Qualitative Thematic Analysis of the March 2023 TikTok CEO Hearing Coverage by Fox News and CNN

A key concern that emerges from the prevalence of media bias is political polarization, in which politically motivated groups on opposing sides become radicalized away from moderate center positions or collaboration, fueling extremism and intolerance. However, mainstream news sources, notably in the United States, reflect on these political parties and opposites, with potential bias a potential consequence of biased media reporting on key controversies and subjects. By analyzing the similarities and differences in reporting styles used by two politically opposed news sources, comparisons can be made to conclude whether and how political polarization can emerge from biased media reporting. This thesis conducts a thematic analysis on a key case study, analyzing Fox News and CNN coverage of the TikTok CEO hearing of 2023, in order to answer how politically polarized news sources report on a shared subject. Fox News and CNN were identified as politically-opposed media rivals and were determined to be appropriate for the case study, with a collection of 50 articles, an equal number of Fox News and CNN articles, collected for the coding process. With a thematic analysis, key themes were established with a coding process using the collected articles, centered around three focal areas, being mental health of users, national security concerns, and media coverage of the CEO hearing. The main research question is ‘How do American Politically Polarized News Sources report on the TikTok platform?’ This thesis concludes that both Fox News and CNN, which lean politically to the right and left respectively, share similar themes and patterns in reporting and can share agreement on specific subjects. However, political positions, ideologies, and perspectives can and do lead to differences in reporting, as well as more subtle differences ranging from grammar and key terms to the priority reporting of specific subjects. With regards to the TikTok CEO hearings of March 2023, the risk of political polarization is not as serious as suggested, at least within this specific case study.