10 The Media. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.10 - 2 Media: Historical...

10

The Media

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 10 - 2

Media: Historical Background• Beginnings: Party press, intensely partisan• Popular press: as urbanization occurred• Mass circulation, rotary press• Yellow Journalism: Pulitzer and Hearst

– Media once, and always has been, a business

• Alternative: Magazines of opinion, muckrackers (Lincoln Steffans, McClure’s)

• Electronic media (20s radio, 40s tv):– Individual personalities paramount

Contemporary media: – Fewer cities with competing papers– Local market orientation– Decentralized broadcast industry, but 7 major networks– National media papers, newsmagazines– Ever-expanding internet (2004 campaign and the “bloggers”


Media Selection and BiasMedia do not “mirror” reality

• Selecting/editing subjective, especially over time

• National press reporters more liberal, eds. Cons.

• Conservatives targeted PBS in 1995

National press fulfills three additional roles• Gatekeeper- judgment on what issues/how long

• Scorekeeper- tracking (and making) reputations

• Watchdog- exposing political intrigue

Social Scientists: still unable to determine extent of media influence.

– Otherwise, whole country would have liberalized long ago. True?


Figure 10.2: Public Perception of Accuracy in the Media

Source: Pew Research Center, "The People and the Press" (February 1999), 13.


Media as influencer/Press Conferences•Within what context? Political Agenda

•National press bias focuses on Washington politics

•FCC regulations/monopoly ownership regulations has reemphasized local focus

•Press Conferences as agenda-setter

•“Bully Pulpit” in hands of Reagan/Clinton

•Liability in hands of most others: Carter/Bush


Table 10.1: Decline in Viewership of the Television Networks


Press Conference Deficiencies

•Edwards and Wayne 1997:

•Infrequency: randomness > superficiality

•Size: too big to allow for follow-ups

•Formality hinders questioning•Rehearsal and question control reduce spontaneity. Jeff Gannon/aka James D. Guckert

•Televised conferences prevent informality and candid nature of responses (FDR)

•Presidential control leads to “soft” questions

•True for Bush in April?


Figure 10.3: Decline in Public Trust of the Media

Source: David Shaw, "Trust in Media Is on Decline," Los Angeles Times (March 31, 1993): A16, reporting data a Times poll conducted March 6-9, 1993. Copyright 1993, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted by permission.


Figure 10.3: Decline in Public Trust of the Media (cont’d)

Source: David Shaw, "Trust in Media Is on Decline," Los Angeles Times (March 31, 1993): A16, reporting data a Times poll conducted March 6-9, 1993. Copyright 1993, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted by permission.


Figure 10.1: Young People Have Become Less Interested in Political News

Source: The Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press (June 28, 1990).


Table 10.2: Journalist Opinion Versus Public Opinion

10 The Media. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.10 - 2 Media: Historical...

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