Fox News And American Politics

In recent years, scholars have argued that the ability of people to choose which channel they want to watch means that television news is just preaching to the choir, and doesn’t change any minds. However, this book shows that the media still has an enormous direct impact on American society and politics. While past research has emphasized the indirect effects of media content on attitudes – through priming or framing, for instance – Dan Cassino argues that past data on both the public opinion and the media side wasn’t detailed enough to uncover it. Using a combination of original national surveys, large scale content analysis of news coverage along with data sets as disparate as FBI gun background checks and campaign contribution records, Cassino discusses why it’s important to treat different media sources separately, estimating levels of ideological bias for television media sources as well as the differences in the topics that the various media sources cover. Taking this into account proves that exposure to some media sources can serve to actually make Americans less knowledgeable about current affairs, and more likely to buy into conspiracy theories. Even in an era of declining viewership, the media – especially Fox News – are shaping our society and our politics. This book documents how this is happening, and shows the consequences for Americans. The quality of journalism is more than an academic question: when coverage focuses on questionable topics, or political bias, there are consequences.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An NPR Best Book of the Year “A thorough and damning exploration of the incestuous relationship between Trump and his favorite channel.” —The New York Times “A Rosetta Stone for stuff about this presidency that doesn’t otherwise make sense to normal humans.” —Rachel Maddow, MSNBC “Stelter’s critique goes beyond salacious tidbits about extramarital affairs (though there are plenty of those) to expose a collusion that threatens the pillars of our democracy.” —The Washington Post The urgent and untold story of the collusion between Fox News and Donald Trump from the New York Times bestselling author of Top of the Morning. While other leaders were marshaling resources to combat the greatest pandemic in modern history, President Donald Trump was watching TV. Trump watches over six hours of Fox News a day, a habit his staff refers to as “executive time.” In January 2020, when Fox News began to downplay COVID-19, the President was quick to agree. In March, as the deadly virus spiraled out of control, Sean Hannity mocked “coronavirus hysteria” as a “new hoax” from the left. Millions of Americans took Hannity and Trump's words as truth—until some of them started to get sick. In Hoax, CNN anchor and chief media correspondent Brian Stelter tells the twisted story of the relationship between Donald Trump and Fox News. From the moment Trump glided down the golden escalator to announce his candidacy in the 2016 presidential election to his acquittal on two articles of impeachment in early 2020, Fox hosts spread his lies and smeared his enemies. Over the course of two years, Stelter spoke with over 250 current and former Fox insiders in an effort to understand the inner workings of Rupert Murdoch's multibillion-dollar media empire. Some of the confessions are alarming. “We don't really believe all this stuff,” a producer says. “We just tell other people to believe it.” At the center of the story lies Sean Hannity, a college dropout who, following the death of Fox News mastermind Roger Ailes, reigns supreme at the network that pays him $30 million a year. Stelter describes the raging tensions inside Fox between the Trump loyalists and the few remaining journalists. He reveals why former chief news anchor Shep Smith resigned in disgust in 2019; why a former anchor said “if I stay here I’ll get cancer;” and how Trump has exploited the leadership vacuum at the top to effectively seize control of the network. Including never before reported details, Hoax exposes the media personalities who, though morally bankrupt, profit outrageously by promoting the President’s propaganda and radicalizing the American right. It is a book for anyone who reads the news and wonders: How did this happen?

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Is social media destroying democracy? Are Russian propaganda or "Fake news" entrepreneurs on Facebook undermining our sense of a shared reality? A conventional wisdom has emerged since the election of Donald Trump in 2016 that new technologies and their manipulation by foreign actors played a decisive role in his victory and are responsible for the sense of a "post-truth" moment in which disinformation and propaganda thrives. Network Propaganda challenges that received wisdom through the most comprehensive study yet published on media coverage of American presidential politics from the start of the election cycle in April 2015 to the one year anniversary of the Trump presidency. Analysing millions of news stories together with Twitter and Facebook shares, broadcast television and YouTube, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the architecture of contemporary American political communications. Through data analysis and detailed qualitative case studies of coverage of immigration, Clinton scandals, and the Trump Russia investigation, the book finds that the right-wing media ecosystem operates fundamentally differently than the rest of the media environment. The authors argue that longstanding institutional, political, and cultural patterns in American politics interacted with technological change since the 1970s to create a propaganda feedback loop in American conservative media. This dynamic has marginalized centre-right media and politicians, radicalized the right wing ecosystem, and rendered it susceptible to propaganda efforts, foreign and domestic. For readers outside the United States, the book offers a new perspective and methods for diagnosing the sources of, and potential solutions for, the perceived global crisis of democratic politics.

