The Media

1
The Media

• Would you rather have government with no
  newspapers or newspapers with no government?

2
Current Media Trends and Rules Governing the
Media pp. 553-566

• What trends in the media are discussed in the
  text?
• Work with a partner to read about one current
  trend and prepare a short presentation on the
  topic
• You may lecture, do a skit, or create a song to
  convey the information.
• Be sure to explain any key points and
  vocabulary.- Give examples if you can.

3
Analyzing the media

1. Choose any 3 news websites record their names
   and website addresses.
2. Describe any differences you notice in the
   content, visual design or message of the
   websites.
3. Pick one current political news topic. Carefully
   read articles on that topic from each of the
   three news sources.
4. Identify specific similarities and differences
   between the articles.
5. Do you see any important differences or evidence
   of bias? Explain in detail.

4
Warm-up Use the chart on p. 558 to answer the
following true/false questions

• More people reported watching NBC Nightly News
  than any other news source listed.
• More Democrats than Republicans reported watching
  CNN
• Seven times more Republicans than Democrats
  reported listening to Rush Limbaugh
• Independents clearly favor one news source over
  all the others

5
Rules Governing the Media

• Journalistic standards
• Government Regulation of the Electronic Media
• Content Regulation
• Efforts to Regulate Media Practices

6
Rules Governing the Media

• Journalistic standards
• Scandals
• Role of media critics
• Advocacy groups (Accuracy in Media and Fairness
  and Accuracy in Reporting)

7
Rules Governing the Media

• Government Regulation of the Electronic Media
• Electronic, but not print media
• The airwaves as public property in limited supply
• 1996 Telecommunications act
• Deregulation and cross-ownership
• The Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

8
Rules Governing the Media

• Content Regulation
• Equal time rule
• Fainess doctrine
• FCC regulation from 1949-1985

9
Review

1. Why does the government regulate electronic media
   more strongly than print?
2. What is the fairness doctrine and what happened
   to it?

10
Rules Governing the Media

• Efforts to Regulate Media Practices

11
Media Effects

• Who can be influenced and on what topics?
• Uncommitted
• Foreign events
• Agenda setting
• What is important?
• War, immigration, the economy, balloon boy?

12
Congress is currently working on tax policy and
health care reform

• Would you support the actions of Congress
  described in these news headlines?
• Congress votes to extend the Estate Tax
• No big cost rise in premiums seen in study

13
Congress is currently working on tax policy and
health care reform

• Would you support the actions of Congress
  described in these news headlines?
• Congress votes to extend the Death Tax
• Health care bill would raise premiums

14
Media Effects

• Framing
• What is the issue about and how do we talk about
  it?
• How the media frames issues and key words
  (death tax or estate tax) can influence opinion
• See the study on the KKK rally (p.572)
• Is it a civil rights issue or a public order
  issue?

15
The Medias Influence on the Public

1. Define agenda-setting. Can you give your own
   example of agenda-setting?
2. Define framing. Can you think of an example?