In the months leading up to the 2010 signing of the historic Affordable Care Act the media was in a frenzy over the passage of this bill. Anyone opposed to passing this bill (mainly republicans) were devils who wanted to kill kids with Cancer. The media firmly showed their bias towards the President's landmark legislation with no problem. Geoffrey Dickens of News Busters (a conservative news source that exposes liberal media bias) gives a very in-depth view of the media's attention to ACA in the months leading up to the passage of the bill.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/geoffrey-dickens/2012/03/21/selling-socialism-medias-campaign-obamacare
One of my personal favorite moments for the ACA prior to the passage was President Obama's speech to doctors outside of the White House where they strategically handed out white coats to all of the doctors attending the speech.
The media and the Democrats went to great lengths to frame this legislation as the most important thing to this country since civil rights.
Now the bill has been passed and is in the implementation phase annnnnnnnd there are some serious issues. The people are not happy, the media can't frame the issues to help the President and the President is in back pedal mode.
Gone are the days of the President giving speeches with white coats, now the President isn't in the rose garden of the white house, he is in the press briefing room with a less than thrilled expression. Who will control this story in the coming days, the media or the politicians?
I think the media framing of this issue has definitely influenced public opinion. However, I feel that if the public was not so responsive to the issue or did not find it of much importance it would not still be one of the most talked about things on the news THREE years later. Very rarely does legislation get passed that is 100% agreeable to 100% of the population, including politicians. However, Obamacare doesn't seem to be agreeable to most people. I feel the farther we get into the implementation phase of the Affordable Care Act the more and more people become outraged by it. The outrage of the public obviously keeps the media's attention on this issue. I definitely think the media has control over this story. However, I'm not sure there is any way for politicians to regain control. I think that Republicans mainly agree with the negative press of Obamacare and I think the Democrats have dug such a deep hole with it that they can't find their way out.
ReplyDeleteCaitlin is it very true that not everyone is happy with everything that is passes, it has been really interesting to see how the Obama Administration has framed the same subject in two completely different ways and over such a long span of time. I will be interested to see who this all shakes out over the next ten years.
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