Chapter 6: The Media – Flashcards
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Democratic Governments see the Two Step flow of information:
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Government to citizens and citizens to government
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NEWSPAPERS
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Began around the Revolutionary War, initially organs of political parties, 1880s: largely independent and have mass circulations, 1890s: begin to include Entertainment (Comics, Advice Columns, and Sports), 1960s: radio and TV show fierce competition, 2009: only 26 U.S. towns or cities have two or more competing newspapers, net result: since 1950 newspaper circulation has dropped 55%
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2009 the largest circulation of a newspaper is
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Wall Street Journal (2 million daily), USA Today, NY Times (1 million daily), in comparison the Enquirer sells 1 million weekly
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MAGAZINES
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Founded in the mid 1800s: the "Nation and Harper's", tend to have a smaller circulation than newspapers, often forums for opinion, politically influential through the two step flow of communication, may influence attentive policy elites-group leaders who follow news in specific areas
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News Magazines
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Reader's Digest has the largest circulation, but in News magazines: Time (3.4 million), Newsweek (2.7 million), U.S. News and World (now monthly instead of weekly), expressly political magazines: New Republic (Liberal) and Weekly Standard (conservative magazine), "Alternative Press"- investigatory press (Mother Jones)
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RADIO
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Began commercially in the 1920s (first radio network: NBC), the novelty of radio was LIVE coverage (baseball games, boxing matches, the Hindenburg exploding), broadcast Journalists become household names (Edward R. Murrow), today radio has much more "Talk Radio" (Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly), talk radio today has many more conservative talk radio hosts, today over 13,000 stations, live coverage is for TV
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TELEVISION
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Grew explosively after WWII when people were cashing in those war bonds, 1950: 98 stations and 9% of a viewing audience, 1951: first commercial color broadcast, 1960: 87% of homes had TV's, 2009: 99% of homes had TV's, today TV claims the largest audience of all media, millions are drifting toward cable TV (MSNBC and FOX news), this is reminiscent of early newspapers which were political organizations
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THE INTERNET
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Began in 1969: US Defense Department used it at four universities ARPANET, 1972: this connected 37 universities, early years mainly used to transmit email among researcher, 1991: WWW explodes onto the scene, 1993: only 50 web sites (over 100 Million sites today), 1 Billion web users over 70% of Americans use the internet (people over age 65 don't)
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INTERNET and POLITICS
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Now the internet incorporates POLITICS, every government agency has a site, you also now have gossip reporters (Matt Drudge), blogs, the US ranks 13th in the world for the # of population with internet access
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Blogs
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Where you can spew whatever you want, 12 % of internet users have a BLOG, 35% of the blogs are political in nature, they have become very influential in today's politics, so much so that "Mainstream Media" is picking up their stories
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PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF THE MEDIA
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Many foreign governments have print media that is privately owned, but not broadcast media, the rest of the world sees the government owning 60-70% of the broadcast media, out of 1,500 TV stations only 300 are public stations (PBS), out of 10,000 radio stations only 400 are public stations (NPR)
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TV Stats
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Average American spends 4 hours watching TV every day, only about half of the viewing audience watches at least ½ hour of news a day, 60 % of newspapers content is advertising
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Consequences of Private Ownership
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News is selected for its Audience Appeal: "Newsworthiness" (ex. emotional impact, timeliness, sensationalism, close to home characters), we see more entertaining than informing, dependency on the "Ratings Game" and increasing audience viewership with catchy news stories leads to: market driven journalism and dependency on advertisement (commercials), CRIME gets the largest coverage
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Market Driven journalism
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Reporting news and running commercials geared and targeted to an audience defined by demographic characteristics
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CONCENTRATION of Private Ownership
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Growing concentration in ownership of BOTH Print & Broadcast Journalism, newspaper chains are now taking over independent newspapers, newspapers are not making the Money they used to, should newspapers become nonprofits?
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Federal Radio Act-1927
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Due to so many people interrupting signals, the public asked for order
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Federal Communications Act of 1934
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Federal Communications Commission 1934: 5 member board nominated by the president for 5 year terms, considered an Independent Regulatory commission, sets social, economic and technical goals for the industry, regulated the number of TV and Radio stations broadcasters could own nationally (today they regulate: radio, TV, telephone, telegraph, cable and satellite)
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Telecommunications Act 1996—Bill Clinton is President
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DEREGULATION HEAVEN, eliminated the number of TV stations one company may own as long as their coverage didn't extend beyond 35% of the market nationwide, same goes for Radio-no national limits (ex. Clear channel went from 36 stations to 1,100), lifted rate regulations for cable systems allowing for cross ownership of cable and telephone companies
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The FCC agrees with huge conglomerates
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2003 more relaxing rules now you can own 45% instead of 35%, the public and various senators disagree and a concession is made at 39%
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REGULATION of Content
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FREEDOM OF THE PRESS has come to mean all the MEDIA, limits on strategic military information, "indecent" material is allowable as long as it isn't dealing with children, our news media has so few regulations as compared to other parts of the world
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Broadcast Media Regulation
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RADIO has some of the strictest regulations due to use of public airwaves, Fairness Doctrine (repealed in 1987), Equal Opportunities Rule & Reasonable Access Rule (both repealed in 2000)
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Fairness Doctrine
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Broadcasters must provide fair coverage of all views on public issues, repealed in 1987 by FCC, opens up the airwaves to conservative talk shows
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Equal Opportunities Rule
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Required any broadcast station to give candidates for public office availability of equal amounts of airtime
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Reasonable Access Rule
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Stations must make their facilities available for the expression of conflicting views on issues by all responsible elements in the community
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MASS MEDIA serves 5 Functions
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Reporting the News, Interpreting the News, Influencing citizen's opinions, Setting the AGENDA, Socializing citizen's about politics; the MASS MEDIA is in the Business to make MONEY
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How the Media Covers Political Affairs
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Reporting the News, Interpreting and Presenting the News: how do we balance these liberal reporters?
