ARTS1091: Media Framing, Political Economy, and Digital Audiences

This essay examines the concept of media framing and its effects on the audience, particularly in the digital age. It discusses how media frames information to shape public perception, using examples such as the framing of sexual violence and the portrayal of Africa. The essay also addresses the challenges posed by the political economy of media, where profit motives can influence the information presented. It highlights how agenda-setting and framing effects are used to present content, often shaping opinions and reinforcing existing biases. The analysis draws on various theories, including agenda-setting theory and framing theory, to illustrate how media functions as a gatekeeper, carefully crafting messages to produce specific meanings and influence public opinion. The essay concludes that media plays a significant role in shaping how information is received and interpreted by the public, especially in areas where audiences lack direct knowledge.

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Assessment Three
Student’s Name
University

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Portfolio One: Media Framing
The developments that have been taking place in the media have led to a mediatization
process that makes the media to frame and shape the views that the audience has on what they
see, read or watch. From the political economy of the media, the media exists to serve the
purpose of the political and economic class which means the message that comes out must be
shaped and framed to meet the interests of the controller (Van-Gorp 2007, p. 62 ). Valenzuela,
Pina, & Ramirez (2017, p. 804) suggests that framing is thus the social construction of the
audience by the mass media to determine the perception of the audience when the information
reaches them. The topics and content are keenly selected to set an agenda in the mind of the
audience on what they should hear. The media frame is, therefore, the way media gatekeepers
select, organize and relay information to the public to shape the interpretation of the audience
through abstract notions that structure the meanings that people have on the content they receive.
This discussion analyses the concept of media framing and how it affects the audience.
Scheufele & Tewksbury (2007, p. 11) suggests that framing is regarded as a
communication tool for making people select, choose and agree to the content they receive over
what they know or they heard from somewhere else. When the media is used, it shapes the minds
of the people to ensure that they only react and feel information directed to them and not the
actual reality that exists in the society (Byrant & Oliver 2009, p. 22). For example, Johnson &
O’Neil (2018, pp. 3-5) present a media frame on how sexual violence has been turned from an
individual problem to a social and cultural problem. With this frame, the views of the society are
shaped and changed from an individualistic perspective to social-cultural problem where the
issue is seen as beyond the individual. Such framing allows the society to understand the issues
people face and makes it to design interventions based on the frames that exist in the

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society.Since the society has accepted the media as the only surveillance tool, people believe
more what they hear on the media because it is framed to satisfy their information egos. Through
the use of language, the opinions and minds of people are shaped by making them reflect on their
interpretive frameworks by revealing information in a manner that they want to hear. Bowe &
Makki (2016, p. 547) suggest that by twisting words to justify situations, the media makes the
audience to see the reality that they report even if they are wrong. According to agenda-setting
theory, information is designed to set an agenda that the reporters want the public to hear and
influence them. For example, in a public place, when a Muslim says the words “Allahu Akbar”,
people see terrorism because that is what the media has shaped their minds to think.
To have an impact on the consumer, agenda setting and framing effects are used to
present the content to the audience. Through agenda setting, the media is seen as the gatekeeper
of information where it releases the information at the right time when the audience seeks
answers (Fairhurst & Sarr 2009, p. 15). For example, when funny things happen in the society,
the media does digging to reveal the real truth to the public even if the same truth has not been
substantiated. On the hand, Reese & Lewis (2009, p. 781) suggest that framing allows packaging
of information so that it can be presented in a way that relays certain meanings to the public.
Through the use of language, the media develops cognitive frameworks that make it easy
for the audience to understand the real world from the context of the message being presented.
This means that the media will use specific demographics of people to report the hunger and
poverty situation in Africa rather than the use of an objective framework to report information.
From this situation the way African stories are reported to make people have the perception that
Africa is a poor continent which only requires aid, despite the fact that there are brighter sides of

