Media & Politics

ObjectivesObjectives• Discuss the role and responsibility of the media in a democratic

system.• Examine new advances in media dissemination and explore

their influence on the democratic process in the United States.• Explain why the federal government has more power to regulate

broadcast media than print media.• Analyze the relationship between the government and media

reporters.• Assess the way the media report the news and consider how

much reporting can lead to certain types of media bias.

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Functions of the Media

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• Reporting and interpreting the news

• Helping to set the public agenda• Filtering — what to cover; what not to cover

• Framing — interpretation of a story

• Serving as agents of socialization

• Providing a public forum• Gatekeeping

• Providing entertainment

Tracing the Development of Media in the U.S.Tracing the Development of Media in the U.S.• Beginnings: first commercial press in 1638 Cambridge, MA• Newspapers not a fixture until 1700s• 1704 Boston News-Letter• Common Sense, a pamphlet by Thomas Paine

• 1800s improved printing press; quicker and easier to print newspapers.• Partisan press: Hamilton’s Gazette of the United States in

1789 and Jefferson’s National Gazette 1791• Penny Press emerges: less partisan with incentive to make

money• Yellow journalism: led to soaring circulation

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Tracing the Development of Media in the U.S.Tracing the Development of Media in the U.S.• 1837 Samuel Morse patents the telegraph• Several newspapers created the NY Associated Press in

1848 to share the cost of transmitting news via telegraph.• East to West cables – continuous communication

• Objective journalism emerges• Journalism schools – Pulitzer and Columbia University• Watchdogs; Fourth Estate• Muckraking: Ralph Nader’s 1965 book, Unsafe at Any Speed

• Twentieth century: radio and television, followed in the twentieth century with social media

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Radio

• Commercial radio emerged in the 1920s• Fast growth: 30 stations in 1922 and 500 in

1923• Radio used by politicians to bypass the filter.• Talk radio• Medium that opens lines to listeners to discuss

various topics• Major political force in 1990s• Most popular radio format 7

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Television

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The New Media• Early examples: cable and satellite• Internet emerges• Social media: blogs, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook• Ordinary citizens gained opportunity to express and share

views• Internet ideal for narrowcasting• By allowing consumers to rely on news sources that merely

reinforce their preexisting views, narrowcasting may increase partisanship, polarize public opinion, and make political compromise by policy makers more difficult.

• Newspapers have been hurt by new media.

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Government Regulation of the Media:Regulation of Airwaves/BroadcastGovernment Regulation of the Media:Regulation of Airwaves/Broadcast• Federal Communications Commission: issues broadcast

licenses, allocates broadcast frequencies, and regulates broadcasters to ensure that their use of scarce airwaves is in the public interest

• Jurisdiction includes radio, television, wire, and cable communication

• Regulation efforts: prevent monopolies although cable and satellite diminished scarcity argument; 1996 abolished many of the cross-market barriers that had prevented media companies from offering many of the same services.

• Ownership cap: 39% aggregate national ownership

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Government Regulation of the Media:Regulating Broadcast ContentGovernment Regulation of the Media:Regulating Broadcast Content• FCC mandate serves to assure that scarce airwaves are used

in the public interest. • Goal: to assure that broadcasters offer fair, balanced coverage of

public issues and political campaigns.• Equal time rule: if station sells air time for political ad to one

candidate, they must provide equal time to any other candidate who wishes to purchase it.

• Fairness doctrine: regulation that broadcast licensees must devote a reasonable percentage of their time to the discussion of public issues of interest to the community on the air and focus on opposing views as well. FCC stopped using fairness doctrine in 1987.

• Fine broadcasters if the air indecent material• 1978 “Seven dirty words” monologue by George Carlin – fined radio station

for airing the material

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Government Regulation of the Media:Regulation of Airwaves/BroadcastGovernment Regulation of the Media:Regulation of Airwaves/Broadcast• Concerns over airwave distribution. Who gets what? New

media requires more: cell phones and wireless Internet• Net neutrality: unhindered flow of information over the

internet without interference by those that run or own the service providers.

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Government Regulation of the Media:Regulating the InternetGovernment Regulation of the Media:Regulating the Internet• Congress has made several attempts to regulate the Internet.• Communication Decency Act (CDA)• Criminalized posting of indecent or obscene material on the internet.• Struck down by the Supreme Court as “overly broad” because it

included “indecent” and “patently offensive” material

• Child Online Protection Act (COPA)• Targeted commercial distributors; imposed a $50,000 fine and six

months in prison for any commercial distributor who knowingly posted “material harmful to minors” without restricting their site to those who could prove that they were adults. Again struck down on grounds that it was too broad.

• Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) • Requires schools and libraries (who have federal subsidies for

computers and Internet) to install filters to block images that are pornographic or harmful to minors.

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Government and the MediaGovernment and the Media• Most of what we know about government and current events

comes from the news media.• But this information tends to be limited and conforms to news

norms of covering a narrow range of issues and often more sensational fare. • Critical, evaluative coverage may be lacking.

• Government tries to influence the coverage they received.• Spin: use their own public relations infrastructure to influence

how the news will be reported.• Pack journalism• Groups of journalists who are assigned to cover the same

institution, often produce uniform coverage of issues and rely on official channels of information, and lack of original research

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Presidents and the PressPresidents and the Press• Public support is the president’s most visible source of

political power.• Going public is a tactic used by presidents and their

surrogates whereby they take their messages directly to the people in an effort to mold mandates for policy initiatives.

• Theodore Roosevelt began the practice of meeting regularly with reporters; delivered State of the Union orally instead of by written message.

• 1933 FDR created the White House Press office• Today the Press Office is the most visible White House staff

unit that deals with the media.• Press conferences• Photo ops• New avenues for contact: MTV, ESPN, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr

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Congress and the PressCongress and the Press

• Size and complexity of Congress make it difficult to cover Congress as an institution compared to the presidency.• Press galleries 1850s• Congressional reporters a

fixture in the 1870s

• 20th century brought efforts to broadcast public coverage of the House, but not allowed until 1947 when television cameras allowed.• McCarthy hearings• Watergate committee

investigation• Media coverage

important to Congressional members

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The Supreme Court & the PressThe Supreme Court & the Press• Covered far less by the media than Congress or the president.• Nature of the institution: justices appointed for life and perform

most of their duties behind closed doors.• The nature of their decisions are often lengthy and complicated.• Expert analysts interpret the decision for broadcast and online

media outlets.• They do have a public information office. Access to oral

arguments, but no press briefings.• Media coverage limited mainly to coverage of decisions in

highly charged cases.

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ElectionsElections

• The media play an important role in elections. • Television has affect the way political candidates campaign for public

office.• Style, image, and the ability to communicate well in front of tv cameras all

became more important.• Candidates try to get their messages to the voters through a

combination of free media coverage and paid political coverage.• Level of message control varies between free and paid coverage.• Intermediated messages versus partially intermediated messages• Paid ads = unmediated

• They also use social media and the Internet to target messages to particular segments of the electorate and to raise money.

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Assessing the Media:How well do the media actually perform?Assessing the Media:How well do the media actually perform?

• Biased news? Often accused of ideological bias.• Studies have found that journalists rarely identify

themselves as conservative. Pew Study: 8 percent conservative, 32 percent liberal and 53 percent moderate.

• Surveys find that most people surveyed believe that news organizations have a partisan bias.

• Corporate interests? Concentration of media ownership may make this corporate bias even worse. Commercial bias.

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Assessing the Media:How well do the media actually perform?Assessing the Media:How well do the media actually perform?

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