This chapter discusses the relationship between mass media and politics in the United States. It covers the development of media politics from early newspapers to modern television, radio, internet and social media. Key topics include how politicians use media to communicate their messages, the increasing adversarial relationship between media and government, and the power of media to set the policy agenda and influence public opinion.

1. The Mass Media and the
Political Agenda
Chapter 7

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3. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Longman
Chapter 7: The Mass Media and
The Political Agenda
• The Mass Media Today
• The Development of Media Politics
• Reporting the News
• The News and Public Opinion
• Policy Entrepreneurs and Agenda
Setting
• Understanding the Mass Media
• Summary

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Chapter Outline and Learning
Objectives
• The Mass Media Today
• LO 7.1: Describe how American politicians
choreograph their messages through the
mass media.
• The Development of Media Politics
• LO 7.2: Outline the key developments in the
history of mass media and American
politics.

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Chapter Outline and Learning
Objectives
• Reporting the News
• LO 7.3: List the major criteria that
determine which news stories receive the
most media attention.
• The News and Public Opinion
• LO 7.4: Analyze the impact the media has
on what policy issues Americans think
about.

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Chapter Outline and Learning
Objectives
• Policy Entrepreneurs and Agenda Setting
• LO 7.5: Explain how policy entrepreneurs
employ media strategies to influence the
public agenda.
• Understanding the Mass Media
• LO 7.6: Assess the impact of the mass
media on the scope of government and
democracy in America.

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The Media
• Role of the Media
• Provider of political information
• Monitoring of politics and politicians
• Reporting on government action and
inaction
• “Fourth branch of government”
Complaints of Media
- blamed for Americans lack of knowledge
- coverage of trivial or insignificant news

8. The Mass Media Today
LO 7.1: Describe how American politicians
choreograph their messages through the
mass media.
• Medium is a means of communication
• Media is the word’s plural; Mass media
reaches a wide audience
• The American Public gets information
about public issues through several
forms of mass media
To Learning Objectives
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Types of Media
• Television
• Newspapers
• Internet
• Radio
• Magazines
• Movies
• Books
• Social Media

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Mass Media
• Medium + -
• TV
•
•
•
•
•

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Two Kinds of Media
• Print media
• Broadcast media
• Each has reshaped political communication at
different point in American history
• Newspapers – Rev War/Spanish Amer War
• Penny Press - 1830’s - were revolutionary by making the
news accessible to working and middle class citizens for a
reasonable price.
• Creation of the wire service-1840’s
• Partisan press- 1850’s
• Yellow journalism – 1890’s -1900’s
• Investigative reformers “muckrakers”

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Media Sources
• Newspapers (con’t)
• National – Wall street Journal, NY Times,
Washington Post – worldwide staff
• Regional/Local – local news and wire (AP)
• Significant declines in readership
• Corporate changes
• “dead”?
• Still widely used source (2007 – 51 million
people a day buy a NP)

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Media Sources
• Magazines and Books
• Time and Newsweek
• Political events as front page news
• Other magazines have political articles
• Books
• Many NY Times best sellers focus on politics

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Media Sources
• Wire Services
• Across the world
• Associated Press and Reuters
• Cost effective
• Same story printed in hundreds of
newspapers throughout the nation

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Media Sources
• Television
• Four National Networks – ABC, NBC, CBS
and Fox
• Prime time news programs
• Coverage varies “talking head”,
investigative journalism, and talk shows

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Media Sources
• Radio
• Major radio networks – ABC, CBS, Clear
Channel
• Brief news programs during the day
• Most political content is in talk show and call in
shows (Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Hannity,
Smirconish) – generally conservative
• NPR
• Only a fraction of radio focuses on politics

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Media Sources
• The Internet
• Sources vary widely
• Electronic versions of other media
• Blogs
• Websites (government agencies,
politicians, critics)

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The Impact of the Internet
• Optimistic predictions about the impact of the
internet
• Does the amount of info at one’s fingertips
equal amore intelligent more political
electorate?
• The impact on politics has been more subtle
than revolutionary
• New lines of communication
• Less constraints on information
• New way to challenge media stories via blogs
• Communication leading to activism

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The Impact of the Internet
• Increased amount of information available
• Lowered barriers of publication
• Ordinary citizens can post reports and videos of
political events
• The growth of the internet has not lead to a better
informed public
• Lack of access
• Difficulty of finding information
• Inconsistent reliability
• Lack of incentive to seek out information

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Media Sources
• All Media the Same?
• Timeliness
• Breadth
• Medium
• Resources

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News Coverage
• Journalists
• Sources of the News
• The Power of Consumers

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Journalists
• Journalists can shape the news by changing
the angle of the story, the selection of
interviewees/witnesses, the visual images, or
the words used to tell the story.

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Journalists/Reporters
• Legal limitations affect journalists/reporters
• Clear and Present danger test
• Prior restraint
• Information is leaked by people inside gov’t
• Some states have shield laws that protect
reporters from revealing their sources, there
is no such law at the federal level

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Sources of the News
• The individuals or groups who are subjects of
a news story can manipulate the coverage by
determining how or when the story is told.

