McCain v. Obama Town Hall Debate

Importance of Media in the New American Democracy

Representative democracy Citizens need to know Events Media News Tree falling in the forest News shapes public opinion Need to “make news” shapes government’s

activities Inevitable concern about Bias and Accountability

Bias in Historical Context

Party Newspapers Federalists, Gazette of the

United State Jeffersonians, National

Gazette Funded by government

contracts, print information party elites want citizens to hear

Penny Press

Emergence of independent press

“News is information about public life that sells.”

Muckraking, sensationalism

Increase in corporate ownership

TV, Radio & Internet

99% of houses have TV 65% cable 75% use internet

Primary Source of News

Newspapers only 10% TV and newspapers 22% TV only 55%

Evening News audience declined 30% since 1980s

But 50 million in audience each night

Most Credible Source of News

Radio 5% Magazines 5% Newspapers 19% Television 58%

3 Potential Sources of Bias

Ideological bias of reporters/editors Professional/selection bias of reporters Profit bias of corporate owners

Liberal Media Bias

Liberal Media Bias

Journalists' views are to the left of the public, Journalists frame news content in a way that

accentuates these left perspectives. AIDS Victim- white housewife w/bad blood transfusion

Elite Journalists are out of touch with mainstream American values (Bernard Goldberg- "Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News” ) "How many members of the Los Angeles Times and St.

Louis Post-Dispatch belong to the American Legion or the Kiwanis or go to prayer breakfasts?”

1992 Survey

Media Bias

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Clinton Bush Perot

% vote for President

Public

DC Media

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I Report, You DecideWho is the “Ultra-Conservative”?

Who is the “Moderate”?

Gary Bauer Pro-life Anti SS privatization &

free trade, Pro minimum wage

Christie Todd Whitman Pro-choice Pro SS privatization &

free trade, Anti minimum wage

Selection Bias

Professional Criteria for Newsworthiness Drama, color, simplicity

Long Island News Experiment

How to tell an “unemployment is increasing” story? Framing Causal

Iyengar and Kinder, Experimental demonstrations of the “not-so-minimal” consequences of television news programs, American Political Science Review, 1982

Systemic Explanations

National trend in increasing unemployment

Individual Explanations

unemployed auto worker in Ohio

Framing (cont)

What is the most important cause of poverty Systemic Framing viewers

78% say (the recession) or government and society (references to Reagan’s policies)

Individual Framing viewers 62% say motivation (laziness) or skills

Implications of Framing

Individual frames encourage people to hold individual responsible for the situation they are in

Systemic frames encourage people to hold the public officials responsible.

Media Poor People

CBS News 66% black, 34% non-black 15% working, 85% non working

-unemployed New Orleans youth,

Newsweek

Real Poor People

US Census 29% black, 71% non-black 51% work, 49% non-

working

Policy Consequences of Selection Bias

Media Poor- black and unemployed Real Poor- white and working Surveys 50% of all poor people are black

3 Potential Sources of Bias

Ideological bias of reporters/editors Professional/selection bias of reporters Profit bias of corporate owners

Competition

1960- 7 channels; today 500+ more ways to obtain news or avoid it.

Changing demographics 24-hour-a-day cable news viewers harder to attract

ABC TV/Radio, ESPN, E!, Lifetime, A&E, History, Touchstone

AOL, Warner Bros, Time Warner Cable, TBS, CNN, HBO, the WB, Turner Broadcasting

NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Telemundo, Bravo

Fox TV, SKY, START, Weekly Standard, Tech Valley Guide, New York Post

CBS, MTV, BET, Showtime, Infinity Radio,

Impact on News

Shift in Business Model Profitability > Reporting Ratings driven

FCC scraps “Public Service Requirement”

Declining Amount of News

Government news stories on "ABC World News Tonight" dropped from 40.2% of all stories in 1977 to 15.9% in 1997

In 1997, Time Magazine, ¼ the number of government stories as in 1977

Less Coverage of Government

Department of Veteran's Affairs, 2 reporters Interior Department, not 1 reporter Full time Wisconsin state government

reporters, 24 in 1972, 12 in 1996

Big Increase in Soft News

consumer oriented - health, business, and technology

Why

“Spectacle Stories”

BTK: Out Of The Shadows

48 Hours

Dateline

Primetime Live

Are Your Kids Fans of 'Ultimate Fighting'?

48 Hours

Bad Girls What would drive well-educated suburban girls to become armed robbers? 48 Hours looks at the case of four Texas teen-agers charged after a robbery spree last year. (Dec. 28,

  Dead Men Tell No Tales Tommy Lynn Sells

claims he's killed scores of people over the past 18 years. And as 48 Hours reports, it was a 10-year-old girl that helped bring him to justice.

Dateline

Actor leading the fight for a cure for Parkinson’s disease

  Conjoined twins Kathleen and Charity Lincoln

undergo a risky operation.

Breaking away Follow four families as they struggle to move out of the housing projects. Maria Shriver reports in this Special Interactive Documentary

Avg Time Devoted to 9 News Categories by local tv

state policy9% national policy

7%

local policy5%

local economy4%

Happy talk28%

sports16%

human interest14%

weather8%

disaster9%

Is Soft News Bad?

Soft News

The Next Leader of the Free World?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsWpvkLCvu4

Will the internet revitalize democracy and increase the voice of citizens in political affairs? Why or why not? What are the potential advantages and disadvantages of this medium over traditional media sources like television?

Can the Internet improve our democratic system and remove the problems of media bias? How? In what ways could it threaten or undermine our democratic system?

Politics in Cyberspace

Will new technologies revive democratic politics? “Offer a means of reestablishing the connection between

voters and candidates” email, chat room “dramatically change the quality of information readily

available to voters”, wide spectrum of political groups CNN et al will develop multimedia sites devoted to

political coverage More “unmediated sources of information”

Politics in Cyberspace

Will new technologies revive democratic politics? Will reduce the cost of political contributions .. Open the

electoral process to groups and candidates who have traditionally been priced out of the political market

Voters will have more candidates to choose from Will make it easier to participate via email Easier to do fund raising

Politics in Cyberspace

Concerns Fair and equitable access, certain segments of the

electorate may be disadvantaged Requires a high level of motivation Rise of formal and informal neo-intermediaries http://www.cnn.com/ http://www.foxnews.com/ http://news.yahoo.com/

Being an intelligent citizen

Newspapers Magazines Commercial orientation of networks