Chapter 10

The Media and American Politics

Chapter Outline

I. Intro/The influence of the media (people blame the media excessively for society’s problems;

they also claim that the media is biased; note problems in 2000 regarding exit polls in Florida,

Bush’s cousin John Ellis/Fox News, and GOP charges that media was biased for Gore)

A. Majority of public saw media as fair in 2000 (for both Bush and Gore)

1. But Republicans overwhelmingly though reporters favored Gore

2. Democrats though journalists favored Bush/Gore in about same proportions

3. Americans still have high disdain for media—press sensationalizes news

B. Print media called “fourth estate” or “fourth branch”

1. Mass media vs. news media (part of mass media that stresses news)

2. Mass media—messages often simplified, stereotyped, formulaic

3. Role of TV; Internet also becoming increasingly important

C. The pervasiveness of television

1. Almost all Americans watch television every day

2. Television, more than any other innovation, has changed the character of American politics

a. Focus is more on image and appearance

b. Communication is through "sound bites"

c. 30-second commercials influence elections; 10-45 seconds for “sound bites”

d. The role of issue ads; growth of programming

3. Prime time viewership on broadcast TV networks has declined by 50% (cable, technology)

D. The persistence of radio

1. Radio continues to reach more American households than does television, with nine out of 10

Americans listening daily

2. Americans get analysis of the news from the radio

3. Talk radio has been a major growth medium in the last decade

E. The continuing importance of newspapers

1. Newspaper circulation has held steady at about 63 million nationwide

2. There has been a rise of national newspapers

3. Thirty percentage point difference—young far less likely to read papers

F. The world wide web

1. There are more than 1 billion documents on the Internet

2. About 50% of Americans search the Web for news; 29 percent use Internet

as primary source of news

3. Internet used for candidate home pages, mobilizing supporters/volunteers, and

fund raising (McCain—collected twice as much money as Gore/Bush from Internet)

II. The changing role of American news media

A. Political mouthpiece

1. Its close connection with politicians and political parties offered financial stability, but at

the cost of journalistic independence (Hamilton and Jefferson)

B. Financial independence

1. Increased political participation by the common people and the rise of literacy among

Americans began to alter the relationship between politicians and the press

2. The "penny press" became a common model for the press, reshaping the news

C. "Objective journalism"

1. The professionalism of journalism reinforced the notion that journalists should be

independent of partisan politics

2. The rise of the wire services as the primary source for national news further strengthened

the trend toward objectivity

D. The impact of broadcasting

1. Radio created networks in the 1920s

2. Roosevelt's "fireside chats" established a standard for presidential use of the broadcast

media still followed today

3. Television added a visual dimension, which greatly contributed to rising audience interest

in national events

4. The rise of cable TV has brought 24-hour news coverage

E. Investigatory Journalism (Hersh, Bernstein and Woodward, Isikoff, etc.)

F. Media conglomerates (note Rupert Murdoch, Gannett Corporation)

1. Television can be profitable because governmental limitations on competition permit

monopoly ownership of broadcast licenses; FCC allows one owner to control up to

30 AM and 30FM radio stations

2. Americans continue to put great stock in an independent press and news media and find

centralized government-owned media unacceptable

a. Many foreign conglomerates have acquired ownership

b. Disney merged with ABC/Capital Cities in 1996; CBS/Viacom in May of 2000

3. Some contend that information is now more diluted, homogenized, and moderated than it

would be if the newspapers and broadcast stations were locally owned

G. Regulation of the media

1. Regulation of broadcast media has existed since media’s inception

2. Fairness doctrine originally aimed at ensuring differing viewpoints would be heard

3. Repeal of much of fairness doctrine in 1987; final remnants repealed in 2000

III. The new mediator in American politics (politicians need the media; “speak for people”)

A. The media and public opinion (FDR, JFK, Reagan)

B. Factors that limit media influence on public opinion

1. Political socialization – We use a set of filters to help us interpret and integrate information

2. Selectivity

a. People practice selective exposure – screening out those messages that do not conform to

their own biases

b. People practice selective perception – perceiving what they want to in media messages and

disregarding the rest (note partisan differences over Clinton-Lewinsky affair, Reno/Elian)

