Mass Media’s Undermining of Societal Values During Health Care Reform E

Mass Media’s Undermining of Societal Values During Health Care Reform There is little doubt that three years ago the American people wanted health care reform. News media saw the controversy over health care reform as a strong issue to discuss in their productions, and most fulfilled their responsibility as an information medium: to provide equal opportunity for both sides of this debate to reveal the benefits of their plans and the drawbacks of their opponents’. However, when interest groups became involved in this dispute, advertising their own beliefs against the Clinton Health Care Reform Plan, they manipulated the public by using scare tactics. News media incorporated these ads in their coverage of the benefits and drawbacks of the proposed changes and the present system. The American public persuaded Congress to kill any effort by the Clinton Administration to universalize health care because of the interest groups’ advertisements and the news media’s emphasis on the accuracy of the messages displayed in these ads. The lack of support for health care reform was because of the fear and confusion the news media created. In this paper I will argue that mass media’s exposing the American Public to interest groups advertisements and the news media’s analyzing these advertisements in their health care reform reports reinforced the interest groups messages. This reinforcement led media to acknowledge the interest groups basis for disagreement over and the flaws of health care reform. The disagreement over and flaws of health care reform eventually led to the downfall of this initiative and of society’s valuing improvements in health care. News media undermined societal values by ignoring how health care reform... ... they rejected health care reform, and ignored mass media’s attention to health care reform. Otherwise, society would have had what it wanted: universal health care and an news medium respecting, not scaring its audience out of wise and beneficial decisions. Page 8 Works Cited Page Beck, Melinda. â€Å"Rationing Health Care† Newsweek 27 June 1994: 30. â€Å"Bureaucats† Coalition For Health Insurance 24 June 1994. â€Å"Changes Alternate # 2† Health Insurance Association of America 24 June 1994. â€Å"Defuse Health Care Bill.† The Arizona Republic 18 July 1994: 2. Greenwald, John. â€Å"OUCH! Which Hurts More, The Shot Or The Bill?† Time 8 March 1993: 53-55. Reich, Robert F. â€Å"National Health Care Reform: Comparing Four Alternative Plans.† Illinois Business Review 22 March 1994: 3. Wright, Robert. â€Å"The Technology Time Bomb.† The New Republic 29 March 1993: 25-30.