Comparison of The Rachel Maddow Show and The Sean Hannity Show

Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity are hosts of the television shows, which discuss political issues of the USA. Rachel Maddow hosts The Rachel Maddow Show in which she illuminates the issues from the liberal perspective. She is opposed by Sean Hannity who is a host of The Sean Hannity Show and has a conservative point of view. Both Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity shows aired on television on May 14 regarding similar issues. However, their perspectives on delivering them and discussing them were different.

First of all, the stories covered by the commentators were similar with some minor discrepancies. Nonetheless, ways both of them interpreted the news were different. For instance, both Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity discuss Mitt Roomney and his place under the political sun. Rachel Maddow supports Mitt Roomney and his political ideas, while Sean Hannity discusses his past high school pranks and describes him as heartless and greedy. Also, Maddow takes women side in politics when discussing the most recent events, which show that the rights of healthcare and access to power are diminished by the legislation, demonstrating that the Republican war on women was not invented from nothing. Hannity, in his turn, covers the story about Paul Ryan, who later on comes over to the show to discuss his activity as a Chairman of the House Budget Committee.

Secondly, both commentators have different presentation styles, including pace, media used, and linguistic discourse. For instance, Rachel Maddow uses a lot of linguistic techniques as bright comparisons, hyperbolization and sarcasm to emphasize the focal points of her speech and underline their importance to the audience. Her speech is fast, but clear at the same time. Rachel has a variety of inflexion increases and decreases. At the same time, she uses a lot of gesturing, such as clapping hands, raising one hand up and down, holding a pencil, or putting her hands on the table and off it. Sean Hannity at his time doesn’t use much of intentional puns, or such. He emphasizes the important points with his intonation, while delivering his speech rather monotonously at other times. He doesn’t use much gesturing; however, Sean tilts his head in different directions while delivering his discourse. His discourse can be qualified as very calm, even and very “textbook”. Hannity is inclined to use more informational and formal type of speech, rather than informal and biased, as Maddow does.

Finally, we can clearly see that each of the hosts implies personal ideas regarding the issues from the perspective of personal political views. With Maddow being liberal and Hannity being conservative, they push their perspective onto the viewer for very specific reasons. First of all, they try to implement their ideas in order to help to gain more voters on their side. Second, it is crucial for a political party to shape the way voters view all candidates, so they can manipulate viewers’ perception. In addition, listening to commentator’s sarcastic speech regarding ones’ candidate diminishes assurance in a candidate, creating useful doubts for opponents. Nonetheless, we can notice that Maddow’s speech delivery is more biased than Hannity’s. While Hannity’s delivery is more informative and formal, Maddow uses a more emotional approach and charisma to impact on the viewer.

To sum up, while watching The Rachel Maddow Show and The Sean Hannity Show we can conclude that having the same objective of commenting on political issues, these television shows have different tactics for gaining the audience. Also, views and believes of the commentators shape the way they see, discuss and express their opinions regarding the issues considered. So to say, the political commentators’ ideas shape their way of perceiving information, processing it and sharing their views, while implementing it on the viewers.