Mass Media
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Functions of the media
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Transmit political information from political actors to the public
Gatekeeping
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Media makes decisions about what is news, and for how long
Watchdog function
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Informal check in our political system

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Media allows the public to keep tabs on behavior of elected officials
Expand scope of an issue

More media attention leads to higher levels of public knowledge
about issue

This leads to more pressure on politicians
Problems with the Media

Agenda setting – Blurs perceptions
 The
media tells up what to think about by covering
some issues, and ignoring others

Bias
 Ideological bias
 Corporate bias


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Media not accessible to everyone
Priming
Framing
Media Agenda Setting

Agenda setting
 The
decision to cover any event or issue necessarily
means that other issues are more unlikely to be
covered, even if those issues are arguably more
important

“Newshole” is limited by various constraints
 Time
 Space

Pressure to cover the sensational…
Media Blurs Perceptions

If it bleeds, it leads
 When
asked about the crime rate, most respondents
vastly overestimate overall crime rate, and more
particularly violent crime rate
 Since 1990, murder coverage increased over 500%
while real world homicide rates dropped over 40%


1999 – Lowest crime rate of decade, but 511 homicide
stories
1991- Higher crime rate than in 1999, but fewer than 100
homicide stories on major 4 networks
If It Bleeds, It Leads
Examples of Agenda setting

Experiment 1 – News stories about defense




Group A: Stories about weakness in defense
Group B: No stories about defense
*** Group A participants much more likely to cite defense as a
major problem facing nation
Experiment 2 – Various news stories




Group A: Stories about defense
Group B: Stories about pollution
Group C: No added stories
*** Participants cited defense, pollution, depending on what
stories they were exposed to
Bias

Ideological bias
 Claim

Many in media are liberal (tend to vote Democratic)

 Rising


that there is a liberal bias in the media
Higher percentage of liberals in national media
claim of conservative bias as well
Fox News obviously has conservative slant
“Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War”
Bias

Corporate Bias - corporate owners of media outlets
might unduly influence news content:
Disney  ABC, ESPN
Time Warner-AOL  CNN, TBS, TNT, HBO, Time, Sports Illustrated,
People, Entertainment Weekly, Fortune, Money, Warner Brothers., New
Line Cinema
3. General Electric, RCA, and Westinghouse  NBC, CNBC, MSNBC,
History Channel
4. VIACOM  CBS, MTV, VH1, BET, TNN, UPN, Comedy Central,
Showtime, TMC, Nickelodeon, Paramount
5. News Corporation  Fox, NY Post, London Times
1.
2.

Conflict between desire of journalists to report news and
corporations’ desire to maintain business interests
Media not accessible to everyone

While most newspapers and TV news are
presented at basic level, there are high start-up
costs that disadvantage many
 Terms
used often over the head of those with low
political knowledge

Without basic knowledge about politics, and often the issue
at hand, many cannot understand the news

Saying that a Democratic challenger to the incumbent is much
more liberal is only informative if you understand ideologies
(including how they match up with your own preferences)
Framing


The way that the media presents a story
Can affect who we blame for a particular
problem, which affects how we think the
government should respond
 Individual vs. societal frames
 Poverty experiment
 Those who were exposed to societal frames more likely to
blame society for high poverty levels

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More likely to support welfare, food stamps, etc.
Those who were exposed to individual frames more likely to
blame individuals

Oppose social welfare programs
Priming

Prominence of stories in the media can affect the
standards by which we judge political leaders

Bush overall approval rating – 71%

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Approval of handling of economy – 49%
Approval of handling of taxes – 52%
Approval of handling war in Iraq – 71%
**Overwhelming coverage of the war is priming the public

Evaluate Bush, they do so based on war, rather than economy or
taxes