The News

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The News
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Why does the press matter? How does the press
affect public opinion?

• Priming the news influences which issues we
  judge to be the most important issues of the day.

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Ranking of most important issue facing America
Iyengar and Kinder, Experiment 1

• Before experiment
• Inflation
• Pollution
• Unemployment
• Energy
• Civil Rights
• Defense preparedness

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Ranking of most important issue facing America
Iyengar and Kinder, Experiment 1

• Before experiment
• Inflation
• Pollution
• Unemployment
• Energy
• Civil Rights
• Defense preparedness

• After experiment
• Inflation
• Defense preparedness
• Pollution
• Unemployment
• Energy
• Civil Rights

5
Why does the press matter? How does the press
affect public opinion?

• Priming the news influences which issues we
  judge to be the most important issues of the day.
• Framing the news can influence how we see the
  issues
• who should we sympathize with?
• what is the real issue?

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Is there only one kind of bias?
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What about bias? Where is it evident?
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What about bias? Where is it evident?

• Story choice
• Placement
• Headlines
• Framing
• Photographs

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Election coverage Biased toward political
junkies

• Whos ahead and whos behind
• Sound bites (less than ten seconds!)
• Stories with good visuals, conflict, drama

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Is there a partisan bias?

• Journalists are partisans
• Economic incentive is to sell to as many people
  as possible
• There is room for a profitable niche partisan
  market

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Good sources of news?

• PBSis the news less sensational or less
  partisan when you take away the profit motive?
• Google/Yahoo/MSN???
• TV vs. newspaper?

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• Daily show news advertising
• Daily show fact checking and cnn
• Daily show what the news covers