POS2001 Professor Mark Druash Exam 2 Study Guide Chapter 4 Political Communication and the Media The media has always played a part in the USA s political process The Federalist Papers published in 1780 s by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in an effort to convince the state of New York to vote to ratify the U S constitution President Roosevelt used the radio to speak to the nation in his famous fireside chats first use of universal MASS MEDIA Today s electronic media including the TV Internet twitter and blogs etc ALL governments regardless of type have a keen interest in political communication Communication and Politics Up thru the 1930 s the most common political communication was the face I to face discussion Candidates stumped for votes usually travelling by train meeting the electorate kissing babies and pressed the flesh shook hands Campaigns were more grass roots with two way discussion being the primarily method of communication Today we have very little two way communication with many politicians avoiding the town meeting Also today the trend in news is toward human interest and lifestyle stories stars jocks etc Freedom of press is constitutionally guaranteed as it applies to political communication but not exclusively to other forms of communication such as entertainment news The Supreme Court has ruled political free speech to be the most protected of all the types of speech why In general more educated a person the more likely they are to be engaged in all forms of political communication Media Classifications The broadcast applies more to TV and associated news sites The narrowcast applies more to radio and specific Internet sites Trend is toward narrow castings mainly due to developments in economic marketing efficiencies For example websites Master Card Visa etc market your purchases to advertisers especially on websites The Modern Mass Media Newspapers 1910 there were approximately 2600 daily papers 1 2007 numbers dwindled to approximately 1300 and going lower each year 1910 most cities had at least two good competing newspapers owned locally Today s newspapers are strictly businesses of which 75 are owned and operated by large corporations they have a different view of things Advertising is their major source of income and therefore they tend to support the status quo bias to avoid conflict with advertisers Trend in ownership is toward fewer and fewer owner which is termed as oligopoly a very dangerous condition that is occurring now in all types of media Outcome of this lack of diversity in ownership is a trend toward The rights and views of the political minority views are infringed Free speech is being limited and is being replaced by politically correct speech Reduction in balanced reporting in all media Remember that free speech means the upholding of rights of those who speak views that you disagree with In addition most newspapers get the bulk of their reporting from news services such as UPI AP Reuters professional news agencies thus the same story appears in many different newspapers across the nation the results is a general reduction in local news or news specifically in certain areas of interest Newspapers are declining in circulation and influence but much less so in developing countries Still there are media elite newspapers journals read by academics Washington Street Journal Wall Street Journal N Y Times National Review Radio Major drawbacks to print and send them out receive yesterday s news they have The trend is an overall decline in political and entertainment influence Still remains important and popular in developing world Corporate ownership is the norm three corporations own half of all stations 2 Major companies use generic programming with little unique information Increases however in 2 areas of talk radio Conservative talk radio Rush Beck NPR All things considered types of programming Air America liberal view died due to sponsorship program Resurgence in political arena however only on the conservative side long term viability is suspect and will most likely go the way of the newspaper II The Giant Television Over 90 of all Americans get their news from TV TV is now considered more accurate than newspapers TV is faster and can quickly correct inaccuracies TV has its drawbacks The Television news Characteristics Uses sound bites to explain complicated issues thus had trivialized and oversimplified complex issues TV has actually been shown to negatively impact voter turns out TV has no strong gatekeeper for accurate reporting TV can and is very biased politically Visual bias presents or selects those news stories that have a visual story line sometimes without some much needed facts Politicians use the TV to stage media events thus getting a positive exposure to media TV provides little depth of analysis superficial eye candy most of the time Television and Politics Press tends to cover political news in the following order The President gets the most attention Congress next Then the court system Finally the government bureaucracy TV tends to cast blame and praise in this order as if we are an autocratic government Nomination by TV Politicians tend to spend most of their resources early during election in hopes of becoming frontrunners and getting a boost thru the bandwagon effect People like winners and are unduly influences by personality good looks and fame Initially in an election flash trumps substance Question could Abe Lincoln get elected today 3 Once nominated the party begins to recede allowing the candidate in some 3rd world countries where voters elect parties over candidates Television and Apathy Generally as TV watching goes up so does voter apathy noted for the decline in voter turnout Additionally TV very expensive approximately half of campaign chest goes to TV advertisement 100 000 per minute President election will go as high as 2 5 Billion Television and ownership and control US government exercises the least government control over communication than any other industrialized nation US history dictates thru free speech to be the least paternalistic than any other nation Freedom of the airways but how did our current regulation begin Government Controls 1920 s radio very popular citizens in USA are relatively affluent as are corporations and many go into the radio business results in electromagnetic spectrum jamming especially AM radio 1934 Federal Communications Commission FCC was established consisted of a 5 member