Media Influence on Political Science Issues and Inequality

This paper examines the impact of media on the coverage of political science issues and the reflection of inequality in media news coverage. It discusses how the media environment has expanded and shaped government institutions, communication processes, and citizen engagement. The paper also explores the role of media in political activities and the influence of economic and political factors on media access and coverage.

Running head: SOCIAL SCIENCE
SOCIAL SCIENCE
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1SOCIAL SCIENCE
Introduction
Politicians frequently encounter diverse range of issues which compete to attain
significant level of attention (Levendusky & Malhotra , 2016). However, a specific portion of
issues can successfully acquire a position on the political agenda. The paper will focus on the
way media influences the coverage of political science issues and the way media news coverage
reflects inequality.
Discussion
The newly developed media environment is highly dynamic and further continues to
expand in originality. However, as per the view of Shah, Cappella and Neuman (2015), the
coverage of political science issues often tend to be unexpected thus result to the rise of critical
consequences for democratic governance as well as politics. News media have drastically shaped
the functioning of the government institutions alongside the communication process of several
political leaders and also focuses on the manner in which elections will be contested as well as
citizen engagement. Studies of Diehl, Weeks and Gil de Zuniga (2016) have noted that the rise of
new media has critically complicated the domain of political media organization. Legacy media
mainly comprising of conventional and recognized agencies of mass-media which follow
information from the Internet, such as news articles, radio shows as well as television news
programs tend to co-subsist with media which are recognized as the result of technological
innovation. However, while legacy media primarily maintain comparatively constant
arrangements, the repetition of new media that involves websites, journals, articles, blogs along
with video-sharing platforms, digital applications as well as social media applications which
have been persistently increasing in pioneering ways.

2SOCIAL SCIENCE
Furthermore, reports of Helfer (2016) have revealed that as media primarily serves
highly decisive roles in a democratic society, as fundamental principle lays on offering relevant
and insightful information to the public in order to form considerate decisions regarding
leadership and governmental policies. Moreover, as per the studies conducted by Diehl, Weeks
and Gil de Zuniga (2016), the news media tend to act as regulators who evaluate the actions of
government agencies. As a result, they strategically set the agenda for public debate of issues
and further offer significant areas of avenues for political expression. Thus, media has been
enabling various communities to aid helping people to seek common causes and further
identifying civic groups and work toward providing solutions to diverse societal issues.
Furthermore, news media directly focuses on directly engaging the people in political activities
such as voting, establishing linkages with public officials and further volunteering in their
communities along with participating in protest movements (Shah, Cappella & Neuman, 2015).
The information networks and communication protocols which trigger media
infrastructures are designed as well as operated by private as well as corporate agencies. Studies
of authors have shed light on substantial level of inequalities in news media access within
nations. According to authors, economic trends are not considered to be acts of God and that
certain nation specific institutions along with historical situations can result to very diverse
inequality outcomes. Moreover, Diehl, Weeks and Gil de Zuniga (2016) have noted that the
degree of wealth and income awareness does not specifically show any form of dependence on
quasinatural economic regulations or predictable expansions, but on the other hand is
significantly influenced by certain political procedures in addition to diverse levels of taxation
and period-specific zeitgeists (Carmichael & Brulle, 2017). Furthermore, Vliegenthart et al.
(2016) have applied the propaganda model to contextualize the coverage on pro-rich tax reforms.

3SOCIAL SCIENCE
Moreover, it has been argued that the formation of agreement in political news narratives which
tends to show less explicitness in comparison to advertising. Drawing relevance to these factors,
authors have revealed that media outlets shows incompetence to account in an unbiased and
impartial assessment as value frames which accentuate on the levels of responsibility to others or
further to the social expenses of inequality and dissimilarity. Furthermore, Helfer (2016) has
argued that information has been framed by means of an elite authority of policy arguments
which results to a indistinct reporting on the extra as well as capital taxes. Additionally, it has
been noted that the political economy tradition provides enriched theoretical approaches which
have contextualized as well as comprehended current procedures of the mediation of inequality.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that mass media serves a
decisive role in influencing political science events, developments and narrations. Thus it can be
noted that news media typically influences the coverage of political science issues and choices
related to public policies.

4SOCIAL SCIENCE
References
Carmichael, J. T., & Brulle, R. J. (2017). Elite cues, media coverage, and public concern: an
integrated path analysis of public opinion on climate change, 2001–2013. Environmental
Politics, 26(2), 232-252.
Diehl, T., Weeks, B. E., & Gil de Zuniga, H. (2016). Political persuasion on social media:
Tracing direct and indirect effects of news use and social interaction. new media &
society, 18(9), 1875-1895.
Helfer, L. (2016). Media effects on politicians: An individual-level political agenda-setting
experiment. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 21(2), 233-252.
Levendusky, M., & Malhotra, N. (2016). Does media coverage of partisan polarization affect
political attitudes?. Political Communication, 33(2), 283-301.
Shah, D. V., Cappella, J. N., & Neuman, W. R. (2015). Big data, digital media, and
computational social science: Possibilities and perils. The ANNALS of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science, 659(1), 6-13.
Vliegenthart, R., Walgrave, S., Baumgartner, F. R., Bevan, S., Breunig, C., Brouard, S., ... &
Palau, A. M. (2016). Do the media set the parliamentary agenda? A comparative study in
seven countries. European Journal of Political Research, 55(2), 283-301.