Role in Communicating Politics Mass Media Our Mass Media Culture General media usage o Going up o We spend a lot of time on technology this number is going up Advertising in mass media o More advertising is done online o TV gives more revenue o A lot of program time is taken up by advertisement The media exists not to deliver news and entertainment programming to audience but rather to deliver an audience to corporate advertisers TV s penetration of contemporary culture We watch more TV than ever 36 hours per week In certain areas more homes have TV s than a flush toilet TV news vs print journalism TV news length is fixed newspaper is flexible Emotional vs cognitive responses The audience for TV news o Reading leads to more cognitive reactions watching leads to more emotional reactions o Watchers are usually inadvertent watchers o Drawn more from the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder More likely to be taken in by poor coverage opportunities for elite led agenda setting o Younger people don t follow the news as much as older people 70 to 30 1 additional factor Concentration o Most cities have no competing newspapers all are owned by the same company TV News The news business Characteristics and consequences o Fragmentation length and detail give way to pacing and change of scene Reliance on self contained stories Conflict climax resolution The problem when they are self contained is that when they are finished a new story takes its place and it makes thing appear to be by themselves when they aren t They are interconnected Simplicity is inherently conservative Making the world seem less complicated and simpler makes it harder to understand how the world actually works and how to change it The news isn t infected by a liberal bias but by a conservative bias Progressive thinking is inherently complex Inability to think in logically integrated ways leads to inability to see the big picture which leads to inability to exert control in marketplace of ideas o Dramatization the newsworthiness of a story is determined by its dramatic content Body Bag Journalism Drama trivializes content which leads to confusion of fantasy and reality Boundary warping creation for commercial reasons of a culture of unreality one that both creates and satisfies its own demands Different unrealities different effects Artificial realities We can t tell the difference Pseudo realities denial of complexity via entertainment value we don t care about the difference Dramatized news leads to a decreased ability to recall details think about subjects in complex terms leading to diminished ability to see big picture War on Iraq The Misconceptions Sadam Hussein was linked with Al Qaeda WMD s That the world supported the US s invasion If you had these three misconceptions yu were more likely to support going to Iraq o Personalization the tendency to focus on individuals in the news not on the story itself Obscures true working of political economic system by political social relationship redefined as personal psychological Tendency to look for the hero of the week o Sometimes you have to be careful of the heroes Engaged removal sense of government without feeling of responsibility for success of government o Normalization a devotion to official actions reactions from Washington Wall street axis in presenting news within acceptable bounds Refers to normal curve People for war are viewed as safe and normal people for peace are seen as radical Old white guys deemed safe Way for news business to legitimize itself is a common result Self censorship Limited scope of news coverage Management of news content agenda setting capabilities of the elite Corporate and government news releases propaganda spread the news Agenda setting capability increased by technological economical changes o Most websites don t have their own jurnalists they compile stories from other sources to make their stories More outlets more news The False Hope of the Webocracy Journalism being taken over by political advocacy Political leaders can manipulate media coverage Even in open societies democratic internet in question Prisoners or producers of the news Public needs vs public wants Traditional vs alternate sources of news o Diversity of forms masks uniformity of substance The Daily me Commercial constraints Communicating Politics Campaigns and Elections Seeking the nomination through the delegate selection process o We select the delegates they select the nominations o 4 methods for selecting delegates Filter out the stuff you don t want let in the stuff you do want Caucus At the state level each each state gets to decide how to select its delegate Primary election Easy encourage people to vote Majority of states use this method People have to go to some meeting place and do a lengthy process to come up with a nomination More time consuming requires people to show up for a few hours State convention People from all over the state to one place to vote Appointment Super delegates Appointed because of the office they hold o States are serving two masters state law and party guidelines Election procedures when and what form are established by state law but also must adhere to national party guidelines States are free to set delegate selection rules but parties are free to exclude selected delegates from conventions Dem and Rep Party Reforms o GOP reforms rewarding the faithful states Giving more delegates to certain states Concerned with satisfying their established base Favored smaller more homogenous west states Favored party s conservative wing o Dem reforms opening up the nomination process Wanted an expanded party base More women blacks and young people Increased roles o Impacts of rule changes o Reforming the reforms Increased number of primaries as best way to lead to increased participation Conventions now more representative of parties base membership Diminished role for party regulars new role for new activists those who are now doing the nominating are now more ideologically extreme than overall electorate Dem enlargement of delegates by adding super delegates Adding the women blacks and young ones didn t give them the result they wanted so they added more delegates to add the older people to try to bring it back to what it was Delegate selection season becoming more compact advantage of familiar well financed names The de facto 3 stage nominating process o The Invisible Primary Presidential candidates are talked about way before the