Chapter Six The Media. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 6-2 People,...

Chapter Six

The Media

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 6-2

People, Government and Communications

• The term mass media refers to the means employed in mass communication, often divided into print media and broadcast media.


The Development of the Mass Media in the United States

• The growth of the country, technological inventions, and shifting political attitudes about the scope of government—as well as trends in entertainment—have shaped the development of the news media in the United States.

• Those media types include newspapers, magazines, radio, television and the Internet.


The Development of the Mass Media in the United States (Cont’d)

• Magazines are most likely to influence what are termed attentive policy elites—leaders who follow news in specific policy areas.

• The two-step flow of communication is the process in which a few policy elites gather information and then inform their more numerous followers, mobilizing them to apply pressure to government.


Figure 6.1: Audiences of Selected Media Sources


CWW 6.1: Top Twenty-Five Nations in Internet Penetration


Private Ownership of the Media

• Most Americans would regard government ownership of the media as an unacceptable threat to freedom.


Private Ownership of the Media (Cont’d)

• The consequences of private ownership of both the print and broadcast media give the news industry in America more political freedom than any other in the world, but it also makes the media more dependent on advertising revenues to cover their costs and make a profit.



• Another consequence is that in terms of sheer volume, the entertainment content of mass media in the U.S. vastly overshadows the news content.

• The primary criterion of a story’s newsworthiness is the degree to which a news story is important enough to be covered in the mass media.


Figure 6.2: Local Television News: No News Is Happy News



• Market-driven Journalism is defined as reporting news and running commercials geared to a target audience defined by demographic characteristics.



• Many networks succumb to Infotainment—a mix of information and diversion oriented to personalities or celebrities, not linked to the day’s events, and usually unrelated to public affairs or policy; often called “soft news.”


The Concentration of Private Ownership

• Media owners can make more money either by increasing their audience or by acquiring additional publications or stations. There is a decided trend toward concentrated ownership of the media, increasing the risk that a few owners could control the news flow to promote their own political interests.


The Concentration of Private Ownership (Cont’d)

• At first glance, concentration of ownership does not seem to be a problem in the television industry because few networks own their affiliates. However, chains sometimes own television stations in different cities, and ownership can extend across different media.


Government Regulation of the Media

• Technical and ownership regulations include:

• The Federal Radio Act, which declared that the public owned the airwaves and private broadcasters could use them only by obtaining a license from the Federal Radio Commission.


Technical and Ownership Regulations

• The Federal Communications Commission which is an independent federal agency that regulates interstate and international communication by radio, television, telephone, telegraph, cable and satellite


Technical and Ownership Regulations (Cont’d)

• The Telecommunications Act of 1996, which • Relaxed or scrapped limitations on media ownership, • Set no national limits for radio ownership and relaxed

local limits, • Lifted regulations for cable systems and allowed

cross-ownership of cable and telephone companies, and

• Allowed local and long-distance telephone companies to compete with one another and to sell television services.


Reporting and Following the News

• Most journalists consider “news” as an important event that has happened within the past twenty-four hours.


Reporting and Following the News (Cont’d)

• Five functions the mass media provide the political system include:• Reporting the news• Interpreting the news• Influencing citizen’s opinions• Setting the agenda for government action • Socializing citizens about politics.



• Washington, D.C., has the largest press corps of any city in the world, due to the number of significant political events that occur there.

• White House correspondents rely heavily on information they receive from the president’s staff.

• Only about 400 reporters in the Washington press corps cover Congress exclusively.



• Media executives, news editors and prominent reporters function as gatekeepers; they decide which events to report and how to handle the elements in those stories.



• During elections, election coverage by the mass media focusing on which candidate is ahead, rather than on national issues, is termed horse race journalism.

• Candidates in elections often create “newsworthy” situations to garner media attention, termed a media event.



• In determining where the public gets its news, television may not be as dominant a news medium as it might seem if the public’s specific sources of news are accurately conveyed by them.


Figure 6.3: Regular Use of News Media by the Public


Figure 6.4: Interest in the News



• 80% of the public read or hear the news each day but do not absorb much of what they saw or heard.

• This lends credence to the television hypothesis: the belief that television is to blame for the low level of citizen’s knowledge about public affairs.


The Political Effects of the Media

• Virtually all citizens rely upon the media for their political news.

• Americans believe that the media exert a strong influence on their political institutions and upon public opinion, but because few of us learn about political events except through the media, it might be argued that the media create public opinion simply by reporting events.


The Political Effects of the Media (Cont’d)

• Most scholars believe the true media influence on politics is in their ability to set the agenda, or assimilating a list of issues that people identify as needing government attention.


The Political Effects of the Media (Cont’d)

• Finally, the media act as important agents of political socialization.

• This role is contradictory in nature, however, because the media promote popular support for government while eroding public confidence by detailing less-than-successful political corruption and television dramas about troubled police, for example.


Evaluating the Media in Government

• In attempting to determine if the media is biased, the following facts are useful:

• Reporter Bias: 61% of reporters confess to being “Democrat or liberal” while editors tend to be more conservative

• The likelihood of a newspaper making a candidate endorsement is closely related to the size of its circulation


Evaluating the Media in Government (Cont’d)

• A comparison of television news finds more negative coverage of incumbents, not an incumbent bias

• Whether media coverage of campaigns is seen as pro-Democratic or pro-Republican depends upon which party is in office at the time.

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Chapter Six The Media. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 6-2 People,...

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