the republic.


The New American Revolution

The New American Revolution

Author: Kayleigh McEnany

Publisher: Threshold Editions

Published: 2019-09-03

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1501179691

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In this essential exploration of the American heartland, Kayleigh McEnany presents an eye-opening collection of interviews and stories about the powerful grassroots populist movement of frustrated Americans left behind by the government that changed the landscape of political campaigns forever Kayleigh McEnany spent months traveling throughout the United States, conducting interviews with citizens whose powerful and moving stories were forgotten or intentionally ignored by our leaders. Through candid, one-on-one conversations, they discussed their deeply personal stories and the issues that are most important to them, such as illegal immigration, safety from terrorist attacks, and religious freedom. The New American Revolution chronicles both the losses of these grassroots voters, as well as their ultimate victory in November 2016. Kayleigh also includes interviews with key figures within President Trump’s administration—including Ivanka Trump, Secretary Ben Carson, Jared Kushner, and many more—and their experiences on the road leading up to President Trump’s historic win. Kayleigh’s journey takes her from a family cabin in Ohio to the empty factories in Flint, Michigan, from sunny Florida to a Texas BBQ joint—and, of course, ends up at the White House. The collective grievance of the American electorate reveals a deep divide between leaders and citizens. During a time of stark political division, Kayleigh discovers a personal unity and common thread of humanity that binds us nevertheless. Through faith in God and unimaginable strength, these forgotten men and women have overcome, even when their leaders turned their heads. An insightful book about the triumph of this powerful movement, The New American Revolution is a potent testament to the importance of their message.


The Loudest Voice in the Room

The Loudest Voice in the Room

Author: Gabriel Sherman

Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks

Published: 2017-02-14

Total Pages: 578

ISBN-13: 0812982738

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A revelatory journey inside the world of Fox News and Roger Ailes—the brash, sometimes combative network head who helped fuel the rise of Donald Trump NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A SHOWTIME LIMITED SERIES • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR When Rupert Murdoch enlisted Roger Ailes to launch a cable news network in 1996, American politics and media changed forever. With a remarkable level of detail and insight, Vanity Fair magazine reporter Gabriel Sherman puts Ailes’s unique genius on display, along with the outsize personalities—Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Megyn Kelly, Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, Glenn Beck, Mike Huckabee, Gretchen Carlson, Bill Shine, and others—who have helped Fox News play a defining role in the great social and political controversies of the past two decades. From the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal to the Bush-Gore recount, from the war in Iraq to the Tea Party attack on the Obama presidency, Roger Ailes developed an unrivaled power to sway the national agenda. Even more, he became the indispensable figure in conservative America and the man any Republican politician with presidential aspirations had to court. How did this man become the master strategist of our political landscape? In revelatory detail, Sherman chronicles the rise of Ailes, a frail kid from an Ohio factory town who, through sheer willpower, the flair of a showman, fierce corporate politicking, and a profound understanding of the priorities of middle America, built the most influential television news empire of our time. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with Fox News insiders past and present, Sherman documents Ailes’s tactical acuity as he battled the press, business rivals, and countless real and perceived enemies inside and outside Fox. Sherman takes us inside the morning meetings in which Ailes and other high-level executives strategized Fox’s presentation of the news to advance Ailes’s political agenda; provides behind-the-scenes details of Ailes’s crucial role as finder and shaper of talent, including his sometimes rocky relationships with Fox News stars such as O’Reilly, Hannity, and Carlson; and probes Ailes’s fraught partnership with his equally brash and mercurial boss, Rupert Murdoch. Roger Ailes’s life is a story worthy of Citizen Kane. Featuring an afterword about Ailes’s epic downfall during the extraordinary 2016 election, The Loudest Voice in the Room is an extraordinary feat of reportage with a compelling human drama at its heart.


Fixing American Politics

Fixing American Politics

Author: Roderick P. Hart

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-11-29

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 1000478882

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Fixing American Politics: Solutions for the Media Age brings together original chapters from 34 noted scholars from two disciplines – political science and communication – asked to identify the most pressing problems facing the American people and how they can be solved. Authors address the questions succinctly and directly, with their favored solutions featured in chapter titles that exhort and inspire. The book gives the reader much to think about and debate. Should news outlets be funded with public money rather than by private enterprise? Are the new social media a boon or a bane to political elections? Is the American past dead, or is it living once again? Do churchgoers and environmentalists have anything to discuss? Is the FCC doing its job? Can political ads be made less toxic? Should Fox News be "cancelled?" Should cancel cultures be cancelled? Can we become more civil to one another and, if so, how? Fixing American Politics poses all the best questions ... and offers some concrete answers as well. This book is perfect for students, citizens, the media, and anyone concerned with contemporary challenges to civic life and discourse today.


Crazy Like a Fox

Crazy Like a Fox

Author: Scott Collins

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13:

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In the tradition of "The Late Shift" comes the dramatic inside story of how upstart Fox News toppled CNN and MSNBC for cable news supremacy.