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

100 80 60 40 20 0 89 43 Clinton 37 7 Bush

% vote for President

19 Perot 2 Public DC Media

On __ issues, how would you characterize your political orientation?

70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 30 11 Left 57 64 Center 9 19 Right 5 5 Other Social Issues Economic Issues

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 65 32 8 “Liberal Media”?

92 42 43 64 57 77 39 59 56 35 66 Media Public

Household Income of DC Media Household Income 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 5 27 16 21 17 14 Under $50k $50-75k $75 100k $100 150k $150 200k $200k+ Household Income

I Report, You Decide Who 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 NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Telemundo, Bravo AOL, Warner Bros, Time Warner Cable, TBS, CNN, HBO, the WB, Turner Broadcasting 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

weather 8% disaster 9% human interest 14% state policy 9% national policy 7% local policy 5% local economy 4% sports 16% Happy talk 28%

Is Soft News Bad?

Soft News

The Next Leader of the Free World?

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsWpvkL Cvu4

 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