Fox vs CNN

Hot Topic for Week 4: The Demographic Tendencies of Two Major News Corporations

            I do not normally receive my news content from one particular station, nor do I favor any newspaper or magazine over another when it comes to my consumption of news. I have the “Flipbook” application on my smart phone, enabling me to digest a variety of news stories from different sources. So for this hot topic, I investigated both Fox and CNN, trying to get different, perhaps opposite, media viewpoints. Instead of picking two single articles to dissect, I chose to look at the main pages of the official online publications and compare the attitude and range of stories covered by each company.

I was surprised to feel a more field-confident vibe from Fox and a more advertisement-hungry, pop-culture ridden desperation from CNN. For instance, CNN advertises its own programs in big banners at the bottom of the main page, reminding the viewer that there is a television program version that should be watched as well as the online site. Fox does not synergize itself like CNN, their website lacking as much self-promotion.

In addition, CNN has an option to play video games on their website. These games are barely related to CNN news story content yet encourage the viewer to engage with the website. An interesting convergence of news and commercial gaming, CNN uses the popular media of games to entice the reader into staying at their website longer. The feeling of games related to news in this way feels awkward and childish, a commentary in itself on how broadcasting companies will try anything to acquire a larger viewer population. Fox, again, does not apply these methods on their website.

To widen the gap between the representation of the two broadcasting companies, the most popular stories on CNN revolve around drug culture and violent hearsay suspicions ('Queen of Cocaine' killed in Colombia’ and ‘Key Afghan nominee suspected of torture’ being the top two most viewed/shared news stories). In this way, CNN creates a mean world syndrome through selective exposure to illegal or otherwise scandalous and often violent news coverage. The popular stories on Fox trend politics and sometimes social issues (three out of four top stories revolving around Obama and the election) and often feature propaganda. Either way, both news companies set agendas for their viewers/readers, selectively choosing which stories to cover according to the demographics and/or needs of each company.

As a final observation, CNN has options to choose to read their website in Spanish or Arabic, having global branches in television and online broadcasting. There are also links to CNN’s “International,” “Mexico,” and “Arabic” websites. This globalization of CNN’s media may be one of the reasons that the material covered by the company is so laced with drugs and violence. People from other countries may care more about these sorts of headlines than those that directly related to America. Fox, on the other hand, has no listed global affiliates on their website, tending to cover more American politics, focusing less on global issues and more on American concerns.