1. Mass media and the public agenda
Chapter 7:
Mass media and the public agenda

2. Mass Media Mass Media: Means of popular communication
Reach and profoundly influence not only the elites but also the masses
Candidate’s Use of Media:
Media Event
Publicity
Negative Commercials
Image
Communication

3. The Development of Media Politics
Turn of the 19th Century
Newspapers
Editorial Cartoons
1930s
FDR
Press conferences: Meetings of public officials with reporters
Fireside chats: FDR’s use of the radio to communicate with the American people

4. The Development of Media Politics
Until the 1960s
Respect politicians’ privacy
1960s
Relationship changed
Became adversarial
Vietnam War
Watergate Scandal

5. The Development of Media Politics
Relationship Today
Symbiotic Relationship
Reporters and their sources depend on each other—one for stories, the other to get them out.
Investigative Journalism
Allows reporters access to war zones
A focus on government corruption and inefficiency

6. Print Media Newspapers and magazines “Yellow journalism”
Well-respected Newspapers:
New York Times, Washington Post, Economist, Christian Science Monitor
Newspaper and newsweekly circulation has declined.

7. Broadcast Media Television, radio, Internet
Politicians’ appearances and mannerisms more important.
First Presidential Debates:
Brought government and politics into peoples’ homes.
Vietnam War: Horrors of the war were broadcast on TV
FCC

8. Reporting the News Finding the News
Beats: specific locations from which news frequently emanates
Trial Balloons: an intentional news leak for the purpose of assessing the political reaction
Presenting the News
Superficial
Sound Bites: short video clips of approximately 10 seconds
Major TV networks devote less time to covering political candidates

9. Bias in the News Bias in the News?
Many believe that the news is biased in favor of one point of view
However, most news is presented in a point/counterpoint format
Creates political neutrality
Journalistic objectivity
Media outlets want to appeal to everyone
Talking heads
News reporting is biased towards what will draw the largest audience—good pictures and negative reporting

10. The News and Public Opinion
Television news can affect what people think is important.
Agenda-setting effect
The media influence the criteria by which the public evaluates political leaders.
Some stories or events can be made more important, others less important, depending on their coverage.

11. The Media’s Agenda-Setting Function
Policy Agenda
The issues that attract the serious attention of public officials and other people actively involved in politics at the time
Policy Entrepreneurs
People who invest their political “capital” in an issue to get it placed high on governmental agenda
Examples:
Interest groups, political parties, individual politicians…
Compete for attention
How:
Rely on the media
Press releases, press conferences, letter writing
Working with reporters

12. Understanding Mass Media
Media act as key linkage institutions between the people and the policymakers and have a profound impact on the political policy agenda.
Media act as watchdogs and restrict politicians
Media promotes individualism by allowing candidates to run on their own by appealing to people on television
Media provides access to information, which could act as a boom to democracy

13. Which of the following is a significant political consequence of the trend toward investigative journalism?
The job requirements for becoming a journalist are now more stringent.
Public attention is focused more on scandal than on political issues
Americans are better informed than they were decades before television
The public now gets most of its information from television news sources
Americans are now more likely to think critically about political

14. Who is the most likely to receive attention in the media?
The secretary of defense
The speaker of the house
The senate majority leader
The president
The chief justice of the Supreme Court

15. All of the following have resulted from the growing profusion of sound bytes in news reporting EXCEPT
The news media have had to narrow their scope of coverage because they have only a limited amount of material broadcast
The news media have increased their influence over the public agenda by selected what material to feature in sound bytes
The complexity of most issues is not fully understood by the electorate, who might as a result be misled about government action
The public tends to judge candidates by their appearance as much as, if not more than, the candidates’ stand on foreign and domestic issues
Politicians do not have to explain their views in much detail because most of their speeches go unreported to the public

16. The first televised debates
were held in 1952 between Kennedy and Eisenhower
had a significant impact on the outcome of the election
were not as important as the first debates on the radio
only took place in the last twenty years
indicated the importance of campaigning on the radio b

17. Which president was arguably the most influential when it comes to the conception of “media politics?”
Herbert Hoover
Franklin D Roosevelt
Richard Nixon
Ronald Reagan
Bill Clinton

18. The media generally became more cynical in its coverage of politicians after
The Great Depression
World War II
The Korean War
Vietnam and Watergate
The Lewinksy Scandal