U.S. GOVERNMENT & POLITICS, SPRING 2011

THE MEDIA’S POLITICAL ROLES

OSY chapter 10, second half (290-305); Auletta, “Non-Stop News”

Monday, April 18

OSY terms: yellow journalism, muckraking, trends in TV news over time, forms of new media and impact on politics, media consolidation, narrowcasting, talking heads, citizen journalists, FCC, content regulation, equal time rule, differences between covering president and covering Congress; media effects, agenda setting, framing, ways in which media bias is manifested, trends in public perception of the media; gatekeeping, priming, horse race coverage

MAJOR ROLES OF U.S. NEWS MEDIA

• A linkage institution, links citizens to government and vice versa (other linkage institutions: political parties, interest groups)

• agenda setting, determining what matters to the public through coverage choices (gatekeeping, framing, priming)

• campaign coverage, focus on “horse race” versus issues; print and internet more informative than TV by far

• regulation – print media essentially unregulated on First Amendment grounds, but the electronic media is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

• impact on public opinion and political behavior: beyond agenda setting, political scientists have multiple viewpoints – some feel the media is the critical influence on the public, while others believe the public selectively chooses what to pay attention to, or that personal interaction (filtered media effects) is the key factor (media presents something, but people talking about it creates the impact of what is presented)

KEY TRENDS/CHANGES

• politics as entertainment (e.g. The Daily Show), influence of comedy news
• growing presence of internet-based news sources, both traditional and new
• continuing importance of “talk radio” (e.g. Rush Limbaugh) to fuel political discussion
• shifting conceptions of bias in media, landscape reshaped by Fox News, growth of selective exposure (narrowcasting)
• media focus on political scandal, wrongdoing has lowered public approval of BOTH government and the media

Additional reading today: Ken Auletta highlights the relationship between President Obama and the Washington media, focusing on how media coverage of the President (and politics in general) has changed, and how well Obama has coped with media pressures in his first year in office (this article was published in early January, 2010).

QUESTIONS FOR TODAY

1. Considering the discussion in Auletta’s article, what is the most important aspect of media coverage of the President that is different today compared with 10-15 years ago, and how has this change affected reporters? What is the most important difference for a President and his/her staff in dealing with media coverage, and how has this change affected media strategies by the White House?

2. Thinking more broadly than just about coverage of the President, how has U.S. politics changed due to the explosion of new media forms, ‘citizen journalists’ on the internet, and the proliferation of news networks (on TV and online)?

3A. Auletta says on the first page of his article that the media’s “dominant bias” is “not pro-liberal or pro-conservative but pro-conflict.” Evaluate this statement – is he right? What difference does it make if the news media’s coverage of U.S. politics is “pro-conflict”

3B. Do you believe the U.S. media is politically biased – and if so, in what directions is it biased? As part of your discussions, be sure to give a specific definition to what you mean by political bias.

FOR WEDNESDAY: News summary #4 articles on public opinion and media coverage