GROUP ASSIGNMENT

POLITICAL COMMUNICATION AIM3005

Lecturer: Dr. Mumtaz Aini Binti Alivi

Damira Aisyah Adam S2124120

Jiang Chengao 17199195/1

 Table of Contents

A. Introduction........................................................................................................ 3

B. Media Report 1 ..................................................................................................... 4

C. Media Report 2 ..................................................................................................... 6

D. Media Report 3 .................................................................................................. 7

E. Media Report 4 ..................................................................................................... 9

F. Media Report 5 ................................................................................................... 11

G. Conclusion....................................................................................................... 13

References: ............................................................................................................... 15
 A. Introduction
The United States presidential election has always been such a significant

moment not only for the country but the world, for years. It was no different in 2020,

where they elected the 46th president. Even more so it was one of the most

momentous elections the country had for the problems it faced in that year. The impact

of Covid-19 that caused the country to lose about 200,000 people. The lack of

economic control caused its recession and the civil commotion in response to the

murder of George Floyd by US police. Overall, it was a crazy year for the United States

with the addition of the upcoming election.

Even so, the elections and campaigns does not stop there. Though in some

parts of the world elections are postponed due to the rise of public health issues

(Covid), the US decided to continue their election with the spread of the virus in

November that year. US have been considered as one of the most litigious countries

for pushing this election and their ‘rush to law’ actions (Kate Sullivan). Nearing the

time of the election, the country had decided on the system to keep the election going.

And throughout the whole year, campaign has also been carried out effectively.

In the year 2020 candidates for the US presidential election includes Donald

Trump for the Republican party and Joe Biden for the Democratic party. This is Donald

Trump’s re-election for the 46th president and the first election for former vice president

of Barack Obama, Joe Biden. And in the Democratic party also stands Bernie Sanders

competing with Biden. The end result shows Biden winning over 80 million voters while

Trump defeats with 74 million. This is a momentous turn out because Trump has won

significantly in 2016 and in 2020, over three states that he previously won, sided for
Biden. Many argues that it was due to the disappointing control to the public health

issue. But Biden was from the Democratic party which would be a surprising turn out

for the country since Republicans have won more over time. There are many moments

in this electoral phenomenon that can be analyzed. In this essay, there will be five

media report about the campaign journey in the 2020 US election that will be

discussed.

B. Media Report 1

News title: Presidential debate gets personal as Biden calls Trump a ‘clown,’

Trump tells Biden he’s not ‘smart’

Source of the news: Fox news.

Link of the news: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/presidential-debate-gets-

personal

This news is about the election of 2020, a report of the first TV Presidential

debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. it is from the Fox News, Fox News is

a media portal that is mainly targeting on Americans who support the Republican Party

more than the Democratic Party. It is also widely being recognized by the Americans,

as a report given by the Pew Research Center. it shows 94% of adults have heard of

this news portal, and they are more targeting on the white old males who are mostly

on the right side as their targeted audiences. People who are quoting their news

reports are more likely to be from this group as well. Its audiences also have a tend to

voice out their opinions and such to the public. These features show that Fox news

would most likely to be reporting and setting their media agenda base on the

republicans’ side. This very report was posted after the presidential debate on TV,
which was in the very intense stage of the election campaigns, as the voting day was

approaching. The title of the report already indicates that it is Joe Biden to blame for

the childish statements that were made during the debate. It is passing a message

which Trump said Biden is not smart only because Biden took this debate personal

first by calling Trump a ‘clown’. The use of the words on the title of news reports can

help to set the mood to the audiences, give an attitude toward the occasion to the

audiences before they start to read. But a title like this could also be a bias to

audiences, since it can influence their judgement on the report. But the title is rather

clear because it tells the information accurately to the audiences, clearly and

attractively showing the audiences what happened.