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the continent. This is what Adichie (2010, pp. 2) calls the dangers of a single story, where the
media frames and makes people to see only one side of the story.
According to framing theory, mass media platforms do agenda setting through working
on events that take place in the society and giving them meaning by relating through giving them
meaning to depict certain reality (Moody-Ramirez, Tait, Smith, Fears, Randle 2016, 44).
Therefore, framing theorists focus on the way the information is presented to the audience rather
than the content that is presented. This means the media frames certain events by placing
attention on them and giving the required meaning for the public to understand. This means that
the quality of the content does not matter whether it is a single side of the story or the meaning is
skewed so that the facts of the story are left out, but how the information is presented to the
audience. According to Happer & Philo (2013, p. 5), media framing and perception shaping is
worse in areas that the audience lacks direct knowledge and experience thus relying on the media
to report the facts. For example, elections and public opinions are largely shaped by the way the
media reports about the candidates. The media reports information in a manner that shapes
public reception and ensures to fit in the public opinion being generated.
Since the world is made up of disjointed, contradictory and circulating information, the
media has taken the gatekeeper role for editing and interpreting mass information to make it
sensible to the audience. Clifford, Glasser, McQuail, Nordenstreng, & White (2009, p. 12)
suggest that when such information is presented it is carefully crafted to produce particular
meanings in the eye of the public and at the same time boost the reputation of the media house.
This means that the mass media’s role is to tell us what to think about by organizing the world
for us. This process allows some certain knowledge to be promoted by giving them privileged
status thus making them more truthful or authoritative. This means that the media intentionally

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remove issues from public opinion and presents those that are consistent with its story rather than
giving mixed reactions to the audience.
Therefore, media frames are used by the media to present information to the public in an
organized manner that delivers the expected message. News can have a chaotic flow making it
difficult for people to understand social relationships that exist. This is why the media takes the
gatekeeping role to collect, analyze and present information in a manner that the public
understands. Since masses are seen as chaotic and disorganized, they need to be given only
relevant information that is framed to meet their needs. As such the media is used as a tool for
shaping public opinion and presenting information in the required manner. The media thus plays
a major role in the society to shape the way information is received by the public and how
opinions are shaped.

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References
Adichie, CN 2010, The danger of a single story | [Motion Picture]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=The+Danger+of+a+Single+Story.
Bowe, BJ. & Makki, TW 2016, “Muslim neighbors or an Islamic threat? A constructionist
framing analysis of newspaper coverage of mosque controversies”, Media, Culture &
Society, 38(4), pp. 540-558.
Bryant, J & Oliver, M 2009, Media effects: Advances in theory and research, New York,
Routledge.
Clifford, C, Glasser, TL, McQuail, D, Nordenstreng, K White, RA 2009, “Normative Theories of
the Media”, Journalism in Democratic Societies. Illinois: University of Illinois.
Fairhurst, G & Sarr, R 2009, The art of Framing, San Francisco. Jossey-Bass.
Happer, C & Philo, G 2013, “The Role of the Media in the Construction of Public Belief and
Social Change”, Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 1(1).
Hostler, MJ & O’Neil, M 2018, “Reframing Sexual Violence: From #MeToo to Time’s
Up”, Stanford Social Innovation
Moody-Ramirez, M, Tait, GB, Smith, C, Fears, L & Randle, B 2016, “Citizen Framing of
#Ferguson on Twitter” The Journal of Social Media in Society, 5(3), pp. 37-66.
Reese, S & Lewis, S 2009, “Framing the War on Terror” Journalism, 10(6), pp. 777-787.
Scheufele, DA & Tewksbury, D, 2007, “Framing, Agenda Setting, and Priming: The Evolution
of Three Media Effects Models”, Journal of Communication, 57, 9-20.
Schirato, T, Buettner, A, Jutel, T & Stahl, G 2010, Understanding Media Studies. South
Melbourne, Oxford University Press.

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Valenzuela, S, Pina, M & Ramirez, J 2017, “Behavioral Effects of Framing on Social Media
Users: How Conflict, Economic, Human Interest, and Morality Frames Drive News
Sharing” Journal of Communication, 67(5), 803-826.
Van Gorp, B 2007, “The Constructionist Approach to Framing: Bringing Culture Back In”,
Journal of Communication, 57, 60–78.

