Set Essay

I have chosen to work on the Set Question n.5

"Discuss and critically analyse the newspaper and other media coverage on Barack Obama’s election victory 5th November 2008 in America."

I decided to select this topic because it involved the concept of media coverage and since my progression route is Media & Communication I thought it would be the most relevant out of all the questions.

I started off by reading some background information about the election, being 6 at the time, I  knew little about the election. After some reading, I researched American newspaper articles that were dated 5th of November 2008 (the day after Obama's victory). These included the Washington Post amongst others. 2 out of the newspapers I analyzed used words of enthusiasm, hyperbole and sensationalism, which appeared as a positive aspect. The majority also described the event as a change for the US society due to Obama's ethnic background. This gave me an idea on how to approach the analysis and evaluate the possible reasons behind the reactions of the media. 

Then, I looked at 1 British media coverage. I decided to research British coverage for 2 reasons. Firstly, I am attending a British university and secondly, I wanted to analyze the point of view of a second country that followed the elections from the outside. I believed the UK would make a good choice given their democratic relationship.

-Reflection:

The research process was simple but challenging at the same time. There were so many sources that covered the elections, however the topic was so big that it was hard to keep the focus on the media coverage rather than the election itself. The amount of information overwhelmed me and at some point I thought I was going off topic quite too much so I would go back and read the question title to remind myself of the information I needed and exclude what I didn't need.