|
1
|
- People blame the media excessively for society’s problems. Profit
driven.
- News Media- “fourth estate” or “fourth branch”
- Television changed the character of American politics-”sound bites”
- Radio-better analysis-NPR
- Newspapers
- Internet chat rooms-town meeting
|
|
2
|
- 18th century-political mouthpiece
- “penny press”
- FDR’s fireside chats
- Television
- Rise of cable TV 24-hour coverage
|
|
3
|
- On a typical day... 57% of Americans watch TV news
- 54% watch their local news
- 34% watch cable news channels
- 28% watch the nightly network news
- 23% watch the morning news programs (The Today Show, Good Morning
America, etc.)
|
|
4
|
- 40% of Americans read a newspaper
- 36% of Americans listen to news on the radio
23 % of Americans get news online
- 18% visit news aggregators (Google News, Yahoo! News, AOL News, etc.)
- 14% visit national TV networks' sites (CNN.com, MSNBC.com, ABCnews.com,
etc.)
|
|
5
|
- 4% visit news blogs
- but the percentage jumps to 10 percent in the 18-24 age bracket.
- 3% visit online news magazines (Slate.com, Salon.com, etc.)
- MSNBC, Yahoo! and CNN are by far the most popular news sites among
individuals who get their news online
- While the percentage of Americans getting news from all other media is
falling, using the Internet to get news is on an upward trend.
|
|
6
|
- The total number of Americans getting news on an average day is down
almost 10 percent from 1994. Young Americans are the most likely to get
no news at all, with 27 percent of people under 30 reporting they get no
news on an average day. Of those who do get news, half go to multiple
sources.
|
|
7
|
- On average, Americans spend 67 minutes of each day gathering news from
various formats.
- As points of comparison: on an average day, 63 percent of Americans
watch non-news TV, 44 percent exercise or play a sport, 38 percent read
a book, 24 percent read a magazine, 24 percent watch a movie at home,
and 17 percent play video games.
|
|
8
|
- Political socialization-We use a set of filters to help us interpret and
integrate information
- Selective exposure- screening out those messages that do not conform to
their own biases
- Selective perception- perceiving what they want to in media messages and
- disregarding the rest
- Recall and comprehension-a. The best predictor of retention of news
stories is political interest
- b. fragmentary/rapid nature of
news—creates a problem with remembering
- Audience fragmentation-growth of cable/Internet—weakens any one media
source
|
|
9
|
- Agenda setting- focuses public attention on certain aspects of American
politics and ignores others-Reagan was master in using media to set
national agenda
- Issue framing-in a political context, means presenting an issue in a way
that will likely get the most agreement from others.
|
|
10
|
- Choice of candidates-media influence
- Campaign events-visual settings
- Technology-satellites
|
|
11
|
- Media frames campaigns as horse races;
focusing on the game of politics as opposed to the issues.
- Political advertising has become increasingly negative. Causes low voter
turnout.
- The emergence of civic journalism
- The media seems to have greater influence on undecided voters.
- Election night reporting is rife with problems.
- Early reporting of election outcome generally results
- Depending on the margin-voter
apathy on the West Coast, increased voter turnout on the West Coast
|
Notes