2. Major Patterns
Both parties have become more
ideologically polarized in the last 40
years.
Congressional Republicans have moved
further to the right than Democrats to
the left during this period; moderate
Republicans have virtually disappeared
from Congress.
Most of the change among congressional
Democrats can be attributed to the loss
of moderate-to-conservative Southern
Democrats.
Overall, the parties are now
ideologically homogenous and distant
from one another. Bipartisan agreements
to fix the budgetary problems of the
country are now almost impossible to
reach.
Little hope for change, with steady
trends toward polarization driven by
underlying structural economic and social
factors—income inequality, cultural
conflict, and “hot button” issues such as
abortion.
3.
4. Who is More Liberal, Senator Obama or
Senator Clinton?
6. 1. From Ch. 1, contrast the conventional
wisdom of declining trust in the media with
the alternative view offered by Ladd. Are
there any points of agreement in the two
views?
7. Why did the Framers support
a free press in the Bill of
Rights and then, after they
were elected to office, why
did they often become more
hostile toward the press?
What does this tell us about
the normal reactions of
politicians to the media in a
democracy?
8. In what ways did the media
become more professional,
more objective and more of
an institution in the period
from the 1930s to the 1970s?
9. What’s professionalism and how did it develop?
What’s objectivity and how did it develop?
How do we know the news media is an institution?
10. Is it easier to understand why
traditional journalists are so critical
of new forms of news, such as Fox
and MSNBC, Internet portals,
bloggers, and others or are they just
whiners and has-beens?
13:50
11. What changes in the party system, the media
landscape and the relationship of the
institutional media with politicians led to the
decline of trust in the media, according to
Ladd?