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Sources of the News
• Politicians try to influence coverage by
providing select information to reporters
through press conferences.
• Stage “media events”
• Sometimes they speak to reporters “off
the record”

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The Power of Consumers
• The media must market their product to those
individuals who are the targets of their
advertisers
• Accordingly, consumers can dictate the type of
coverage they want to read, hear, or see.

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How Do American Use Media
to Learn about Politics?• Americans have more ways to learn about politics
then they did a generation ago
• This does not imply that the average person
American uses most of them
• “byproduct theory of information transmission” –
information is acquired unintentionally (Glance at
Headlines, Daily Show, something catches their eye)
• People who are interested in politics tend to seek out
things they all ready believe
• Media coverage is most likely to affect the beliefs of
those who take a moderate interest in politics

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Media Coverage
• There are clear generational differences in
media usage patterns
• Younger-internet
• Older – newspaper
• The amount of political knowledge that
people have is related to the particular media
source they use
• Studies have shown that those who get their
info from late-night comedy and talk radio
program are well informed about politics

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Media Power in American
Politics
• Shaping Events
• The Sources of Media Power
• The Rise of Adversarial Journalism

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Shaping Events
• The visual images produced by the media can
move public opinion.
• The Vietnam War, the civil rights movement,
and Watergate were all shaped in some way by
media coverage.

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The Sources of Media Power
• Agenda setting: the power of the media to
bring public attention to particular issues
(Covering certain stories)
• Framing: the power of the media to influence
how events and issues are interpreted
• Shaping perceptions of leaders

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The Sources of Media Power
• Filtering
• The influence on public opinion that results
from journalist and editors decision about
which stories to report. Fox vs. CNN
• Priming
Positive or negative coverage
• Jobs Report: Friday unemployment numbers hide widespread
joblessness
• Unemployment rate drops to 5.6% as economy creates 252,000
jobs

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•So How Much Power
Does the Media Have?

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• “The Media doesn't tell you how to
think, but surely, It tells you what
you should be thinking about” Philosopher, Michael
Santangelo

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Marshall McLuhan
• Canadian philosopher of communication
theory. He spoke on effects of technology as
it related to popular culture, and how this in
turn affected human beings and their relations
with one another in communities.
• McLuhan is known for coining the
expressions the medium is the message
• Also…Motive is the Message

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Media Power and Democracy
• The Free media are absolutely necessary for
democracy.
• We depend on the media to serve as our
watchdog.

37. The Development of Media
Politics
 Introduction
 The news media wasn’t always so important.
 Press Conferences: meetings of public officials with
reporters
• Franklin Roosevelt held over 1,000
• Fireside chats – connect directly with Americans
 Symbiotic relationship between the press and
politicians
• Politicians needed the media to get message out
• Media need politicians for material.

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The Rise of Adversarial
Journalism
• The relationship between the media and
government has become increasingly
adversarial over the last forty years.
• Vietnam and Watergate clearly demonstrate a
change in the way the media covers
government.

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Adversarial Journalism
 Effective communication through media is key
to political success.
 Media Events: events purposely staged for the
media that nonetheless look spontaneous
• Media events can be staged by almost anybody

40. The Mass Media Today
 60% presidential campaign spending is TV
ads
• Two-thirds is negative.
 Image making and news management is
important, especially for presidents and
presidential candidates.
 Ronald Reagan's ability to use the media to
reach the people helped him land the
nickname "The Great Communicator."
 Missteps captured on audio/video can have
disastrous consequences
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5FzCeV0ZFc

41. The Development of Media
Politics
 The Broadcast Media
 Television and radio
 Brought government and politics into peoples’ homes
• Vietnam War
 Politicians’ appearance and mannerisms more
important
• Kennedy-Nixon presidential debate
 The Internet/Social Media
 The Barack Obama campaign. The first political
campaign in history to truly harness the power of
social media to spread the word, garner support and
get people engaged.

42. The Development of Media
Politics
 From Broadcasting to Narrowcasting:
The Rise of Cable News Channels
Narrowcasting: media programming
on cable TV or Internet that is focused
on one topic and aimed at a particular
audience, e.g., C-SPAN
Potential of cable to report on news as
it happens and offer myriad choices
Yet, resources are limited and stories
are not substantive

43. The Development of Media
Politics
 Government Regulation of the
Broadcast Media
The Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) regulates the use
of airwaves in three ways:
• Prevent near monopoly control of market
• Reviews performance of stations
• Issues fair treatment rules for politicians

44. Reporting the News
 Finding the News
Beats: specific locations from which
news frequently emanates, such as
Congress or the White House
Trial Balloons: an intentional news
leak for the purpose of assessing the
political reaction. Leak
Reporters and their sources depend
on each other; one for stories, the
other to get them out.

45. “Watching TV” Activity
 In small groups answer the following
questions for each show you watched…
 What show did you watch?
 When did you watch it?
 What were your overall opinions of the
show?
 Did you think this show had an ideological
bias? Explain.
 Did you think this show helps or hurts
politics? Why?

46. Summary
 Media shape public opinion on
political issues and influence policy
agenda.
 Broadcast media have replaced print
media over time.
 Narrowcasting and the Internet are
further shifting media.
 Seeking profits, media are biased in
favor of stories with high drama.