newspaper tends to blame Palestinians and show them as aggressors Keramati, 2008.
The Washington post shows bias on left – conservatives while the New York Times show more on democratic – liberal bias. In a research of media political bias
on 2000 presidential election found that the media narrative of The New York Times tend to attack candidates from Republic Party while on the other hand The
Washington Post show its tendency toward candidates delegated by Democratic Party, but most of news in the U.S. tend to hit harshly to the candidates if they are
Republican.
2. Media Narrative
The discussion of media narrative concerns on two main topics. To see these topics we have to recognize media narrative as the product of the media company. In
this study the media narrative is the news. The first topic will discuss the sensationalism news. This discussion is necessary to know the reason why news is
called narration. It concerns on the interrelation of media information and entertainment. The second topic is media hegemony. The discussion on this topic will
reveal what power and ideology behind the work of media narrative. Both topics are very important to understand the media narrative. Both of them are basics of
understanding news as narration. Sensationalism is very important in understanding media narrative. It is
inseparable to the news. Sensationalism colors American news written by media. Bird
and Dardenne 2004 believe that it is rarely to find the real news today. All news is sensational. Sensationalism becomes the main component of the news without which
the news function of informing can be partially fulfilled. News sensationalism is any news displaying political and social conflicts such
as murder case, political sex scandals, and terrorists. To be a sensationalist, a news should elicit emotional and sensual response in the audience whatsoever so that the
news will be accepted as the facts, the real information and understandable. The emotion ingredients are put implicitly on the news. Readers will not recognize the
emotional and sensual addition. Though recent research showed that the level of sensationalism today is lower or softer than it was, news is still considered as
sensationalist when it is created in the form of story or narration. Bird and Dardenne, 2004.
In his discussion of Media culture and spectacle, Douglas Kellner n.d touches the discussion of sensationalism as a part of media spectacle. He argues that
what people recognize as news is now a medium of spectacle and tabloidization in the era of media sensationalism, political scandal and contestation, seemingly unending
cultural war, and the new phenomenon of Terror war. Those are phenomena in media culture which “embody contemporary society’s basic values, serve to enculturate
individuals into its way of life, and dramatize its controversies and struggles, as well as its modes of resolution.” Kellner, n.d. These phenomena, of course, occur to
serve society’s needs of stories.
People like stories. They like sequences of events which are organized entertainingly. However, they don’t like ordinary story which goes plainly without
any hurdles and surprises. That is why media competes to create news as a story. Media tries to display any news which contains this rule.
a 1874 critique complaining that should a newspaper print “wholesome” news it would be “thrown by as a frigid paper”, while if it recounted plagues, famines,
disasters and wars, it “would deeply engage the attention, be read over and over again, and pronounced a very valuable paper.” Nordin, 1979 cited in Bird and
Dardenne, 2004
People appreciation toward sensational news makes critics argue that today’s news sensationalism “retards intellectual growth by overstimulation…and creates a
morbid craving for emotional excitement” Arden, 1906 cited in ibid.. On the other words, journalists and media companies serve the need of entertainment rather than of
factual information. In understanding sensationalism news, the discussion should underline the
nature of news as narrative. Bird and Dardenne ibid. argue that like narrative, news has mythological quality which adds its function from informing into entertaining.
News also articulates cultural values through narration. Thus sensational news works as myth. It helps people recognize their cultural boundaries by showing what society
beliefs as good and bad, hero and villain, right and wrong, based on their cultural myth.
News written in the form of narration is easy to be understood by the readers though they sometimes cannot make links of importance from a news to the other.
Oral folklore as the initial way of narration influences society storytelling. Through this way, news will be remembered by the readers and it will engage readers’
attention. Bird and Dardenne, 2004. Media sensationalism and hegemony has been explained in the opening of
American media. However, how hegemony works on the news will be explained here. The key point to start with is media discourse. Discourse analysis will reveal the
inequalitities of power that work in the media texts. As it has been stated before that a hegemon controls all institutions in the
society including language, politics and media. Undeniably, the hegemon sets the social institutions to follow its discourse, including news discourse. We can analyze
what discourse controls the news through the ‘tone’ of headlines and ‘values’ employed in the news. The language used in the news represents a social reality
constructed by the dominant ideology and power in the society ibid.. The images produced by news which are socially constructed appear
unconsciously to the readers and the producers. Gramsci suggests that “they appear as transparent descriptions of reality, not as interpretation.” Gamson, et al., 1992. This
may mean that an image constructed in the news is accepted by the readers as facts, natural and neutral. Readers even do not aware that the reality and facts they read is
created by the dominant discourse. This discourse has a power “to alter the way an audience relates to social institutions is not confined to the realms of news and
politics.” Thwaits, 1994: 136.
The example is patriarchal discourse in the news. It sets masculine discourses as the dominant discourse in the media narratives. Therefore, news’s point of views is
controlled by the masculine ‘norms’. The right or wrong of an issue is measured through what men see it. This gaming of point of view is clearly seen in the narration
of women. As patriarchal society defines women as a second class, the subordinates, and the domestic creatures, media does define them the same. Women tend to be
narrated for their sexuality rather than their intellectuality, appearance rather than their capability and as a mother and wife rather than as an independent woman. To
see how hegemony and sensationalism is played through media representation toward women, it is necessary to know the media representation toward women.
C. THE CULT OF TRUE MEDIA’S WOMANHOOD
