In his book, How Partisan Media Polarize America, Matthew Levendusky formulates the argument that the American political culture is affected and moved to extremes by the influence of partisan media. Levendusky first constructs a clear outline of the content of his book, then introduces a series of hypotheses that illustrate the core of the effects of partisan media, then follows with an extensive elaboration of the acquirement of empirical data to support his claim, and finally concludes by applying his findings to greater societal consequences. In the first chapter, Levendusky questions whether or not partisan media have “troubling normative consequences” on the American political atmosphere (Levendusky 5). He introduces four important
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To undertake this task, Levendusky primarily focuses on two dichotomous examples of partisan media: MSNBC on the left and Fox News on the right. Through his content analysis and observation, he was able to note that partisan media usually has the tendency to frame similar issues in radically different ways in order to highlight bits and pieces of a story to propagate their own political agenda, to deride and mock the opposition in order to lessen their credibility, and to allocate more or less time to content that help or hurt their side respectively. While partisan media does emphasize the reasons why their ideological narrative is correct, they also make the effort to place special emphasis on why the opposing narrative is incorrect or even dangerous. There is also a stark disparity between how partisan media outlets on either side cover election campaigns and results; both sides will highlight the assets of their candidate while underlining the flaws of the opposing candidate, the winning side will attribute the victory to inherent strengths of the candidate, and the losing side will attribute the victory to illegitimate or unfair influences. These practices are the primary distinctions between cable partisan media and traditional “mainstream” media that often try to approach news content in an objective and unbiased
To undertake this task, Levendusky primarily focuses on two dichotomous examples of partisan media: MSNBC on the left and Fox News on the right. Through his content analysis and observation, he was able to note that partisan media usually has the tendency to frame similar issues in radically different ways in order to highlight bits and pieces of a story to propagate their own political agenda, to deride and mock the opposition in order to lessen their credibility, and to allocate more or less time to content that help or hurt their side respectively. While partisan media does emphasize the reasons why their ideological narrative is correct, they also make the effort to place special emphasis on why the opposing narrative is incorrect or even dangerous. There is also a stark disparity between how partisan media outlets on either side cover election campaigns and results; both sides will highlight the assets of their candidate while underlining the flaws of the opposing candidate, the winning side will attribute the victory to inherent strengths of the candidate, and the losing side will attribute the victory to illegitimate or unfair influences. These practices are the primary distinctions between cable partisan media and traditional “mainstream” media that often try to approach news content in an objective and unbiased