Extra-media level of Influence on the Press Cher Phillips

Overview  Define media pluralism  Examine/discuss examples of pluralism in each reading  Conclusion: Consider balance

Pluralism – a definition  The pluralists see society as a complex of competing groups and interests, none of them predominant all the time.  Media organizations are seen as bounded organizational systems, enjoying an important degree of autonomy from the state, political parties and institutionalized pressure groups.

Pluralism  Control of the media is said to be in the hands of an autonomous managerial élite who allow a considerable degree of flexibility to media professionals.  A basic symmetry is seen to exist between media institutions and their audiences, since in McQuail's words, the 'relationship is generally entered into voluntarily and on apparently equal terms'.  Audiences are seen as capable of manipulating the media in an infinite variety of ways according to their prior needs and dispositions and as having access to what Halloran calls 'the plural values of society' enabling them to 'conform, accommodate or reject'.  Curran and Gurevitch (1977)

News, Improved  Michele McLellan and Tim Porter’s News, Improved “How America’s Newsrooms are learning to change”  Summary: McLellan and Porter look at how news leadership and management styles are outdated in corporate and business cultures and highlight how some editors have applied various management “best practices” to change their newsroom culture and organization.

Readership Exchange  Dana Robbins, at the Hamilton Spectator, mentioned an example of an informal group of U.S. and Canadian editors “buzzed” about readership and focused on how to reach audiences and capture attention.  In 2003, Robbins “killed off the business, entertainment and lifestyle sections, turned sports into a tabloid and launched a magazine.  Results: increase in readership of women and overall growth.

Discussion  What do you think of an editor killing off three sections of a newspaper and increasing readership in the process?  Is the exchange of coverage for increased readership in a primary target area like women in this example reflective of the whole readership of the paper?

NPR Offers News, Companionship Summary:  U.S. media bleeding out, NPR increased readership 54 percent from (time of writing)  Medium invites reflection, can reach audience in an intimate fashion  Mission: it makes a difference in people’s lives

NPR, summary cont.  Structure – early, shaky reliance on government funding gave way to current funding from member stations (50 percent from listeners), corporate sponsors and foundation/grants  Competition – other radio news vacated field

NPR, Pluralism influences  Covering the untold story – NPR’s mission shaped by Bill Siemering’s 1969 essay on public radio that was shaped by his observance that the black community got very little coverage.

Pluralism with NPR  Today, David Giovannoni’s “Audience Reaseach Analysis” allows NPR to reach a large audience – demographic 60 percent with college degrees, 80 percent vote  But critics say focus on his analysis puts more emphasis on what the audience wants to hear, rather than the mission.  “It’s frightening to imagine what NPR will sound like a decade from now – lots of stories about colonoscopies and Rod Stewart still going strong at 65.” – Washington Monthly

NPR Disscusion  What makes NPR fabulous, according to the author, deals with it holding true to its mission. What makes it popular is following what research says the audience wants to hear.  What do you think about NPR trying to balance ideology and audience response?

New Readers: Race Ethnicity and Readership  Summary: Age has more effect than race/ethnicity on how readers experience local paper  The experience of content about one’s own racial/ethnic group has more impact with Asians, Latinos than African Americans

Demographics  70 percent of people covered are white  More non-whites get prominence in sports and police/crime  70 percent of people shown in Ads are white  30 percent of workforce was non- white in study

Experience  African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, and Asian/Pacific Islanders rate their reading experiences similarly – with the exception that material that “discriminates and stereotypes” impacts them more than the whole population

News more important, Content  Minority groups in this study saw many news topics as more important than whites do, religion, education, crime and business  When there were fewer white faces in photos, all groups but African Americans felt paper looked out for their interests

Newspapers, Pluralism, Diversity in an Urban Context  Key notion of looking at pluralism as the distribution of power  Media can be more aggressive in a larger, heterogeneous community  In smaller, more homogenous communities, media engage in consensus reporting  Study looked at Urban areas and considered diversity in census reports and editor’s perceptions

Findings  Community size is related to census measures of diversity, but this didn’t match up with editor’s perceptions of diversity and pluralism in the study  Strongest areas of variance were in civic journalism and activism, covering churches, organizations and personals and covering festivals and clubs

If you were the editor…  Looking at the results of the readership study and the idea that editors perceptions don’t match up with diversity, if you were the general manager or editor in chief of one the papers in the 41 cities in the readership survey, what actions, if any, would you take to increase your readership in response to the study results?

Conclusion  Overall question: If pluralism assumes there is a basic symmetry that exists between media institutions and their audiences, explain if you think that symmetry is in balance or out of balance? What groups, institutions, ideas could hold too much or too little power over others?