Mass Media and Politics
• What is the role of the media in politics?
• How do the goals of the media as a
business influence news coverage?
• Why (and how) do we regulate the media?
History of Journalism
• “Yellow Journalism” to Today
• How has the Media changed…
Yellow Journalism – 1890s
• Sensationalist and
crude exaggerations
• Newspaper battle
between Pulitzer
(pull-it-zer NOT
pyoo-lit-zer) and
Hearst
• “You provide the
pictures, I’ll provide
the war.”
FDR’s Fireside Chats – 1930s
Checkers Speech
September 23, 1952
• Or…how television and a
black and white spotted
dog saved Nixon’s
political career
• “And I don’t care what
they say, we’re going to
keep him.”
• Nixon’s emotional appeal
saved his political life and
encouraged future
politicians to use TV in
similar ways
Nixon-Kennedy Debates 1960
• First ever televised
debates
• People who listened
on radio thought
Nixon won but
people on TV
thought Kennedy
won.
• Logos vs. Pathos?
LBJ
Woodward & Bernstein
The Great Communicator(s)
Function of Media?
Role of the Media:
AGENDA SETTING
Agenda Setting- by
choosing to cover
certain topics the media
influences policy
agenda
Media serves as a
“Gatekeeper”
Media may not
focus on policy
issues, concerns
of the people or
hard news
If it bleeds,
it leads…
Role of the
Media:
Political
Socialization
Role of the Media:
Infotainment
Sources
of
political
news
Pop culture mixes with Politics
Media feud continues
Internet is a growing source for news...
Television
news still
dominates.
So what?
- Putnam’s
research…
- 3600 words
vs. 100,000
words
Role of media: reporting the
news
White House
Press Secretary
Obama
Plouffe
McDonough
Axelrod
• Ari Fleischer, Scott McClellan, Tony
Snow, Dana Perino, Robert Gibbs
• “Outer Orbit”
• Take out the Trash Day
Earnest
White House Press
Conferences?
Plouffe
Obama
Rahmbo
Axelrod
• “We’ve
secretly
replaced
the White
House
Press
Corps with
actual
reporters.”
Full Thwart
Press (4 min. in)
Kool-Aid
• To have a good career
as a reporter, do you
have to drink the KoolAid?
Technically Grape Flavor Aid
was used in Jonestown
Mushrooming:
Feeding the press s**t
and keeping them in the dark.
Impact on Campaigns and
Elections?
‘If you spin…you will win’
•
•
•
•
Spin Doctors
Spin Alley
Can you spin it?
"Why does a dog wag
its tail? Because a dog
is smarter than its tail.
If the tail was smarter,
the tail would wag the
dog."




Is the dog public opinion and
the tail the media?
Is the dog the media and the
tail campaign managers?
Is the dog the people and
the tail is the government?
Any way you look at it,
something of greater
significance (the dog) is
driven by something lesser
(the tail).
Media & Campaigns
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Traditional Ads
Web-based Ads
Shadow Campaign
Talk Radio
Political Best Sellers
Movies
Narrowcasting
• Humor – Jib Jab
• Popular Music
• Vote or Die with
Celebrities
• Media Events
• Horse race reporting
• “The New Media”
vs.”MSM”
– Drudge
– Tabloids
– Blogs
Trend: Narrowcasting NOT Broadcasting
Horse Race Journalism defined:
news media reports focusing on who’s
winning, who’s losing, campaign
strategy, and polls.
HRJ ignores issues such as foreign
policy and the economy.
Horse race
journalism
“…the average
sound bite- a video
clip of a presidential
contender speakingdropped from about
42 seconds in 1968
to 7.3 seconds in
2000”
The Amazing Shrinking
Soundbite
Switch to scandal-based
journalism?
maf54
• Scandal hit right
before the 2006
midterms.
maf54
Media Conglomerates
• Concentrated Ownership of the
Media
• Gannett owns USA Today and
controls the biggest daily
circulation in the nation + owns
100 additional papers
• Rupert Murdoch owns 124 radio
stations, New York Post, Weekly
Standard, FOX News
FCC
• So the FCC won't let me be or let me
be me, so let me see. They try to shut
me down on MTV. But it feels so
empty, without me.
• Five members (no more than three
from the same political party)
TV &
nominated by the POTUS for 5 years.
music
NOT
• Commissioners canot be removed for
‘censored’
political reasons (Humphrey’s Exectuor
by the
v. US)
FCC
• “serve the public interest, convenience,
and necessity”
• What can they regulate?
Telecommunications Act of 1996
• Relaxed limitations on media ownership
– Own up to 35% of the television market
– Own unlimited percentage of radio market - Clear Channel
– Remember Andrew Carnegie & Horizontal Consolidation?
JD Rockefeller & Vertical Integration?
– Cable companies selling telephone service etc.
We’re not owned
by Clear Channel
Communications*
TC CC
Lineup
Playing what CBS/Infinity
Broadcasting wants us to
with no on-air talent in 39
US markets.
Impact of the
Media on
Government:
Presidential
coverage
dominates
Congress
Impact of media on government: trial balloons
Elite Theory:
Mass Media maintains
the status quo
Panopticon: Jeremy Bentham
Michel Foucault:
power is used to
maintain social control
George Allen- early example of internet hurting
campaign
Jesse Ventura (former Gov. of MN)
First to
use
internet to
campaign
http://frtim.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/ventura.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40954787@N00/256009098/
Howard
Dean
First to use internet to raise
money