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Reporting the News
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Washington DC has the largest press corps in the world (over 7,000 reporters), White House PRESS Correspondents (only 50) rely heavily on the president and press releases by the White House, News Conferences are rare in the current administration ("on background"), "Off the Record" information, Photo Opportunities, Congress is covered by C-Span, "Trial Balloons"
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You often hear of information "on Background"
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Reporters can quote someone but not reveal the source, often times they are called "senior officials"
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"Off the Record" information
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Cannot even be printed by the White House press corps
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"Trial Balloons"
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Leaking ideas to gauge public reaction, these leaks sometimes turn into "pack journalism" adoption of similar views because they hang out together
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The GATEKEEPERS
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Media executives, news editors, prominent reporters, they select the topics to cover, there are no internet gatekeepers
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TV Gatekeepers
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Average story lasts one minute for the ½ hour news programs, producers carefully choose their lead stories to pull you in, most Washington DC stories are about the President 52%, about Congress 37% (when news stories are about Congress they tend to personify Congress), about the Supreme Court 10%, media events are often staged by political candidates ("Walk across Ohio with Eric Fingerhut")
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Personification
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Encourages Horse Race Journalism: it doesn't matter what the candidate says, it's who is winning the race
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Where does the public get its News?
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Until 1960's: Newspapers, early 1960's: TV nudged out newspapers, today: 65% of Americans name TV or cable news networks as their primary source for news, 14% site newspapers as primary source, 36% of Americans getting news from the internet, on average Americans spend a little over an hour a day getting news from one or more multiple sources, they also tend to watch late night TV
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News Grazers
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Check the news from time to time or only read dramatic stories, today: 70 % of the young are news grazers (2002 survey)
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How much do People Remember?
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Those who rely on TV remember less than those that rely on Print, Television Hypothesis, people with high cognitive levels prefer newspapers over TV news, contextual information reduces knowledge gaps (however those who do not pay attention to an issue right from the start might lose a valuable chance to learn about the issue)
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Television Hypothesis
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Belief that TV is to blame for the low level of citizen's knowledge about public affairs
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Influencing Public Opinion
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Measuring the extent of media influence on public opinion is difficult
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Setting the Political Agenda
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Finding issues that people identify as needing government attention (media's greatest influence), sometimes media can force the government to confront issues once buried in the scientific community (Aids, global warming, cloning), the Media makes it seem like the Crime Rate is exploding when in all actuality it is about the same as the 60's ("Crime coverage is not editorially driven it's economically driven"), the Media tends to focus on the negative (better ratings)
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Socializing the Citizenry
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The mass media act as important agents of political socialization, 1930-1950: children learned from radio, now children learn from TV, years of television have conveyed some distrust of law enforcement, disrespect for the criminal justice system ("Injustice" New TV show, and violence shape our brains), the MEDIA Today reinforces the dominance of our existing culture and order, the media can make you accept things as "just the way things are"
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Media plays contradictory role
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Supports Nationalism and Pride (Olympics, Heroes, political anniversaries), makes us question authority and erodes public confidence of politicians
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Is Reporting Biases?
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Evidence seems to point to liberal reporters/journalists in the Media, and Democratic candidates getting more "GOOD PRESS", on the other hand, the gatekeepers tone them down and hide controversial articles at the back of the papers, daily biases occur in most radio broadcasts and newspapers, news reporters do tend to be highly critical of politicians ("Watchdog Journalism"), Precision Journalism
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Which respondents had the most incorrect information on world wide topics?
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Those that watched the major TV networks (FOX, CBS, NBC, ABC) or those who read the newspapers?
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"Precision Journalism"
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Used much more commonly today by using poll data, this is not so good in elections, but can be beneficial in gauging American support for going to war or for balancing the budget
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Election Bias
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In an open election both major party candidates are criticized to some extent, however, President Obama got much more positive coverage over John McCain, well known Incumbents and Front Runners tend to get more negative press than challengers (they should since the rate of re-election is 94%)
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