Chapter 8: Conclusions

Shoemaker (1984, 1987) and Shoemaker et al. (1991) observe that those political groups perceived by the media as deviant are typically given less favourable treatment, though not less attention. Shoemaker et al. (1987) contend that world events covered by the Western media are more deviant than those not covered. Similarly, those events covered often convey normative deviance. The media do not screen out deviant ideas, but rather portray them in a way in which the deviance is underscored. The ideological status quo is reaffirmed by ridiculing deviant ideas as Miliband (1969: 238) puts it ‘irrelevant eccentricities which serious and reasonable people may dismiss as of no consequence’. The findings of the present study support these conclusions to a large degree, including that of the model developed by Hallin (1986) in the marking in media reports of three boundaries of spheres of consensus, legitimate controversy, and deviance…