"Muslim Problem"

I watched The O'Reilly Factor with a person who considers herself a liberal, and then watched the Daily Show with a conservative.  Throughout the O'Reilly Factor, the liberal viewer was upset by contradictions she believed O'Reilly made, and his constant and nasty name-calling. This show is made for a certain audience of people, just like The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was written for a specific group of people.  

Douglass thanks "his providence" many times in the book for his good fortune, because Douglass wants to appeal to his readers, who are almost entirely Christian. Bill O'Reilly talks about a "Muslim Problem" in our country. He considers this "problem" to be the cause of the terror attacks on 9/11. The current manifestation of this problem, according to O'Reilly, is that moderate Muslims do not speak out against extremists. This appeals to much of his audience, which is still very angry and disapproving of Muslims in general. By going on TV and saying that he has negative feelings for Muslims, he gains fans and higher ratings.

When I watched the Daily Show with a conservative, he was upset that there was no conservative voice when Jon Stewart, the host, mocked a variety of Fox hosts. This show is also directed to a certain audience of people. Jon Stewart shows a string of clips of Fox anchors talking about how tragic Juan Williams' firing is, and overall makes Fox look bad for overly dramatizing the situation. This appeals to his audience, which is mostly younger, and mostly liberal, by making a conservative news source look bad, but in a comical and irreverent way.

From this I have seen that depending on the audience, not only the points a show can make are different, but the entire format of the show can depend on which audience the show is targeting.