The main body of the report, is a record of what has been discussed on the

debate, however, it still focuses on the part which Joe Biden firstly claimed that he

would not take the debate personal, by attacking Trump personally, but he started to

accuse Trump with insults, which includes telling him to shut up and called Trump a

liar and clown. But the report failed to tell that Trump kept distracting Biden’s speech

was the reason that Joe Biden repeatedly told Trump to shut up. By choosing what

they want to cover, Fox news could easily make the audiences aware of the up side

of the republicans, this also fits their target audiences’ interest, since majority of their

audiences are old white males who are on the republican side. In conclusion this report

meets the need of their target audiences, the republican supporters, by giving out

information from Donald Trump’s point of view, however, the message passed to the

audiences is with an opinion inserted, which can cause a mislead in the public.
 C. Media Report 2

News title: Donald Trump policies: Where does the president stand on key

issues?

Source of the news: BBC News

Link to the news: https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-53828147

This news is about the former president Donald Trump’s policies on the election

2020, by the time this report being published however, he was still the president of

United States, thus this reports still addressed him as the President of United States.

Just like CNN, FOX News, BBC is a traditional media portal that provides main stream

news worldwide. But since BBC is a British media company, the reports from BBC are

less affected by the government of the United States. It is more on an objective side

when it comes to reporting the information about the news. However, BBC is still a big

source of news not only for British people but also audiences across the world. US

provided 48 million audiences to BBC News, therefore its reports do have a strong

effect on the election of the United States. Because it does not choose sides on the

election issues, it is considered as a trusted source of information. Most of the news

are like what is showed on the title, they are objective, without any point of views. This

article analyzed what President Trump had to help him to win the election from an

accurate and objective angle. It analyzed President Trump’s situation by a few

aspects, Economy, Trade, Foreign Policies, Immigration, Health, Crime situation and

Gun control. It stated what President Trump had planned for each of the topics listed

above. Directly point out the policies of President Donald Trump. It does not create

bias or misleading to the audiences, which fit the interest of its target audiences, as

BBC describes, young, active and highly motivated, which means they are more
focusing on the young people who are willing to change, who are seeking for the real

information, who do not want to read opinion planted news reports. This article fits that

description of their target audiences just fine. It also makes sure that it provides the

accurate information to the audiences, since it is a summary to what President Trump

has planned and implemented.

According to the review article from Taylor Francis Online that the Mainstream

media like BBC sometimes would be the transportation for fake news, because they

need to make sure what they provide fit the taste of their target audiences, especially

coming into the era where new media such as social media are developing fast and

quickly eating up the market of traditional main stream media. However, in this case

BBC did not report any inaccurate information as the need of its target audiences is

accurate and clear news. In conclusion this report clearly stated the information that

they would like to pass to their target audiences, met the requirement of their target

audiences. The use objective language help the crowd to know better about Trump’s

policies and stands.

D. Media Report 3

Donald Trump’s election threat is actually worse than it appears

News source: CNN politics

Link to the news: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/24/politics/donald-trump-

election-peaceful-transition/index.html

CNN is a traditional news portal in US. It became controversy after the former

president of the United States Donald Trump called some of their reports as ‘fake

news’. Unlike Fox News, CNN represents the majority of the US media, the
relationship between President Trump and most of medias across US can be

described as bad, especially new media such as social medias. By 2019 CNN already

had 165 million unique multi-platform visitors, which puts the visitors to CNN 20 million

more than BBC which is at the second place on the board. This means the target

audience of CNN is way wider than any other news portals in the world. CNN has been

the constant source of information of Americans. The average age group of audiences

is younger than other media portals across US. Where its main competitors such as

Fox News has an average age of 65, the average age for CNN audiences is 60. CNN

is more focused on young generations by creating more visual products, and also

being more active on new media platforms such as Instagram or twitter. Politically,

CNN is heavily influenced by the democratic party, as the news portal focuses on

young and progressive audiences. Majority of its target audiences are on the left wing

where the Democratics represent. In this particularly report, CNN is stating the threats

for Donald Trump, the title itself is a simple sentence but it sets the mood of the report.