An account of Fox News Channels' attempts to manipulate the truth, mislead the public, and influence elections in the United States.

Shows how Fox News' appeal is based on its populist presentational style, not its conservative ideological bias.

"One of America’s most experienced and exemplary journalists has written an unsparing analysis of the dreadful consequences -- for journalism and the nation -- of ‘how the news lost a race to the bottom with itself.’” -- George F. Will In this national bestseller, Chris Stirewalt, a former Fox News political editor, takes readers inside America’s broken newsrooms that have succumbed to the temptation of “rage revenue.” One of America’s sharpest political analysts, Stirewalt employs his trademark wit and insight to reveal how these media organizations slant coverage – and why that drives political division and rewards outrageous conduct. The New York Times wrote that Stirewalt’s book "is an often candid reflection on the state of political journalism and his time at Fox News, where such post-mortem assessments are not common..." Broken News is a fascinating, deeply researched, conversation-provoking study of how the news is made and how it must be repaired. Stirewalt goes deep inside the history of the industry to explain how today’s media divides America for profit. And he offers practical advice for how readers, listeners, and viewers can (and should) become better news consumers for the sake of the republic.

In this essential exploration of the American heartland, Kayleigh McEnany presents an eye-opening collection of interviews and stories about the powerful grassroots populist movement of frustrated Americans left behind by the government that changed the landscape of political campaigns forever Kayleigh McEnany spent months traveling throughout the United States, conducting interviews with citizens whose powerful and moving stories were forgotten or intentionally ignored by our leaders. Through candid, one-on-one conversations, they discussed their deeply personal stories and the issues that are most important to them, such as illegal immigration, safety from terrorist attacks, and religious freedom. The New American Revolution chronicles both the losses of these grassroots voters, as well as their ultimate victory in November 2016. Kayleigh also includes interviews with key figures within President Trump’s administration—including Ivanka Trump, Secretary Ben Carson, Jared Kushner, and many more—and their experiences on the road leading up to President Trump’s historic win. Kayleigh’s journey takes her from a family cabin in Ohio to the empty factories in Flint, Michigan, from sunny Florida to a Texas BBQ joint—and, of course, ends up at the White House. The collective grievance of the American electorate reveals a deep divide between leaders and citizens. During a time of stark political division, Kayleigh discovers a personal unity and common thread of humanity that binds us nevertheless. Through faith in God and unimaginable strength, these forgotten men and women have overcome, even when their leaders turned their heads. An insightful book about the triumph of this powerful movement, The New American Revolution is a potent testament to the importance of their message.

The world needs a strong America, and America needs an economic revival after the Coronavirus season of shutdowns. Can the playbook that resulted in the greatest job market in history put Americans back to work? From the first moments of his presidency, Donald J. Trump put US economic revival at the top of his agenda. Cutting red tape and slashing business tax rates made companies eager to locate in America again. A surge in corporate investment led to record numbers of US job openings. But there was also another force at work at the start of the Trump era, and it’s impossible to provide a fair accounting of Trump’s governance without noting the unique obstacles he’s faced. The President’s critics styled themselves “The Resistance,” as if they were confronting a tyrant at the head of an invading army rather than their duly elected President. Much of the media establishment regularly—and wrongly—accused him of betraying the country. Most disturbing was the resistance movement inside government, formed even before the 2016 election, which unleashed unprecedented surveillance against Donald Trump. The political and media warfare has never ended. Just as an impeachment case collapsed in the Senate earlier this year, the world was beginning to realize how large a threat the Chinese communist government had become—and what it had been hiding in Wuhan. The destruction caused by the coronavirus is the latest and greatest test for the Trump prosperity agenda. Once again the health and wealth of the world depend on US leadership for economic revival. This is the story of the man US voters chose to lead in 2016 and will soon consider to lead again.