Emotional investment is a common way to entice readers to click on and read a story. These emotions can be played with the skew or shape the opinion of the readers, oftentimes to align with the political bias of a specific company. When it came to the emotions, I found two repeatedly standing out through the writing, both anger and empathy towards homeless individuals and homelessness as a whole. While all news sites utilized both of these emotions for various articles, Fox News was found to have a theme of anger in 10 of their 20 articles, exactly half. While not every article was written with anger towards homeless individuals, one noted anger from homeless individuals towards protestors, almost all of the articles mentioned had anger towards unhoused individuals, and oftentimes the crimes homeless people commit. Examples of this anger towards unhoused individuals can be seen in the wording, “residents continue to speak out in fear of the crime plaguing their communities,” (Lanum 2022). The author contrasts the idea of crime being a plague in the residents’ living area alongside with a quote from an unhoused individual claiming they are being paid to be homeless by the city of San Francisco. This comparison of the homeless individual’s experience to the strong complaints from residents aims to influence readers to be outraged regarding the issue, supporting ideas that paint the unhoused in a negative light.
Annotated Word Cloud of Fox News Articles
Articles from Reuters also utilized anger to persuade their readers, however in a different light. While there was one article explaining a homeowner’s anger towards a growing homeless encampment, most of the articles expressing anger was towards a type of policy being discussed. Reuters provided a platform for many activists to voice their concerns about changing policy that could affect the homeless community. One article focused on giving the public control over where policing budgets go, saying that it should be those “who suffer the worst brutalities by police” to decide where resources should be allocated, (Biron 2020). Focusing on the severity of police brutality on marginalized groups displays the anger felt by activists that Reuters chose to provide a platform for. While the anger is not towards the homeless community, it is utilized to express how the author, activist, and hopefully the readers should feel towards the issue of policing homeless individuals. While anger can be useful in swaying the feelings of readers, empathy can also be equally as powerful.
Annotated Word Cloud of Reuters Articles
Instances of empathy seen throughout articles was most common among the CNN stories, with 10 of the 20 articles holding some form of empathy. This empathy mostly was felt towards the unhoused community, trying to explain to readers the circumstances in which these individuals fall into. An example of this can be seen in the CNN article entitled, “Meet the veterinarian walking around the streets of California and treating homeless peoples’ animals for free,” (Elassar 2020). In this article, the veterinarian Kwane Stewart described his changed perspective towards unhoused individuals, as well as mentioned the hardships faced. Elassar (2020) wrote, “almost everything he thought he knew about homelessness wasn’t true…Homeless people face more than just judgment and stereotypes.” This example explains the way in which personal stories and connections with homeless individuals can create an empathetic lens towards the issue of homelessness, humanizing the individuals more. This perspective could sway the ways in which readers view homelessness, possibly giving a more humane point of view to empathize with those struggling. While empathy is not unique to the writers of CNN, it was used in a different way by Fox News in their writing.
Annotated Word Cloud of CNN Articles
The instances of empathy within the writings of Fox News were seen mostly when activists and left leaning politicians were given the space to speak. An example of this can be seen where a “self-declared Democratic socialist” was interviewed by Jesse Watters on the Fox News channel (Halon 2022). Rebecca Parson, the congress candidate, was questioned about her campaign videos, in which she tried to bring the questioning back to the issue of homelessness. She was seen to have a lot of empathy, stating “What I’m really concerned about is the fact that all across the country, including in my district, there are 28 homes empty homes for every homeless person,” (Halon 2022). This quote shows Parson’s empathy for the veterans and other unhoused individuals who struggle daily while there are empty houses available at all times. While the author makes subtle jabs to Parson and her arguments, there is still the aspect of empathy being utilized within the story, but in the quotations from a Democratic candidate. Empathy was overall used less frequently in the Fox News articles, with 4 of the 20 articles noting any significant amount of empathy, and Reuters had one additional article using empathy for a total of 5 out of 20. While emotions are not the only way to influence readers and sway discourse, its common usage was apparent after analysis of the articles.