The Media: -INFLUENCE -Regulation

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The Media -INFLUENCE-Regulation
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The Future of the Media

• The printed daily newspaper as we know it in
  decline
• More and more people access news and information
  via the Internet
• Important questions
• Is democratic accountability threatened by the
  loss of newspapers?
• Is web-based journalism democratizing?

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People, Government, and Communications

• Mass communication transmits information to large
  audiences
• Mass media do the communicating
• Print media
• Broadcast media
• Media has important role
• Information from government to citizens
• Information from citizens to government

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Audiences of Selected Media Sources
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Magazines

• More specialized news than daily newspapers
• Can influence attentive policy elites
• Two-step flow of information then influences mass
  opinion
• However, circulation also has declined

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Radio

• Regular radio broadcasting began as local
  broadcasts in 1920
• Coast-to-coast broadcasts first heard in 1937
• More than 13,000 licensed stations today
• Audiences continue to grow
• News and talk radio popular

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Television

• First major broadcasts in 1940 color and
  coast-to-coast broadcasts in 1951
• In 2009, U.S. had over 1,300 commercial and 300
  public television stations
• Around 99 percent of homes have TV
• TV has biggest news audience after Internet

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The Internet

• Majority of government agencies and political
  organizations have websites
• Private citizens operate websites and blogs on
  politics and public affairs
• Rapid way to transmit information and mobilize
  public opinion
• Major stories starting to originate on blogs
  many authors consider selves journalists

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Compared With What?
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Private Ownership of the Media

• In U.S., private ownership of media taken for
  granted
• China has Internet police to prevent subversive
  content
• In some countries, print media privately owned
  but broadcast media run by government
• U.S. has only about 300 public TV stations and
  400 public radio stations

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Private Ownership of the Media
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The Consequences of Private Ownership

• Private media ownership means more political
  freedom, but also dependence on advertising
  revenues
• When looking at overall coverage, media functions
  more for entertainment than news
• Criteria for newsworthiness is audience appeal

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Getting the News Consider the Source
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Market-Driven Journalism

• Larger audiences earn higher advertising rates
• Outside agency determines market share of shows
  for broadcast media
• So, news broadcasts and commercials are targeted
  for viewing audiences, both national and local
• Major news organizations like CBS, ABC, and NBC
  are part of larger corporations
• Must make a profit

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Government Regulation of Media

• Although privately owned, mass media regulated by
  government
• Broadcast media more regulated than print media
• Technical regulations
• Ownership regulations
• Content regulations

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Regulation of Content

• The First Amendment prohibits Congress from
  abridging freedom of the press
• Federal courts have decided many cases defining
  how far freedom of the press extends in various
  areas
• Most news allowed, except for strategic
  information during wartime
• FCC initially designed to ensure radio and TV
  served the public interest
• Fairness doctrine and equal opportunity rule

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Regulation of Content

• Fairness doctrine repealed in 1987
• U.S. Court of Appeals struck down rules
  regulating political endorsements and personal
  attacks in broadcast media
• Print media not subject to restrictions
• Some advocate deregulation of broadcast media

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Functions of the Mass Media for the Political
System

• Reporting the news
• Interpreting the news
• Influencing citizens opinions
• Setting the agenda for government action
• Socializing citizens about politics

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Reporting the News

• News media reports on important political events
  with journalists on location
• Washington, D.C. has largest press corps
• Media relationships with president controlled by
  the Office of the Press Secretary
• Opportunities include news conferences, press
  releases, background information, off the
  record comments, and photo opportunities

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Interpreting and Presenting the News

• Media executives, news editors, and reporters
  function as gatekeepers of news flow and validity
• Personification makes news more understandable
• Rise of Internet has made more views available
• More information available, but no gatekeepers to
  check validity of content

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Media Coverage of Elections

• Personification of political news encourages
  horse race journalism
• Most Americans want more coverage of issues
• Changing poll numbers and media events
  considered more newsworthy

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Where the Public Gets Its News

• Newspaper most important source until 1960s, then
  TV
• Today, 65 percent of Americans name TV or cable
  news networks as primary news source
• Newspapers 14 percent
• Internet 11 percent
• Multiple sources used by many, including
  late-night talk shows

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What People Remember and Know

• Although 80 percent of public access news media
  each day, most retain little
• National survey in 2009 found respondents could
  only answer five of 12 questions about current
  events correctly
• Those who rely on TV retain less than those who
  read print media
• Some media researchers believe TV is behind low
  level of citizen knowledge about public affairs

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Figure 6.5Gagging on Late-Night TV
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Influencing Public Opinion

• Difficult to measure extent of medias influence
  on public opinion
• Does the media create public opinion by its
  reporting of events?
• Studies on specific areas, such as pretrial
  coverage of serious criminal cases, show
  significant influence

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Setting the Political Agenda

• Most scholars see medias greatest influence in
  its ability to identify issues needing government
  attention
• Media can force government to address unpopular
  or unknown issues
• Some issues, such as crime, disproportionately
  covered
• Public also influences media coverage

