2. 7 Mass Media and the Political Agenda
Americans used to pay attention when the president was on the radio or the television. Now, with hundreds of channels to choose from, the public does not tune into presidential speeches as often as it used to.

3. 7
Video: The Big Picture
When the president speaks on television, who is listening? Author Martin P. Wattenberg discusses the many changes in media over the years. He focuses especially on the changeover from appealing to all citizens to targeting groups with specific politic opinions.

4. 7
Learning Objectives
We’ve just discussed how public opinion is formed and the role of public opinion in American democracy. In this chapter we’ll look at how politicians use the media to shape public opinion. We’ll consider the media’s role in American politics from a historic perspective.
Then we’ll look at how various media choose what to report and how those choices help shape the political agenda.
Finally, we’ll assess the impact of the media on democracy in America.
Describe how American politicians choreograph their messages through the mass media
7.1
Outline the key developments in the history of mass media and American politics
7.2

5. 7
Learning Objectives
List the major criteria that determine which news stories receive the most media attention
7.3
Analyze the impact the media has on what policy issues Americans think about
7.4

6. 7
Learning Objectives
Explain how policy entrepreneurs employ media strategies to influence the public agenda
7.5
Assess the impact of the mass media on the scope of government and democracy in America
7.6

7. 7
Video: The Basics
How do the media help support our democratic institutions? In this video, you will find out how a free press functions not just as a source of knowledge, but also as a public forum and a government watchdog. You’ll also analyze how private ownership and partisanship impact the ability of the media to do their job.

8. Mass Media Today 7.1 Controlling the political agenda Media events
Political success depends on getting your message to the public, and one of the most effective ways to do that is to have it presented on the daily news. One way to get the media’s attention is to stage an event just for them. Of course, you want to control how the various media present you, so media events tend to be carefully staged and tightly scripted.
Another way to reach the public is via TV commercials. Over half of presidential campaign budgets go to TV commercials, and most ads are negative. Some find the relentless negativity of campaign advertising to be detrimental to the American political process.
Image-making is critical for politicians, especially presidents. Presidential administrations devote much effort to honing their public image and controlling their interactions with the media. They want to be on the news every night, but they want it to be on their terms.
Controlling the political agenda
Media events
Carefully staged
Commercials
60% of presidential campaign budget
Nearly always negative
Image-making

9. 7.1
Romney campaigning
Politicians often stage activities primarily for the benefit of TV cameras. The sight of a major presidential candidate walking the streets asking ordinary people for their support is something that the media will find hard to pass up.
In this swing down a street in Clinton, Iowa, Mitt Romney met perhaps 30 of the 30,000 people who voted for him in the 2012 Iowa caucuses. But the number of people who saw pictures like this in their newspaper or viewed the video footage on TV was far greater.

10. 7.1 How do politicians control their public image?
We’ve discussed how politicians manipulate the media to make themselves look good. Can you answer this brief review question?
Penning articles for Op-Ed pages
Informal Q&A sessions with journalists
Tightly-scripted media events
Frequent visits to talk shows 10

11. 7.1 How do politicians control their public image?
Politicians like their interaction with the media to be controlled so that the image that is presented on the news matches the image they want to present to the public. Sometimes they fail spectacularly, such as when they think a microphone is off and they’re recorded in an unguarded moment.
Penning articles for Op-Ed pages
Informal Q&A sessions with journalists
Tightly-scripted media events
Frequent visits to talk shows 11

12. Development of Media Politics
7.2
Development of Media Politics
The president’s relationship with the press has changed since the early days of the republic, when there were few daily newspapers and no electronic media. As recently as the Hoover administration, reporters submitted questions to the president in writing and he routinely ignored them. Franklin Roosevelt was the first president to hold press conferences, and John Kennedy was the first to appear in a televised debate.
Through the 1960s, media coverage of the president was deferential. The press would not have considered mentioning Franklin Roosevelt’s wheelchair. But the cynicism created by the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal ushered in the present era of investigate journalism, in which no topic, however personal, is off limits, and journalists take an adversarial role.
Print Media
Emergence of Radio and Television

13. 7.2
White House dunk tank
The White House press secretary battles daily with the press corps. Correspondents try to get ever more information, while the president’s spokesperson tries to control the news agenda and spin stories in the administration’s favor.
Symbolizing this conflict, President Obama’s press secretary Robert Gibbs offered to give members of the press a chance to dunk him in a tank at the annual White House luau one year.