Stating that there are more issues on the road to presidency than what has appeared

for Donald Trump. It starts with Trump questioning the accuracy of 2020 election

results. The report has been using words that are critical to Donald Trump. It has a

strong opinion of being against Donald Trump as the president. The language used in

this report is rather simple, the selection of vocabularies is quite easy to read, which

will help the article to reach out to more audiences, instead of being limited to the top.

According to the Communication guidelines of the Federation University, using simple

and clear words can help the audiences to understand reports better, meanwhile

attracting audiences to keep reading. The news report itself focused on Trump

questioning the safety of voting tickets since there would be a huge increase of mailing

votes as the Covid-19 ongoing. The report has explained the reason why Donald
Trump made the statement, as well as defeating the statement by stating the

impossibility of voting fraud. A report like this can help not only the supporters of Joe

Biden to understand that the thread is not there, but also help to reduce the supporters

of the Republicans since the statement of Trump was inaccurate as the report stated.

The report meets the requirement of the target audiences as well. To summarize this

report represents the left or Democratics, it does meet the need of its target audiences,

But the strong opinion given in the report could lead to a mislead of information to the

public.

E. Media Report 4

Title: “How Bernie Sanders' 2020 campaign is harnessing the power of rock

stars” by Ivie Ani

News Portal: “THINK” NBC News

Link: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/how-bernie-sanders-2020-

campaign-harnessing-power-rock-stars-ncna1151681

Bernie Sanders is one of the candidates for the presidential election opposing

Joe Biden amongst others in the Democratic party race. He was the one who came in

second after Biden in the race. In this opinion-based news portal called ‘THINK’ made

by NBC, a campaign strategy of one Bernie Sanders is being discussed thoroughly.

According to NBC, besides Bernie’s fight with democratic rights such as Medicare-for-

all, support for the working class and young people, creating a multiracial united

nation, he also favors the way of connecting with the voters through celebrities’

linkage.
 The media report touches a lot about the fact that Bernie had a very strong

“celebrity” image that made him as one of the favorable candidates for the democratic

party. NBC wrote that nearing the time of the primary election Super Tuesday, Bernie’s

campaign team created a poster promoting a hip-hop band’s new music called “Fight

the Power” with that they provided an image. The media also reported that a month

prior the senate gathered his supporters in a campaign that was attended by the rock

band The Strokes.

It appears, though, most of the parts of the media was trying to convey that they

opposed to the idea of this type of campaign. In one of the sentences, it mentioned

how Bernie created a “rally turned into rock concert” sounding negative towards the

senate’s choices of campaign type. This shows a sign of media bias opinion towards

the candidate. Surely, the media portal’s slogan is “Opinion, Analysis, Essays”

providing prove that the ideology of the media itself strongly relies on opinion. But

there are obvious signs of heavy media bias. And how they feel towards the candidate

of Bernie Sanders and his campaign by promoting celebrities. This counts as one of

the weaknesses of the news. It does not provide any information of Bernie’s support

towards anti-classism, Medicare-for-all or support towards the working class and

young people of America that might counts as his strength. Instead, they insisted on

his one weakness.

Even so, the media portal still provides a clear explanation on why they think

Bernie might use this certain type of campaign. The news mentioned how some people

do gravitate towards president that has a celebrity-like value such as Clinton and

Obama as the news given examples. The news mentioned things such as “the Clinton
effect”. This is one of the saying for how audiences usually respect high-profile

candidates. And research has done to one of the previous candidates in US election,

Bill Clinton and Hilary Clinton. It is found that some people actually can view a female

politician differently due to their high profile ((Kromer & Parry, 2019). Even with an

opiniated writing the news can provide actual analysis on the political campaign.

As far as inaccuracy, the news has provided clear factual events that happened

in the electoral campaign. They even provided events that happened in the past.