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Setting the Political Agenda

• Politicians eager to influence media coverage
• Public opinion
• Opinions of attentive elites
• Presidents sometimes go public to advance a
  political agenda

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Socializing the Citizenry

• Young people politically socialized via medias
  entertainment function
• Media reinforces dominance of existing culture
  and order
• Today, messages about government very different
  than in past
• Media has contradictory roles in process of
  political socialization

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Evaluating the Media in Government

• Some believe news filtered through ideologies of
  media owners, editors, and reporters
• Reporters tend to be liberal (32) rather than
  conservative (8)
• Editors and owners more conservative
• Talk radio dominated by conservatives

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Partisanship and the Credibility of the News
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Evaluating the Media in Government

• In general, incumbents receive more news coverage
  than challengers
• Political bias in coverage depends on the party
  in power
• Media may also be biased in the way news stories
  reported

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Contributions to Democracy

• Most political communications from government to
  citizens through media
• News reporters tend to be critical of
  politicians, serving watchdog function
• Media polls enable reporting of public opinion on
  major issues
• Necessary for majoritarian model of government

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Effects on Freedom, Order, and Equality

• Media has played important role in advancing
  equality
• Media coverage of civil rights movement critical
  to its success
• However, media resists government efforts to use
  it to promote public order
• What is balance between free press and national
  security?

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The Advertising License to do business

• Before advertising became prominent, the price of
  a newspaper had to cover the cost of doing
  business.
• With the growth of advertising, papers who
  attracted ads could be sold below production
  costs. This placed papers who lacked advertising
  at a disadvantage.
• The advertisers choices influence media
  prosperity and survival.
• As a result, working class papers and a more
  radical press are at a disadvantage.

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The Influence of Advertisers

• Large corporate advertisers will rarely support
  programs with serious criticisms of corporate
  activities, environmental degradation, and
  interconnections between military and industry.
• Advertisers will also avoid programs with serious
  complexities and disturbing controversies that
  may interfere with the buying mood of its
  readership/audiences.
• This dependence on advertising dollars,
  therefore, translates into less critical content
  being printed or aired, resulting in articles and
  programs, which are culturally and politically
  more conservative.

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TABLOID TV

• Instead of critical documentaries, Discovery
  and National Geographic Television programs
  feature adventure and travel type shows which
  invite viewers to escape into exotic landscapes
  and scenarios.
• News programs are becoming increasingly
  tabloidizised, in their relentless search for
  a nightly extravaganza of chaos, conflict,
  confrontation, and controversy (Fleras, p. 47)

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Constructing News Images

• Seeing is believing The camera never
  liesare clichés which draw attention to popular
  beliefs and apparent faith in observation and
  visual representation.
• However, camera positioning and angle, picture
  framing and lighting, image selection,
  photographic retouching, digital image
  manipulation, editorial cropping and final
  juxtaposition can all radically change or even
  invert the sense of depicted scenesthe camera
  can lie.

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Signifier (shot) Definition Signified (meaning)
Close-up? Media shot? Long shot? Full shot? Face only? Most of body? Setting and characters? Full body of person? Intimacy Personal relationship Context, scope, public distance Social relationship
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Signifier (film/video) Definition Signified (meaning)
Pan down? Pan Up? Zoom in? Fade in? Fade Out? Cut? Wipe? Camera looks down Camera looks up Camera moves in Image appears on blank screen Image screen goes blank Switch from one image to another Image wiped off screen Power, Authority Smallness, weakness Observation, focus Beginning Ending Simultaneity, exitement Imposed conclusion.
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Sports is now a mass consumer spectacle
This is a bit different from the time when
gentleman amateurs played for fun and it was
not taken too seriously
Sport
Times have changed. We now have a golden
triangle between the media, sport and sponsors
Media
Sponsorship
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The Golden Triangle

• There is no doubt that sport, the media, which in
  turn means sponsorship is linked
• In all sports with strong media links,
  professionalism is a reality
• Sports have had to change their rules, format and
  scheduling in order to meet the demands of TV
  companies and sponsors

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Sports and the Media

• Sports are becoming increasingly commercialized
• We are getting the win at all costs ethic
• The stakes are high, so winning is vital
• This can intensify ethical problems such as
  corruption, cheating, violence and drug abuse,
  which are highlighted by the media

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THE REAL ISSUE

• HOW CAN SPORT RETAIN ITS TRUE NATURE AND VALUES
  WHILE BENEFITING FROM THE MONEY OFFERED BY
  COMMERCIALISM?

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WHAT HAS HAPPENED?

• 19th Century sport was seen as a
  valuable experience in its own right
• 20th Century sport became part of
  the entertainment industry
• Now just a branch of the advertising
  industry?

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QUESTIONS

• Has money corrupted sport or has the media saved
  sport from economic disaster?
• Has sport benefited from its relationship with
  the media?
• Has sport been manipulated for the sake of the
  sponsors, advertisers and passive armchair
  spectators, at the expense of the paying
  spectator?