14. Development of Media Politics
7.2
Development of Media Politics
Is such relentlessly negative coverage in the public interest? Some say that an unvarnished look at the candidates is a good thing while others allege that the press focuses on trivialities rather than important policy issues.
Government Regulation of Electronic Media
From Broadcasting to Narrowcasting: Rise of Cable and Cable News
Impact of the Internet
Private Control of the Media

15. Print Media 7.2 Newspapers and a free press
The First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press gave newspapers the ability to air government’s dirty laundry, which they’ve done since the first daily newspaper began in 1783.
Americans who read the news are better informed than those who merely watch or listen to it. Newspaper coverage is more detailed than the much briefer broadcast reports.
Yet, with the rise of electronic media, newspaper circulation has declined dramatically. To stay in business, newspapers have to publish an online edition. However, online copy doesn’t generate the same advertising revenue as print. Newspapers have tried to charge for online content but have found that people are simply not willing to pay for it.
Magazines that focus on politics are also finding that their circulation is down and that readers expect online content to be free.
Newspapers and a free press
Newspaper readers better informed
Yet, circulation declines
Online news
How to make money?
Magazines
Suffering same fate

16. Emergence of Radio and Television
7.2
Emergence of Radio and Television
Electronic media have displaced print media as Americans’ main source of political information. Radios were everywhere in the 1930s. After World War II, television came along. Television placed new demands upon presidents. Listeners never knew that Franklin Roosevelt was in a wheelchair during his weekly radio broadcasts. When Nixon debated Kennedy in 1960, radio listeners rated Nixon’s performance higher, but television viewers preferred Kennedy by a wide margin.
Television made it harder for the government to hide things or mislead the public. During the Vietnam War, television reports gave the lie to the president’s assurances that the war was going well.
As first cable channels and then the Internet have given Americans an enormous variety of viewing options, audiences for network news broadcasts have declined. Just as with newspapers, the golden age of network news has come to an end.
Radio s
Television – post-WWII
Cable television – 1980s
Internet – 1990s
End of the golden age of network news

17. Video: In Context
7.2
We’ve seen that there have been big changes in the ways that Americans get their information. Now let’s listen to a political scientist’s take on the subject.
Trace the evolution of media outlets from newspapers to today’s media. In this video, Texas A&M University political scientist Tyler Johnson examines the history of media outlets and the effect of both traditional and new media on the political information and messages that reach the public.

18. Government Regulation of Electronic Media
7.2
Government Regulation of Electronic Media
In 1934, Congress created the Federal Communications Commission to regulate use of the airwaves. The FCC prevents monopolies by limiting the number of stations owned by one company. This regulation isn’t very stringent. No single owner can control more than 35% of the broadcast market, but that’s a sizable chunk. The FCC also ensures that all stations serve the public interest, although it is rare for a station to lose its license for failing to do so.
Another FCC rule stipulates that if a station sells advertising to one candidate, it must be willing to sell it to other candidates running for the same office. Also, the right-of-reply rule requires stations to allow anyone who’s attacked to be able to respond on the same station, with the exception of news coverage.
The FCC used to have a rule that broadcasters had to give equal time to opposing views on controversial topics, but the advent of cable, with so many channels presenting such a variety of opinions, led to the abolition of that rule.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) 1934
Limits monopolies
Stations must serve public interest
Fair treatment rule
Right-of-reply rule
Fairness doctrine abolished

19. From Broadcasting to Narrowcasting: Rise of Cable and Cable News
7.2
From Broadcasting to Narrowcasting: Rise of Cable and Cable News
The first major networks used the term “broadcast” because they meant their programs, including those on government and politics, to appeal to a broad audience. But cable TV changed that. With channels that specialize in cooking, golf, history, and other topics, stations are now engaged in narrowcasting, which is programming targeted to a specific, narrow interest.
An entire generation has now grown up with narrowcasting options. Young people are far less likely to read newspapers or watch broadcast media.
Younger generations rely on humorous shows for information about current events. This blend of information and entertainment is known as infotainment.
A general audience no more
Changing usage patterns
Infotainment

20. 7.2
Leno talks with Romney
With so many channels to choose from in the narrowcasting age, major politicians often agree to interviews on entertainment shows in order to reach people who don’t watch the news. Here, Mitt Romney can be seen chatting with Jay Leno on the Tonight Show.

