Chapter 6

THE MASS MEDIA

“Political Maneuvering, Yes; Substantive Issues, No”

 The opening vignette is based on a story about how Linda Tripp at the suggestion of book agent Lucianne Goldberg secretly taped conversations with Monica Lewinsky about her sexual relationship with President Bill Clinton.  Major TV networks and news magazines picked up the story based on innuendo, without having listened to t he tapes.

 The story illustrates that the media are not very interested in informing the public about important and substantive political and policy issues but concentrate, instead, on the game of politics.

 In Chapter 6, the authors ask whether the media enrich or diminish democracy in the United States.

 The text addresses major issues concerning the media: » Organization of the mass media » How political news is generated and presented » The relationship between reporters and politicians » How the media influence how citizens think about politics and public policies

Roles of the Mass Media in Democracy

 The

central idea of democracy

is that ordinary citizens should control what their government does.



Watchdog

over government  Clarify what

electoral choices

the public has  Present a full and enlightening set of

ideas about public policy

to the public

The Mass Media As Important Elements of the Political System

 The mass media serve as

critical links

among political and governmental institutions.

 They also act as

political institutions

in their own right.

» Vehicles for government, political parties, and interest groups to speak to citizens » Channels of communication among political and governmental institutions » The media, primarily owned by large corporations, are themselves political actors with their own goals and interests.

Development of the Mass Media in America

 The nature of the mass media has been shaped by structural factors: » Population expansion and dispersion » Technological innovations from the invention of printing presses to satellites » New forms of corporate business organization

 Newspapers » Modern newspapers have been made possible by technological developments and economic growth.

» Changing structural factors of industrialization and technology changed the shape of political communication and the shape of politics.

» Newspaper readership: competition from television and radio

 Magazines » Journals of opinion » Weekly newsmagazines » Large-circulation magazines » Specialized journals

 Radio significantly changed the face of the mass media.

» Commercial radio stations with broad audiences » Stations all over the country were organized into networks that shared news and other programs  Resurgence of modern radio

 Transformation of the media by television  Television was invented just before World War II.

» Developed commercially in the late 1940s » Adopted on a large scale in the 1950s.

 Polls regularly have shown that most people name television as their most important source of news.

 The

new media

have the potential to revolutionize politics.

» Personal computers and modems in many homes and offices » The Internet

How the Media Work

 Organization of the mass media » Corporate ownership — concentration of ownership has been increasing.

» Effects of centralization

Political Newsmaking

 Where the news comes from  Dependence on official sources  Mutual needs of the media and public officials  Foreign news tends to be sporadic and episodic.

 Interpretation of political news

Is the News Biased?

 Observers disagree about whether the media are

biased

in a liberal or a conservative direction.

 What is bias?

Prevailing Themes in Political News

 Tendencies in media coverage » Beliefs that are assumed » Values and points of view that are emphasized » Values that seldom are given coverage » Ethnocentric point of view in most news reports about foreign affairs  The combination of ethnocentrism and the dependence on U.S. government news sources has meant that most foreign news coverage supports U.S. foreign policy.

Impact

 Results of relying on incumbent politicians as essential news sources  Negativity and scandal  Limited, fragmented, and incoherent political information

Effects of the Media on Politics

 Media coverage influences public opinion and policymaking.

»

Agenda-setting

effects — the topics that get the most coverage in the media are the same ones that most people say are the most important problems » The media’s

framing

or interpretation of stories affects how people think about political problems.

» Trends in what the media cover sometimes diverge from actual trends in problems.

» What appears in the media affects people’s

policy preferences

.

 Influence on policymaking » By affecting what people think is important, the media indirectly affect what government does when the government responds to public opinion.

» What appears in the media has a direct effect on policymaking when government reacts to news coverage and investigative reports.

 Cynicism » As the adversarial

attack journalism

style has taken over political reporting, serious consideration of the issues or of the behavior of institutions has lost out to a steady diet of charges about personal misbehavior.

» Is mass media coverage of American politics responsible for increased cynicism about political parties, politicians, and incumbent political leaders?

Censorship and Government Regulation

 Government has less legal control over the media in the United States than in most other countries.

 The U.S. government does enforce various technical and substantive regulations on the electronic media.

Constitutional Protection

 Overt censorship since the

Alien and Sedition Acts

of 1798 has primarily been confined to wartime.

 The Constitution now is interpreted as forbidding government from preventing the publication of most kinds of political information.

» Exceptions involving national security » Limitations on

prior restraint

» Protection of the media after material has been published

 The electronic media are subject to more direct government regulation, though such regulation is now very limited.

 Federal Communications Commission (FCC)  Rate regulation » Government regulation of the media is no longer significant.

» The trend has been toward a free market system with little government interference.

How to Judge the Media

 Is it a flaw if the mass media fail to present informative, analytical, and sophisticated coverage of political issues?

 Is it essential for people to have a lot of detailed information?

 Does a shortage of good information make it difficult for citizens to form intelligent political judgments?