American Government and Politics Today

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American Government and Politics Today

• Chapter 10
• The Media and Cyberpolitics

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The Medias Functions

• Entertainment
• Reporting the news
• Identifying public problems
• Setting the public agenda
• The investigative function
• Socializing new generations
• Providing a political forum
• Making profits

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History of the Media in the U.S.

• The rise of the political press
• Development of mass-readership newspapers
• The popular press and yellow journalism
• The age of the electromagnetic signal
• The revolution of electronic media
• Cable TV
• Narrowcasting
• Talk show politics and Internet broadcasting
• The Internet, blogging and podcasting

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The Primacy of Television

• Currently the most influential type of media is
  television.
• In 1963, the major networks devoted only eleven
  minutes a day to national news (a 15-minute show
  minus ad time). Today that is up to about three
  hours. Many all-news channels are also available.

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The Primacy of Television (cont.)

• Televisions Influence on the Political Process.
• Viewers can actually see news and history as it
  is happening.

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The Media and Political Campaigns

• Voters now receive most information from the
  electronic media, especially television. There
  are three types of television coverage employed
  by a campaign
• Advertising
• Management of News Coverage
• Planning political events to accommodate the
  press
• Developing a good working relationship with
  reporters.
• Convincing the media to put the right spin or
  interpretation on a story.
• Political Debates

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The Media and Political Campaigns (cont.)

• Political Campaigns and the Internet
• In recent campaigns, the Internet has played an
  increasingly prominent role, as candidates use
  Web sites to convey their messages as well as
  solicit contributions. The Internet also has been
  a useful tool for voters, with one study
  reporting that one-fifth of voters had used the
  Internet to obtain information about elections.

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The Media and Political Campaigns (cont.)

• The Medias Impact on the Voters
• A limitation on the medias impact is that many
  viewers pay selective attention and mostly notice
  coverage that confirms their own beliefs. The
  medias focus on the horse-race aspects of the
  contest limits coverage of the issues.

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The Media and the Government

• By focusing attention on controversial actions,
  the media can sometimes pressure the government
  into changing course.
• The media and the president
• Setting the public agenda

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Government Regulation of the Media

• The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has
  far more control over the broadcast media than it
  does over print.
• Controlling ownership of the media
• Media conglomerates
• Reevaluating the rules
• Government Control of Content
• Control of broadcasting
• The Second Gulf War and embedded reporters
• The Publics Right to Media Access

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Bias in the Media

• Do the Media Have a Partisan Bias?
• A Commercial Bias?

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Questions for Critical Thinking

• How has the role of media evolved in recent
  times? What topics are more likely to receive
  national news coverage? Why is this so?
• Why are First Amendment protections so important?
  Do you support any limitations on First Amendment
  protections? What about television or radio shows
  that incite violence or demonstrate hate? Should
  these shows be limited? Who should get to decide
  what is acceptable? Why is this important?