21. From Broadcasting to Narrowcasting: Rise of Cable and Cable News
7.2
From Broadcasting to Narrowcasting: Rise of Cable and Cable News
Breaking news reported as it is happening gives politicians less control over how situations are framed and spun for public consumption.
Despite the variety of news programs, Americans aren’t better informed. The main reason is that news coverage on cable television is incredibly weak. It’s simplistic, repetitive, lacks substance, is poorly researched and written, and ignores many important topics.
Cable TV news is also guilty of using outrage to generate attention from viewers. Outrage is stoked by sensationalism, personal attacks, misleading information, or even lies.
In contrast to the days of broadcast news, when viewers of all political opinions obtained their news from the same sources, today’s viewers choose programming that is in line with their own political views. This is called selective exposure.
A general audience no more
Breaking news
“Talk radio on television”
“Outrage discourse”
Selective exposure

22. 7.2
FIGURE 7.1: How the audiences of cable news channels have polarized into rival partisan camps
In 2000, the Pew Research Center found that the regular audiences of each of the three major cable news channels were roughly equally divided between Democrats and Republicans. By 2012, Fox News viewers were much more likely to be Republicans, whereas CNN and MSNBC viewers were much more likely to be Democrats.

23. From Broadcasting to Narrowcasting: Rise of Cable and Cable News
7.2
From Broadcasting to Narrowcasting: Rise of Cable and Cable News
The focus on profit, not prestige, reduces efforts toward quality journalism.
A general audience no more
From prestige to profit

24. Impact of the Internet 7.2 Information at your fingertips
The Internet makes it much easier for Americans to be politically informed. A quick Internet search will reveal how your representatives voted on policy issues that are important to you. Yet Americans remain unlikely to take advantage of this opportunity to obtain political information. Data on search engine usage shows that people are much more likely to search for information about pop culture than politics, and traffic on political information sites is much lower than on entertainment ones.
Information at your fingertips
Pop culture over politics

25. 7.2
TABLE 7.1: Top 25 Lycos searches for the week of the first 2008 presidential debate
Every week, the search engine Lycos lists the search terms that its users have most frequently keyed in to look for information on the Internet. Here you can find the top 25 searches for the week ending September 30, 2008—the week of the first Obama–McCain presidential debate.
How many of the searches relate to political events? Why are politics so peripheral to people’s lives?

26. Impact of the Internet Facilitating communications 7.2 Blogs
The biggest impact the Internet has made on politics has been in facilitating communication. Politicians and interest groups can interact directly with the public, and citizens can respond more easily. Political mobilization via the Internet is replacing neighborhood-based party organizations. Meetup and Facebook help bring like-minded activists together.
Blogs have given the general public a forum to express their political views and potentially reach as wide an audience as a professional journalist. But the reality is that it’s easy to post on a blog but much harder to generate substantial readership, which means that professionals who write for a recognized news outlet still have an advantage.
Facilitating communications
Meetup and Facebook
Blogs
Equal weight with professional journalists?

27. 7.2
Political bloggers
Blogs are playing an increasingly important role in the reporting of political news. In 2005, 23-year-old Garrett Graff, who was writing a blog about the news media in Washington, became the first person to receive a White House press pass for the specific purpose of writing a blog. Here, bloggers cover a candidate’s speech during the 2012 presidential primary campaign.

