The Mass Media
Various forms of communication intended to reach a large (mass) audience
Not individual or group oral communication
Mass Media includes:
television, radio, newspapers, film, magazines, the internet, email, social
networking, and more
Primary source of our information about events
Including current office holders, candidates, and elections.
Our interest . . . .
Trustworthy information
So we can draw reasonable conclusions about issues and candidates
Saying “People are entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.”
ALAS is an ideal, but not a practical reality
Some topics
Media history and trends
How we use the media
How political leaders use the media
Media Impact
Media biases
More and less reliable sources of information
American News Media has always been a business
Throughout US History motive is profit
Versus non-profit
in search of objective neutrality
BBC, CSPAN, PBS
Or propaganda use by government
US New Media History
First newspaper: Boston News-Letter, April 1704
Avoided controversial issues
Newspapers begun by printers
Sources of additional income
Press in the 1700s
Became partisan newspapers
subsidized by a political party / group
But also many that provided a forum for the presentation of important political ideas
The Federalist Papers and anti-Federalist Papers
1830s = penny press
Alternate source of profits
Sales and advertising instead of party subsidy
Yellow Journalism and Muckracking
to expand circulation
Increasing sales and advertising revenues
Yellow Journalism:
Late 1800s to about 1920s
Newspaper editors battled for circulation
source of both profit and political influence
Sensationalize stories to attract audience
often regardless of their truth.
Insurrection in Cuba (then a colony of Spain) by a small group provided a potentially
good story.
The Spanish-American War:
W.R. Hearst New York papers
litany of stories (mostly fictitious) about Spanish abuses of Cubans and American
visitors
Yellow journalism characteristics:
scare headlines in huge print, often of minor items
exaggerations of news events
Sensationalist language
heavy reliance on unnamed sources, pseudo-experts
lavish use of pictures
Muckraking
Emphasizing stories exposing misconduct
Sex and corruption sell papers
Changes in “Hard” news reporting
Wire Services (AP, UPI, Reuters) and the rise of “objective” journalism
Watergate and the growth of adversarial journalism.
Growth of TV
24 hour news coverage – creating news when it doesn’t exist?
New Media Technologies
Satellite – video instant, live, global
Cable – television network choices
World Wide Web
Blogs
YouTube
Twitter
Social Networking Media
Vast growth of internet as revolutionary as growth of TV news.
Decline of Traditional Media:
Newspaper Bankruptcies: 2008-2009
Philadelphia Inquirer
Minneapolis Star Tribune
New Haven Register
Chicago Tribune – (still printing but company has declared bankruptcy)
Seattle, Denver, and other major city newspapers
Founders on a Free Press
“If I have to choose between a government without newspapers or newspapers without
government, I would not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter”
Thomas Jefferson, 1787
First Amendment:
“Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”
Current Media: Narrowcasting
Vs. Broadcasting
Targeting media programming for smaller audience segments
Religious, Spanish Language, Food network, etc.
Narrowcasting and Politics
Allows for ideological self-segregation
Reinforcing vs. cross-cutting cleavages
Can lead to more extreme / radical viewpoints
Ideas are reinforced instead of challenged.
News generation gap.
MEDIA AND GOVERNMENT / POLITICIAN INTERACTION
Media Freedom / Regulation
Primary regulation -- journalistic standards
Broadcast media
FCC regulates airwaves – TV & radio
Licensing & equal time rule
BUT NO regulation of print media, cable, or internet
No prior restraint
First amendment
Remember, Bill of Rights restricts GOVERNMENT
Battle over “Net Neutrality”
Can ISP’s can block internet content
Cell phone providers blocking text messages?
Verizon blocking “controversial or unsavory” text messages
Western Union and Common Carrier Rule
Are Media now subsidizing parties?
August 2010: News Corp (owner of Fox News)
$1 million to Republican Governors
Admits purpose is to elect Republicans and defeat Democrats
News Corp Extreme,but not alone
General Electric (own NBC)
$245,000 to Democratic governors and $205,000 to the Republican governors
Disney (ABC)
$20,000 to Republic committees, $11,000 to Democratic committees.