3. Needs – the uses to which people put media messages (info, entertainment, news affecting lives)

4. 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

5. Audience fragmentation—growth of cable/Internet—weakens any one media source

C. Are the media biased?

1. Concern that television networks are large corporations whose main concern is profit

2. Difficulty in distinguishing news from entertainment

3. Concern about the confusion of roles by journalists who have served in government (Broder’s

admonition about not crossing line between objective journalism and partisan politics

4. Concern about the media's alleged political bias (more liberal journalists, editors-conservatives)

5. Leftist critics contend the mainstream press is purely a propaganda device of the ruling class

and a tool of government propaganda that seeks to distort the facts

6. Concern of possible cultural bias of journalists

7. Media often accused of anti-incumbent, generational biases; does a press bias creep into news?

D. Public opinion

1. Agenda setting

a. The agenda-setting function of the media is not uniformly pervasive, limited by the

audience and the nature of the issue

b. Agenda setting focuses public attention on certain aspects of American politics and ignores

others

c. Reagan was master in using media to set national agenda

2. Issue framing

IV. The media and elections

A. The role of the media in elections

1. Choice of candidates

a. Television greatly affects the preferred traits (lampooning both Bush and Gore in 2000)

b. The media influences who has a chance to win an election, and candidates come up with

creative ways to generate media attention (Wellstone’s “talking fast” Senate commercial)

c. In 2000, “The Run for the Border” illustrating drugs at Canadian prices

2. Campaign events

a. Candidates schedule media events with various groups and in visual settings that reinforce

the verbal message (“photo ops”)

b. Fewer people now watch the conventions (in 2000, only 1-2 hours prime-time coverage)

3. Media technology

a. Satellites allow candidates to be in more than one place at a time

b. The expense associated with media technology has contributed to the skyrocketing costs of

campaigning

c. Candidates now have their own Web pages

B. Image making

1. The new kinds of media have expanded this role, which in turn has affected candidates' vote

getting strategies and their ability to communicate messages

C. Media consultants – campaign professionals who provide candidates with advice and services

such as media relations, advertising strategy, and opinion polling (see Dawn Laguens insert)

Also, note consultants’ replacement of party politicians; use of focus groups/polls

D. The media and voter choice

1. Information about candidates

a. What voters know about candidates is based largely on media coverage

b. The images voters require from the media tend to be more stylistic than issue oriented

c. Journalists are more likely to comment on the "horse race"

2. Negative advertising—widespread perception among consultants is that it works; idea of

vote suppression

2. Information about issues

a. Ignoring charges of the opposition is no longer done, as candidates trade charges and

countercharges

b. Advertising is the most important source of information in referendum elections

c. Negative ads may reduce turnout

d. Recently, media has practiced “civic journalism”

3. Decision making

a. Newspapers and television seem to have more influence in determining the outcome of primaries than of general elections

b. The mass media are more likely to influence undecided voters

4. Election night reporting

a. It is only in elections in which one candidate appears to be winning by a large margin that

television reporting makes voters believe their vote is meaningless

V. The media and governance (press is both observer and participant; press rarely follows policy

process to its conclusion)

A. Introduction/Political institutions and the news media

1. Media doesn’t go into implementation; but media pressures for a solution (foreign policy)

2. President is star of media; most coverage is favorable or at worst neutral

2. Congress experiences negative media coverage due to lacking a spokesperson, not organizing

its work to make it easy for the press, and acting quickly

3. The Supreme Court is the federal institution least dependent on the press, relying indirectly

on public opinion for continued deference and compliance with its decisions

4. The news media's greatest role as a participant in the governing process is at the local level,

because of fewer news sources

5. Almost 70 percent of the public believes the press is a watchdog over “bad” leaders