28. Private Control of the Media
7.2
Private Control of the Media
America has a diverse array of media outlets, most of which are privately owned. The few public broadcasting outlets attract only low ratings. In contrast, most other countries have major TV networks that are publicly owned.
Freedom of the press gives journalists in the U.S. the ability to criticize government, and most other democracies carefully guard press freedom even on publicly owned networks. But freedom of the press is rare in non-democratic regimes, such as China, where the government closely controls what the media can say about it.
Public networks are free to serve the public interest without worrying about the size of their audience. But this is not the case with private media.
Although private media have nearly complete control over their content, they need to turn a profit. Advertising revenue supports most media. Therefore, the main objective of media is to get the largest possible audience.
This profit orientation has led to changes in political reporting. Foreign news reporting has declined. Foreign bureaus are expensive to operate, and the public has shown little interest in foreign news. What implications does a lack of foreign news have for American political culture?
Private v. public ownership
Private more common in U.S.
Public more common abroad
Freedom of the press varies
Profit orientation
Advertising revenue
Decline of foreign news reporting

29. 7.2
7.2 Watching only news programs that reflect the viewer’s politics is called
Based on the discussion of the changes in media over the years, try to answer this brief review question.
Selective exposure
Narrowcasting
Infotainment
High-tech politics 29

30. 7.2
7.2 Watching only news programs that reflect the viewer’s politics is called
Today’s viewers choose programming that is in line with their own political views. They selectively expose themselves only to sources of news that match their viewpoints.
Selective exposure
Narrowcasting
Infotainment
High-tech politics 30

31. Explore the Media: Where Do You Get Your Political News?
7.2
Do you seek out nonpartisan news sources? Or do you prefer to go to sources that you feel share your political beliefs and values? Let’s explore this further by completing this activity.

32. Reporting the News 7.3 Finding the News Presenting the News
Because only the unusual and unexpected are newsworthy, the news gives a distorted view of political events, one that tends to trivialize them and avoid discussion of important issues. When the president attends a state dinner, it is not news, but when the president throws up on the Japanese prime minister, it is talked about all over the news for days. Whatever critical policy issues may be at stake fall by the wayside.
This happens because news reporting is a business. In their pursuit of high ratings, networks dumb down their shows and strive to make them entertaining, not informative. The quest for profit, not a mission to educate the public, defines what‘s newsworthy.
Finding the News
Presenting the News
Bias in the News

33. Finding the News 7.3 Beats Trial balloons Symbiotic relationship
Reporters are often assigned to cover certain areas of government, such as Congress or the White House. These ongoing assignments are known as a beat.
When politicians want to get a story out, they feed it to the media in the form of a trial balloon, which is a leak designed to gauge public reaction.
Journalists rely on politicians to give them news and politicians rely on journalists to get their message out; politicians and journalists enjoy a symbiotic relationship. But sometimes government restricts journalistic access to prevent unfavorable news getting out, usually during wartime. When this happens, journalists are quick to cry censorship and call the public’s attention to it.
Occasionally, political reporting uncovers a gross miscarriage of justice, such as an illegal pollution dump, corruption, or an innocent prisoner sitting on death row. Such stories can lead the government to act to fix the situation. They can also lead to a Pulitzer Prize in journalism.
Beats
Trial balloons
Symbiotic relationship
Pulitzer Prize winning journalism

34. Presenting the News 7.3 Skimming off the cream Presidents rebuffed
Television news must fit into short segments or sound bites, ensuring that coverage is superficial, often little more than headlines. Complex policy issues such as Medicare reform cannot be given meaningful treatment in such brief time frames.
Politicians cannot present issues to the public when their 20-minute speeches are edited down to 8-second sound bites. While this is frustrating for them, it also helps them avoid addressing issues and lets them focus on photo opportunities and other image-making but substance-free endeavors.
Presidents used to be able to count on major network coverage of their speeches, but now such coverage is shunted to cable news, and a smaller audience.
Skimming off the cream
10-second sound bites
Complex policy issues ignored
Politicians can’t present issues
Politicians can avoid issues
Presidents rebuffed
Shunted to cable

35. Bias in the News 7.3 Do the media have a liberal bias?
The media are often accused of having a liberal bias. Studies have shown no systematic bias to the left or right, but it is undeniable that journalists themselves are more likely to be liberal than conservative, and that most news outlets are based in cities.
The one bias that is seen in the news is toward stories that will draw a bigger audience. News outlets strive to be entertaining, not informative, and the public is drawn to stories that involve conflict, violence, disaster, or scandal. Stories must also have visual appeal. Viewers tend to change the channel if they see only a talking head on the screen. This emphasis on violence and chaos gives people a certain impression of the world in general, and politics in particular.
Do the media have a liberal bias?
“If it bleeds, it leads”
Visual stimulation: no talking heads

36. 7.3
Jerry Sandusky
The clearest and most consistent bias in the news is the focus on sensational stories. When Jerry Sandusky was arrested on sex abuse charges, the media gave far more coverage to this story involving sports at Penn State than to stories going on at the time that involved complex issues, such as the European debt crisis, the debate over health care, or unrest in the Middle East.