Campaigns that had involved celebrities before and how they can impact the campaign

itself. It brought a certain conversation for the readers. They can think now in any

upcoming election do people usually vote because the impact of celebrity profile or for

the policies the candidate provides. It does not necessarily create a certain opinion

towards Bernie Sanders but rather opened the floor for readers to think critically if they

want to participate in electoral movements. The target audience for this news portal

may rely heavily on young people. Who are not yet settled on which they want to

choose. It can be a way for them to realize how politic works and how certain

candidates use campaign tactics to attract voters. So, it is definitely a good news report

for opening more conversation towards the 2020 US election.

F. Media Report 5
Title: Trump campaign seizes on immigration order to ignite his base by Ryan

Nobles, Dana Bash, Kevin Liptak, Kaitlan Collins and Betsy Klein

News portal: CNN

Link: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/21/politics/trump-campaign-immigration-

order/index.html
 Trump’s stance with immigration has been a long-standing debate. And in the

2020 election he has yet again brought this issue in his campaign. In the news it is

stated that during the 2020 public health concern, Trump has ordered to halt

immigration for the cases to stop spreading. This causes a lot of conversation because

Trump has a strong opinion about immigration in the first place. During the 2016 he

was strongly campaigning the control over immigration and felt like he won because

of this. Even so, the news portal created the news with some strength and

weaknesses.

According to an article by Ndey Ramou, CNN is very popular for its one sided

opiniated news writing. And its stand with Trump is seen to be obvious. During the

2016 campaign CNN was accused by Trump to be writing fake news about him. Fake

news that drives the opinion of the audience into opposing Donald Trump. This has

been well known by people of America and all over the world. Opposing with CNN is

Fox News and there have also been a long-standing rival between the two-news

portal. So, in terms of accuracy, this news does come from the candidate’s social

media post. Donald Trump is famous for his most of the times unfiltered tweets.

Though, the news can be seen to exaggerate on the issue. Trump did say he wanted

to halt immigration in the tweet. And the news accuses him of using the Covid reason

as a way to get out of the actual reason; strongly push his campaign and strong opinion

towards immigrants.

As an official media portal, CNN is supposed to not add any other agenda in

their news. But here, it can be seen clearly that they have a strong opposing stance
with Donald Trump and his actions. One sentence in particular that can be noticed

was “While once counting on the economy to boost him in November, his campaign

has been forced to change tactics and immigration has always been the President’s

safest rallying cry”. This sentence showed clearly how CNN felt about Trump’s actions

towards immigration. And how they want the audience to feel. This shows signs of

agenda-setting. It would not be considered wrong if this were to come out of a blog.

But it is considered unethical when it comes from a mainstream media.

Other than this weakness, the news does provide many information that could be

useful for its viewers. Even if they rely heavily on the immigration issue from Trump,

they then adds that the immigration regulation has not yet been settled but is still

discussed. Though they did provide the information in the end it was still clear and

factual to the real-life event. But, CNN still writes very strongly for their viewers.

Viewers, that relies heavily on their targeted audience, anti-Trump supporters. CNN

may be very opiniated in their news, but their audiences also come from the same

group and the same people. And it can be considered reached the target since if

anybody who would oppose Trump, decide to read or watch anything from CNN, they

would agree with the news.

G. Conclusion
To conclude, there are many news during this election that comes from different

mediums and news portal. Some news are factual and purely in the form of report. But

mostly, news about politics are always connected to an agenda-setting. Why?

Because politics need media coverage that could give them what they wanted which

is certain audiences and followers.

 They need these supporters in order to gain control and power that they want.

With strong media coverage, people can easily get persuaded. And it has been proven

that media can drive people’s opinion. So politics will need media. With strong force

they can form the control. There are many negatives that can come out of this

phenomenon, but as a viewer we can barely escape it. What we can do it create critical

thinking that allows us to control what we see and what we believe. Hold close to

ideologies, principals and analytical thinking, so that negative agenda setting will not

affect us.
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