CBS
$13,000 to Democratic PACs, $1,000 to Republican PACs.
Media Consolidation
Political Leaders and the Media
Politicians need access to voters
Reporters need stories to report
24 hour news channels need news
So both work together
But have different agendas
Media – Politician Interaction
Publicly released
Press release
Press briefing
Public statement
Press conference
One-on-one or small group interviews
Background
Deep background
Off the Record
Politician Control / Influence
Staged events
Mission accomplished
Control access to officials
Increased use of “soft” media
Regulate media access in war time
Vietnam syndrome
Iraq 1
Iraq 2 & embedded journalists
Increase use of “soft” media
Media Bias
Is it biased?
Of course
But oft-claimed “liberal bias” is not the biggest problem
What is bias?
What are the many sorts of bias?
How do obtain reliable information?
Bias = Selectivity
Selectivity = judgment of what is important
not a perfect representation of reality
BUT can be good
Earthquake more important than POLS lecture
Or debatable
Earthquake in Mexico more important than bombing of a Dallas abortion clinic
What we really mean by bias
“unfair” selection / presentation to support / oppose a side.
Most common working definition of bias is often whether we agree with it or not.
Political Bias
Some evidence of liberal bias in some programs, but others disagree.
Studies of media bias use weak evidence
Have to approach with some definition of what “unbiased” coverage would look like.
Biggest proclaimers of bias mostly have a conservative agenda / perspective influencing
their perspective on unbiased coverage.
Undoubtedly does exist, but pervasiveness seems to be considerably overstated.
Other Sources of Bias or Unreliability?
Political Bias complex and value-laden
Depends in part on particular show
Events
Timing
Biggest Bias is Economic
News organizations are businesses
Need to focus on profits
Even more so with news programs now part of large corporations
That means need to focus on items that will attract an audience
Impact on “News”
Sound Bites
Emphasis on character / conflict / corruption (Classic muckraking)
Lack of vetting on 24 hour channels
Horse race vs. in-depth campaign coverage
Story Framing
Infotainment
Sound Bites
Hit the highlights only
Keep it fast paced and moving along
Viewer is kept interested, but gets much less information than earlier
Emphasis on Conflict
Cooperation is not news
People doing their jobs well is boring
Battles are interesting
Republican complaints about Obama’s policies
But most of life, even in politics, is cooperative rather than conflictual
Emphasis on mistakes, scandals, embarrassments, negatives
Political Campaigns
Emphasis on horse race
NOT issues or beliefs
Emphasis on character
corruption, affairs, family problems, etc.
Affair of Governor Sanford of South Carolina
Story Framing
Stories cannot exist in a vacuum
A “STORY” is an interesting narrative
Explaining to the reader what is going on
In a way that is interesting, possibly dramatic
In so doing, the reporter or editor is adding perspective
INFOTAINMENT
Emphasizing News as entertainment
Originally dominated TV “news magazines”
60 minutes
20/20
Nightline
Is increasingly appearing in all sort of “news” forums
Our job is to understand the characteristics of NEWS and the media
The very nature of “news” is different, unusual, startling, interesting, etc.
NOT what is common and normal.
It is an economic medium in need of an audience
NOT an educational institution
Media Impact on US
There are some reasonably clear impacts
Agenda setting
Reinforcing cleavages
Media malaise
Impact on changing political opinions usually short-term
Why media opinion impact often limited
Selective perception / perceptual screens / cognitive dissonance
Established via political socialization
Media seldom consumed in a vacuum
Poisoning the Well
“Media” is a Plural Word
TV News programs
Cable
Internet “Blogosphere”
Radio
Newspapers
Magazines
Books
Talk Radio has been growing since the 1980s and is overwhelmingly conservative
Media Plus: Non-News Media
still communicates politically relevant perspectives and values
Friends and neighbors
Novels
Movies
Though full of difficulties
The media are absolutely indispensible
They provide information on events
They allow us to evaluate our policies and the appropriateness of government actions.
But that means American citizens have the job of evaluating what you hear.
You cannot accept without thinking, questioning, investigating
MEDIA PART II
Exploration, not lecture
Without Notes or Outlines
Of more or less trustworthy media sources and practices