37. 7.3 TABLE 7.2: Stories citizens have tuned in and tuned out
Since 1986, a monthly survey has asked Americans how closely they’ve followed major news stories. As one would expect, stories involving disaster or human drama have drawn more attention than have complicated issues of public policy.

38. 7.3 Why do news outlets seek to entertain rather than educate?
Try to answer this question about the way the media present the news.
They do try to educate, but they aren’t successful at it.
They are motivated by profit.
They believe education is the job of schools.
They understand that it is the best way to present complex issues. 38

39. 7.3 Why do news outlets seek to entertain rather than educate?
Private news outlets, in any medium, must make a profit, which is gained through advertising revenue and based on the size of the audience.
They do try to educate, but they aren’t successful at it.
They are motivated by profit.
They believe education is the job of schools.
They understand that it is the best way to present complex issues. 39

40. Explore the Simulation: You Are the Newspaper Editor
7.3
The media serve many functions in our democratic system. An editor’s focus on sales can impact how a media outlet fills these functions. In this simulation, you will learn more about the media’s role as you serve as the news editor of The San Francisco Call.

41. News and Public Opinion
7.4
News and Public Opinion
It’s difficult to measure the impact of news stories on public opinion. The effect of any one story is hard to separate from the cumulative effects of dozens of news stories, and from other sources of information.
Scholars haven’t traced much of a direct impact between media and how people vote, but they’ve found that the media affect what issues the public thinks about. That is, the media play an important role in setting the political agenda.
By shaping what people think is important, the media set the criteria by which the public evaluates political leaders. If the president commits one gaffe in an otherwise successful diplomatic mission, his approval rating will be affected by whether the media choose to highlight the gaffe or the accomplishments. The media tend to focus on misstatements that presidents make, which contributes to public mistrust of government competence and reliability.
How influential are the media?
Agenda-setting effects
Sets criteria by which public evaluates leaders
Emphasizes one event over another
Focuses on misstatements

42. Video: Thinking Like a Political Scientist
7.4
We’ve discussed the media’s profit motive, and how media choices for coverage influence the way citizens think. Now let’s listen to a political scientist’s in-depth look at these issues.
How do the media shape public opinion? In this video, Texas A&M University political scientist Tyler Johnson discusses how media framing works and what market factors are influencing this process.

43. 7.4 In what area are the media most influential?
Can you answer this brief review question about the media?
Agenda-setting
Voting choices
Approval rating of officials
All of the above 43

44. 7.4 In what area are the media most influential?
The media are slightly influential in voting choices and quite influential in presidential approval ratings. However, the media are by far the most influential in agenda- setting. By choosing what problems and issues to cover, the media determine what political issues the public thinks are important.
Agenda-setting
Voting choices
Approval rating of officials
All of the above 44

45. Policy Entrepreneurs and Agenda Setting
7.5
Policy Entrepreneurs and Agenda Setting
The political agenda is the set of issues to which the public and the government are paying attention at a given time. Many groups are pushing for their priorities to get onto the political agenda.
People who invest capital to open a business are known as entrepreneurs, and political activists who invest political capital to get their ideas on the political agenda are known as policy entrepreneurs. Political activists try to use the media to bring public attention to their issues.
It isn’t only political elites who have access to the media. Protests by the poor and downtrodden attract media coverage as well. One thing that activists can’t control is the slant to the coverage, that is, whether it will show their cause in a good light for public consumption.
Policy agenda
Many issues compete for attention from government
Interest groups, parties, politicians, agencies, all push their priorities
Policy entrepreneurs
Political activists depend upon the media
Protests attract coverage

