1. For this media analysis assignment, I have chosen to analyze the Trayvon Martin case. I decided to write about this case because the incident only occurred two years ago, which means the problem still exists today. I feel this case is important to call attention to because it highlights the violation of political and civil rights of the people and it emphasizes the larger issues that the United States are facing. This news story did not only circulate in the United States. It reached different parts of the world with the news going viral through the internet, social media, television channels, and international newspaper headlines. Trayvon Martin, a 17-year old African American teenager, was walking back home from a relative’s place when he was fatally shot by George Zimmerman. Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch coordinator, was suspicious of the teen, so he followed Martin and disregarded the police’s orders of not going after him. Although Martin was not armed, Zimmerman claimed that the shot was fired as a result of self-defense. Many people, both nationally and globally, were caught up with following Trayvon Martin’s story. At the same time, protests were growing rapidly across the nation. This case helped raise questions about the media coverage and how media can be misleading, biased, and effective. Also, the case aided in the examination of the state’s self-defense laws and magnified the issue of racism. I am going to stress how messages of the media are framed and try to figure out how existing coverage of a media story can be improved.
2. After the court’s decision of clearing Zimmerman of murdering Martin, many angry people went out on the streets of America in many different cities and states to protest against the verdict of the case and against the injustice and vigilantism. The protesters also demanded the government to change the laws to prevent tragedies like these from happening in the future. People even came out to address the issue of racial profiling. African Americans felt they were constantly targeted and were seen as suspects in the community, especially from police forces and constables. Across the states, people were arrested, especially after the court’s decision regarding Zimmerman. Martin’s story made headlines and was even talked about more than the presidential election. President Obama expressed his opinion about the case as well. He stated that if a white male teen were to be involved in the same kind of scenario, the outcome and its aftermath would have been different. Politicians were quoted in the news more than people who were affected by the story. This shows how the media’s attention was directed to remarks of influential figures.
Some media outlets such as ABC news stuck to the good and bad narrative instead of digging in into the shades of grey of this case. They wanted the people who were reading, listening and watching the news to make a decision whether the shooter had a valid reason for shooting an unarmed teenager. Media agencies put the Trayvon Martin case on the front pages of magazines and newspapers. They highlighted the struggles and reported the story as an in-depth piece with reports on the latest information they obtained. The American government usually controlled media sources. They told news agencies what to say and what to keep out from the people. In this occurrence, the repressed are the American people, particularly the African American community including the family of Trayvon Martin. They felt like their civil rights have been violated and as a result, have become conscious of their safety since they were feeling that they were under constant watch. In the media, the repressed were presented in a sympathetic manner, especially news from Florida where the incident happened. Furthermore, international newscasts were sympathetic since most countries despised America’s politics. The repressors were the defenders of Zimmerman as well as Zimmerman himself and his family. Stories tended to focus on individuals and the people affected by it. At times, the focus shifted towards other things like other opinions of experts or public figures. In Martin’s case, the media at several times had the spotlight on celebrities that showed up to the protests such as Beyoncé and Jay-Z.
3. Media has a strong affect on the public. It contributes greatly to what people think. Various news perspectives influence different agendas. A conservative person tends to look at conservative influenced news, whereas a liberal person would get their news from liberal opinionated news broadcasts. Media distributors of this criminal case emphasized negative outcomes to the story to stir the public’s emotions. A demonstration of that would be Zimmerman’s release after his questioning. Because news is visually recorded nowadays, journalists and reporters evaluated stories according to their values and beliefs, thus news become more opinionated than factual. Martin’s case is an example of ideological political repression since the media was is in control of what details were to be published, as well as people were being taken into custody during the protests. This focus affected the coverage by spreading wrong information. People began believing different stories and were convinced that what was presented to them was factual. I, as a reader and follower of this news story, was highly affected of what the news was covering. No one knows what occurred that night between Zimmerman and Martin except Zimmerman himself, but I kept reading and watching news from different sources to get as much information as I could.
