The Role of the Media

1
The Role of the Media

• Who are we talking about when saying the media?
• Media functions and expectations
• Watchdog
• Information source
• Marketplace of ideas
• Media effects
• On politics
• On the public

2
The media

• Types of media
• Press, TV, radio, www
• Tabloid vs. broadsheet
• Partisan vs. impartial
• Media for consumption or for use
• Media systems
• Public vs. private
• Ownership
• Cross-national variations
• History
• Journalism
• Profession
• Codes of practice
• Cross-national variations

3
Media functions and expectations

• Watchdog
• Fourth branch of government
• Public opinion tribunal (Jeremy Bentham)
• Thats how they frequently present themselves, as
  quasi-representatives of the public, but this
  contrasts with mass media being amongst the least
  trusted institutions
• Gatekeeper
• surveillance of the environment
• Selecting what becomes news
• Selection criteria news values,
  institutional/economic pressures, routines
• Marketplace of ideas
• Freedom of opinion ? Freedom of the press
• The public sphere
• Boundaries of opinions that find voice and media
  platform

4
Media effects on politics (and vice versa)

• Mediatization
• Public nature of democratic politics
• Need for parties/candidates to adapt to media
  requirements
• Media management
• Public relations
• Professionalisation of campaigns
• Challenging the gatekeeping function of the mass
  media
• Mutual dependency
• News media need public authorities as credible
  sources
• Political campaigners need media presence to
  generate credibility and reach of ideas
• Who influences/follows whom?
• Political dominance over media during election
  campaigns
• Responsiveness of governments/parliaments to
  media debates outside campaigns

5
Media effects on the public

• Are the media powerful (and malign)?
• Propaganda instruments?
• Dumbing down?
• Spreading violence?
• Making us apathetic?
• Disengaging the public?
• Manufacturing consent?
• Giving politics a bad name?

6
Historical shifts in theories of media power

• Propaganda studies (inter-war years)
• Omnipotent media (hypodermic needle model),
  1920s-1940s
• Columbia studies (first election studies in the
  1940s, finding little evidence of media impact)
• Minimal effects model, 1940s-1970s
• Agenda setting (the press may not be successful
  in telling us what to think, but are stunningly
  successful in telling us what to think about
  Cohen 1963)
• Cognitive effects, 1970s-1980s
• Framing, priming
• Rediscovering strong media effects (since 1980s)

7
Media effects on voting

• Information
• Campaigns do not raise level of political
  knowledge
• Political knowledge depends on individual
  characteristic and on type of medium used
• Affirming the status quo
• Giving voice to established political forces
• Over-proportional coverage of government parties
• Building barriers for new entrants into political
  arena
• Determining the criteria of electoral choice
• By influencing which issues become important in
  an election, mass media may partly determine the
  reasons for voting for a particular
  candidate/party that we take into account

8
Reasons to question media impact

• Paradox of media effects
• The more partisan, politically interested,
  politically knowledgeable, the more likely one is
  to follow the campaign, but the less likely to be
  influence by it
• The least partisan, interested and informed are
  also least likely to follow the campaign, but
  would be the ones most likely to be influenced by
  it
• The most used medium is not the most powerful
• Television is the core source of political
  information
• It is in most cases the least partisan/opinionated
  
• Studies find newspapers (especially commentary)
  to be most influential
• How can partisan newspapers influence the
  partisans?
• Readers of Daily Mirror/Daily Mail are exposed to
  most biased political coverage, but most of them
  choose papers because they are of that particular
  political predisposition
• The most outspoken newspapers have the readers
  least likely to be affected
• Media effects reinforce/undermine existing
  opinions rather than generating opinions