46. 7.5 What is one way for an interest group to gain media coverage?
Think about what we’ve discussed so far, and answer this question.
Write letters to politicians
Send out requests for donations
Stage a protest
Set up a meeting with a public official 46

47. 7.5 What is one way for an interest group to gain media coverage?
Events like protests draw the media. Political activists usually alert the local, and sometimes national, media when they’re planning a protest to ensure that reporters and cameras will be there.
Write letters to politicians
Send out requests for donations
Stage a protest
Set up a meeting with a public official 47

48. Understanding the Mass Media
7.6
Understanding the Mass Media
The media link policymakers and the public. They are the public’s source of information about government. So how the media portray what the government’s doing becomes critical to public perception. The same act of government can be perceived by the public as a failure or a success depending solely upon how it’s portrayed in the media.
Media and the Scope of Government
Individualism and the Media
Democracy and the Media

49. Video: In the Real World
7.6
We’ve just discussed the media’s role as a go-between in the relationship between the government and the people. But what about the media’s relationship with the government?
What is the ideal relationship between the government and the media? In this video, real people consider whether leaks of confidential government information to the press is good for democracy or whether leaks give the government too much control over the stories being told in the newspapers.

50. Media and the Scope of Government
7.6
Media and the Scope of Government
The media’s role as watchdog keeps the behavior of politicians in check, and a majority of Americans think this is a good thing. Reporters themselves tend to have a negative view of public officials as self-serving, hypocritical, lacking integrity, and focused exclusively on reelection. They see debunking politicians as a critical part of their job.
Since the media treat every new policy proposal and government program with skepticism, they constrain the scope of government. Yet at the same time the media highlight problems and injustices and ask what the government’s going to do about them. Portraying the government as responsible for solving every problem has the effect of enlarging the scope of government.
Media as watchdog
Press criticism does more good than harm
Reporters hold negative views of public officials
Media as skeptic
Constrains government
Focus on injustices enlarges government

51. Individualism and the Media
7.6
Individualism and the Media
Television gives the public the opportunity to evaluate political candidates directly. Individual voters can get an “up close and personal” view of each candidate to help guide their voting decisions. This direct line of communication removes the need for political parties or social groups as aids in decision-making.
However, TV’s focus on individuals means that personality is more important than substance for political candidates. It also means that the media cover the president more than they cover Congress or the Supreme Court.
TV furthers individualism
No need for intermediaries
Candidates can reach individual voters
TV focuses on individuals
Personality important
Focus on executive branch

52. Democracy and the Media
7.6
Democracy and the Media
With the amount of information available to citizens today, you’d think that political competence would be greatly increased. That is, citizens in the American democracy should be better equipped to make rational policy decisions. Yet this clearly isn’t the case.
The media respond to criticism of the superficiality of their coverage by pointing out that they provide what the public wants. Their motive is profit, which means appealing to the largest possible audience. They say that if the public demanded serious, in-depth news programs, they would certainly provide such programs. It’s the public’s appetite for entertainment over substance, they say, that keeps the coverage limited and superficial.
“Information is the fuel of democracy”
But more info does not equal more competence
Superficial by demand
Profit motive again
Public appetite shapes choices

53. 7.6 What is an example of the media as watchdog?
Now try to answer this review question.
Televising a campaign speech
Reporting about an abuse of power
Criticizing a politician’s wife
Polling citizens on an issue 53

54. 7.6 What is an example of the media as watchdog?
Media serve the interests of the public by reporting on abuses of power and injustices.
Televising a campaign speech
Reporting about an abuse of power
Criticizing a politician’s wife
Polling citizens on an issue 54

55. 7
Discussion Question
How has the development of electronic media changed the relationship between political officials and the public? Overall, are these changes for the better or are they detrimental to our political system? What are some specific pros and cons of media coverage of political events?

56. 7
Video: So What?
Why do the media choose to feature one story over another? Author Martin P. Wattenberg discusses the driving forces behind many of the decisions the media make, and provides some rationale for why sometimes the real story gets lost behind the noise.

57. 7 Further Review: On MyPoliSciLab Listen to the Chapter
Study and Review the Flashcards
Study and Review the Practice Tests