4. Examples of mainstream media are CBC, CTV, CNN, ABC, CBS, and Fox News. A particular example that was shocking was Fox news. This channel is known for presenting unfairly prejudiced news and pushing forward conservative views. Bill O’Reilly, a Fox News Channel host, commented in a video that Trayvon Martin was responsible for his own death. He blamed Martin’s choice of wearing a hoodie and had a “gangsta look.” The channel tried to depict Martin as the enemy. CNN, another mainstream news, depicted the story with pictures of the incident, particularly pictures of the shooter’s injuries. This conveyed a message that CNN was more focused on whether the shooter acted out of self-defense or not. I felt the scenario was different when it came to alternative media. A sample of alternative media coverage is the guardian. The guardian covered the story with little bias and titled the story page “Trayvon Martin’s death: the story so far.” They tried to state the facts as much as they can and wanted to make sure they had the input of both sides to the story.
5. Domestic coverage differs from international coverage in that it takes into consideration the opinions of politicians, news channel hosts as well as celebrities. It creates debates with one another and even criticizes other domestic news agencies. However, that is different with international coverage. International coverage tends to focus more on the facts of the story and tries to find information on all aspects of the specific story. I have noticed that international coverage were sympathizing with Trayvon Martin and were trying to make the shooter look bad. For example, the daily mail news, an international news agency, demonized the shooter Zimmerman and titled the news story as “Neighborhood watch captain who shot unarmed black teen had history of aggressive tactics – but won’t face charges.” Also the daily mail added that neighbors of Zimmerman’s have issued complaints to the police several times about him. Daily mail tried as much as they can to make Zimmerman’s actions unjustifiable and have him viewed as a violent, racist individual. Al Arabiya, an exclusive Middle Eastern news agency, highlighted the bigger picture of the problem rather than discussing if the two individuals were right or wrong. They mostly talked about the discrimination and racial inequality. I realized that they were using statistics of gun violence and looking at the laws to try to improve their point and make a bigger impact on the story.
6. There is definitely a change over the two-week period of the Trayvon martin analysis. News does not only change daily but hourly. New information always comes in and so the news story keeps getting updated. Even within a news story, the topic would be shifting from one component to another. For example, in the case mentioned above, the media would focus on the murder, then shift to the murderer, and shift to the laws of the story. The news story on the first few days was not very concise since there were not enough sources available. The incident started off as a local news piece in Florida. I noticed that the headlines were not capitalized and was typed in a manner that made it look like it was an everyday reality in the states. And because the victim was black, the story was not widely covered. Within a couple of days, the story grew more popular due to its strong racial component. The news began collecting background stories of Zimmerman and Martin. The next two days, I noticed that the news was victimizing the shooter rather than the dead teenager. The media usually perceived people from an African background as an enemy and troublemaker. In one of the YouTube videos of Fox News, there was background information being presented about the killed teen. It was talking about how Trayvon was suspended several times in school. It seemed like they were trying to sabotage his image. This shows how biased media outlets are and how inaccurate the information that they are representing can be. After a few days, the story began to take a turn since there was more information obtained by the media. For example, there was an audio released from a 911 call that a woman made. She heard the struggle between the two males and heard the gunshot being fired. In the next few days, things were starting to change and more information was being introduced. The family members were interviewed and that made the public sympathize for their case and relate to their side of the story. In a domestic Florida paper, it was illustrating how loving and respectful Trayvon was. They were trying to erase what has been negatively said about the boy. The week after, I saw that the focus moved to wanting Zimmerman arrested and seeking justice for Trayvon. In the last few days of the two-week period, the news mainly covered the protests and what the reasons were behind these demonstrations. CNN covered video footage of the different protests that were happening across the nation.
In conclusion, I think that all media depictions are somehow biased, some more than others. Just like in history books, where the information was passed down from word of mouth or books, I find that media is very similar. Media sources have an input of their own opinion and present things differently from other media sources. To change that and improve media coverage, I feel one should start with having regulations for media outlets. If these media outlets do not check their facts and release false information, they should have to pay a fine. That way, I believe people would have better access to more factual evidence and error-free information.