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Contemporary issues in the digital Audience Age
The nature of audiences has been evolving since the rise of the media to an information
era where the digital audience is ore polarized as compared to the past. The rise of technology
has created different audiences due to different media sources that people can derive information
from which affects the nature of audience and the issues that affect them. As the society
advances and new technologies come up, contemporary issues arise in the modern world that
makes it difficult for the media to play its traditional role (Havens & Lotz 2012, p. 19).
Advancements in the society have brought new changes to the society and increased the quest for
information. Today, the society is information thirsty due to the rise of new media forms that
allow access to information. The contemporary world, therefore, presents certain challenges to
the media that affect the nature of the information that the audience gets and how this
information is relayed.
One contemporary issue in the digital audience today is the challenges from the political
economy of media. Since the rise of private media houses, the media shifted from surveillance to
profit making. This means that media institutions have to generate revenues to remain relevant in
the society. To achieve this, they rely on paid marketing, advertising and airing of events or
products to the public (Biagi 2004, p. 15). According to the political economy approach, the
media today focuses on power relationships that exist between economics, politics, and
mediation. This is due to the rise of new media forms that allow political economists to use the
digital media and their new technologies to meet their interests. According to Schirato, Buettner,
Jutel, & Stahl (2010, p. 98) the media uses propaganda and framing to shape the views of the
public and make them reason the way the political economy expects them. This makes it easy to
meet the needs since the masses are ignorant and rely on the media to be fed on every piece of
information in the society. This means that the audience have also been framed and designed in a
way that meets the needs of the political economy.
Mirani (2014, pp. 3) argues that the web tells people what to do and forces them to fall in
particular groups denying outside voices the opportunity to come in. Thus people are forced to
read, comment and follow things they would not read if they had a choice. The lapdog theory
states that the media has crawled into the arms of the sponsor rather than being the watchdog
(Greenslade 2007, pp. 5). It is relevant to understand that the media shapes our reception by
preparing messages according to how the political and economic class want the information to be
heard. Meehan & Wasko (2013, p. 265) add that media’s role converges to meet the needs of the
political economy, it is reduced to perceptions and rhetoric created by the message that is
communicated to the masses. This has changed the way the media operates due to marketization
which changed the communication industry.
Another contemporary issue affecting the digital audience today is sensationalism due to
the ability of the media to play up well and focus on sensational stories like sex, murder,
kidnappings, and scandals. Today, most media institutions have been criticized for failing to
adequately cover non-sensational stories more as compared to other stories (Gabriele, 2016; De-
Ridder, Vesnic-Alujevic, & Romic). For example, in an American Society of Newspaper Editors,
it was discovered that 80% of Americans view journalists as chasing sensational stories more

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since they sell better (Bednar 2012, p. 6; McAllister 2015, p. 537). Further, some of the stories
are over-dramatized to make them more appealing to the public. This is because the media has
shifted from a surveillance entity to a profit making that has to ensure the information they
present sales. In addition to that social media users only see a small network of the part that the
network sees as relevant thus sensationalizing the information to meet the needs of the corporate
world. These stories are told in a way that seeks to increase the proximity of the story in a
sensory way that lures the audience. This means that the media packages the news today by
emphasizing elements that provoke reactions from the audience. Such stories appear more in the
media are often circulated more as compared to what the society views as important news.
In addition to that, poor coverage of important issues in the society. The increased
coverage of sensational news makes the media to inadequately cover issues that relate to
governance, the environment, education, and easily preventable diseases. According to research,
the media covers more news that sells as compared to the news that is informative or educates
the public (Stephens 2007, p. 19). This is seen in the amount of airtime that important news
receives and the difference in the way sensational news is presented. In most cases, the
sensational news is presented first while important news that matter to the public comes. This is
seen in highlights of television news and cover pages of newspapers.
Further, the media today suffers from high level of inaccuracies that are misinforming the
public. In most countries the freedom of the media allows them to publish any information that
they have acquired regardless of the sources they use. Such information reduces the public
confidence in the media especially when the truth comes out as what was published nit being the
facts or if the public has a different opinion over the same story (Mathur 2012, p. p. 13). In most
cases, mistakes arise from the rush to meet the deadline which makes it difficult for them to
verify the authenticity of the information. In most cases, such information can be misleading and
misinforming to the public and can even divide the audience into different groups based on their
view of reality.
Lastly, another contemporary issue affecting the media is the control of the state through
regulation. The political economy of the media allows the state to gag any information and
control it to the interest of the state. The monitors digital audiences and controls every activity
that people engage in thus limiting the information that they access. As much as the media
enjoys freedom in most countries, there are laws that have been put in place to curb the powers
of the media thus limiting the way they can report (Greenslade 2007, pp. 4). Some information is
deemed confidential or relating to national security thus making it difficult for the public to hear
such news even if when they take place. This has led to the rise of activist groups like WikiLeaks
which have ensured that organizational and government secrets that affect the society are
released to the public thus allowing them to understand challenges that exist.
Therefore, despite the advancements in digital audiences, contemporary issues are still
affecting the way digital audiences operate since some of the issues raise eyebrows on the role of
that the media plays in the society. Further, the converging nature of the media has shifted the
role of the media to a profit-making firm seeking to benefits from the political-economy in the

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society. With this, the operations and independence of the media are compromised making it
difficult to meet its traditional role of gatekeeping.

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References
Bednar, MK 2012, Watchdog or Lapdog? A Behavioral View of the Media as a Corporate
Governance Mechanism, Academy of Management Journal, 55(1).
Biagi, S, 2004, Media Impact, 7th ed. s.l.:Wadsworth Publishing Co.
De-Ridder, S., Vesnic-Alujevic, L., & Romic, B. (n.d.). Challenges when researching digital
audiences: Mapping audience research of software designs, interfaces and platforms.
Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, 13(1), 375-391.
Gabriele, A 2016 Sensationalism and the Genealogy of Modernity: a Global Nineteenth Century
Perspective, London, Macmillan.
Greenslade, R 2007, “Rather barks at 'lapdog' US journalists”, The Guardian.
Havens, T & Lotz, AD 2012, Understanding Media Industries, New York. Oxford University
Press.
Mathur, PK 2012, Social Media and Networking: Concepts, Trends and Dimensions, New
Delhi.
McAllister, MP 2015, “Critical Political Economy of the Media: An Introduction”, Journal of
broadcasting & Electronic Media, 59(3), pp. 533-535.
Stephens, M. (2007). A History of News. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wasko, J 2014, “The study of the political economy of the media in the twenty-first century”,
International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics , 10(3), pp. 259-271.

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Portfolio Three: How social media algorithms are shaping our lives today
The society we live in today is controlled by algorithms that trace every step that people
make in their lives. The rise of algorithms has led to an era of data mining where data about
people is collected by algorithms from social media sites that people interact with. From the
words of Steven Lukes, one way of power is controlling the people think which influences the
things that they do (Naughton 2012, pp. 7). Algorithms are computer programs for analyzing all
kinds of data and predicting meaningful patterns for decisions making. According to Amoore &
Piotukh (2016, p. 21) every program that exists is designed with a set of computer programs that
interact together to generate the content that they want. For example, the government uses such
information to predict patterns of crime and create strategies for addressing them before they
occur.
In the social media world, people spend most of their time on interactive social media
sites where they post their status, react to what others post and even follow certain proceedings
that take place on the platform. To make it more interactive, algorithms are used to display less
information that is only relevant to what people will want to see or like. For example, Spotify
uses Algorithms based on user patterns of the individual to display the songs that relate to their
tastes which makes the user listen to such songs since there are connecting dots between the user
and different songs done by artists (Pasick 2015, pp. 3).As algorithms penetrate the society and
play a role in everything that people do, like suggesting new friends on social media, detecting of
diseases like skin cancer, deciding who gets a job and even predicting the future of things like
stock markets among other things (Beer 2017, p. 5; Scharfer & Van 2016, p. 139). For example,
Donald Trump campaign was assisted by social media algorithms that determined the highest