18. How it works: in theory
Filtering
Editor decides which stories are
important and will attract an audience.
19. Framing
Reporter’s story includes
the overall argument and
other information that
shapes what the audience
learns.
The people
have a point!
Chaos in
the streets!
Priming
By describing events using some
words or phrases and omitting others,
the reporter has additional influence
over what the audience learns.
20. Filtering, Framing, and Priming
Decision about where, when, and how to carry the story gives an additional
opportunity for filtering. In addition, the editor can make changes to a story that
involve framing, and priming.
21. Filtering
It’s not a story...
Anyone who received a message from
Clinton during her tenure as secretary
of State knew about her e-mail
practices...
until it is!
How it works: in practice
Reporters in need of a story could always rely on U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to say something they could write a story around. But did media coverage of Trump provide voters with the information they needed to assess whether he would be a good president? @realDonaldTrump
Rhetorical question: What does all of this criticism of the mass media have to do with politicians?
The media is supposed to be a watchdog and monitor politicians, government actions, and policy debates—and report all of this to citizens.
But the media is frequently attracted to spectacles:
Horrific crimes,
Political and celebrity scandals,
Election-year “horse races.”
This gives rise to common media sayings like, “Sex sells,” or, “If it bleeds, it leads.”
Worse, the media can often rush to judgment based on flimsy, almost nonexistent evidence.
For example: Can you remember the “Balloon Boy” hoax? In retrospect, it was an unsophisticated ploy for attention—which it achieved.
Many observers blame the media for gaps in Americans’ political knowledge, low levels of civic engagement, and distrust of the federal government.
These critics would like to see increased coverage of the complex trade-offs facing elected officials and bureaucrats while also holding politicians accountable for their campaign promises and behavior in office.
What is the role of the media in American political life? How did it get to be this way? What, if anything, do current trends portend about the future of the mass media in politics?
The New York Journal’s advocacy of war with Spain did not cause the conflict—but its steady stream of pro-war coverage did shape public opinion.
Even early on, media was important in American government: Benjamin Franklin published the Pennsylvania Gazette while America was still a colony.
In the year after independence, when the nation was governed by the Articles of Confederation, The Federalist Papers (which, recall, argued for a constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation) was published as a series of columns in Federalist newspapers. So, in some sense, newspapers were partisan before political parties existed!
Thomas Jefferson blamed his 1796 election defeat to John Adams on scandalous lies printed about him in northern newspapers. President Adams signed the “Alien and Sedition Acts” of 1798, which made criticizing the government a crime. When Jefferson defeated Adams in the election of 1800, he let those acts expire rather than using them to his own advantage.
Even in the nineteenth century, technological change led to different ways of information consumption. Printing presses enabled the “penny press” to produce copies cheaply and increase circulation. The telegraph and wire service allowed reporters to go out on assignment and get information back home quickly.
Investigative journalists were commonly known as “Muckrakers” because they would dig deeply into a particular topic of public concern, often targeting government failures and inefficiencies. (Key names are Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, and Ida Tarbell.) The classic film Citizen Kane famously portrays a fictionalized version of William Randolph Hearst, a major publisher during the time that muckraking became a major movement in journalism.
With the development of national radio networks in the 1920s and 1930s, Americans throughout the nation could hear coverage of important events as they occurred.
Under the FCC’s equal time regulations, having Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump host NBC’s Saturday Night Live meant that NBC had to give free television time to other candidates.
Most major newspaper, television, and radio companies upload their content to their websites and apps to reach as broad a network as possible. The Internet has facilitated the development of deep but narrow media sources like Politico, Vox, and FiveThirtyEight, which offer insight into American politics that would likely not have been possible otherwise.
The Internet also removes the dependence people have on their local newspaper for political news, and lowers the barriers between political journalists and consumers, as they can interact on social media. Nonetheless, the low barriers for publication on the Internet allow incorrect or misleading information to be presented as fact, often with little fact checking or concern for accuracy.
The question raised by Table 7.1 is whether the differences in issue positions and policy demands of liberals and conservatives in America are driven by the differences in media sources—do some people demand liberal policies because they listen to NPR, while others demand conservative policies because they listen to Rush Limbaugh? The answer is almost surely no. As we discussed in Chapter 6 (“Public Opinion”), people aren’t liberal or conservative because of the stories they listen to, watch, or read—their beliefs run much deeper than that.
If you’re looking for someone to blame for Americans’ lack of knowledge about politics, the mass media is not a good candidate. While most sources fall short in one way or another, there is a wealth of information available, most of it for free. But most people never search for political information and ignore much of what they encounter. Journalists can do the most effective reporting possible—providing in-depth, balanced coverage of critical events—but unless people take time to read or view that coverage, they will remain uninformed.
In the relationship between government and the media, who has the upper hand?
It’s not a question with a simple answer. Members of the government have first, and often exclusive, access to the news that reporters need. Often political actors trade access to this information for favorable coverage. Politicians want media coverage that highlights their achievements in order to build public support and secure election (or re-election), bureaucrats want favorable attention for their programs, and interest groups want publicity to further their causes.
Politicians try to influence coverage by providing select information, often to favored reporters who they think will cover a story in the “right” way. Sometimes politicians hold press conferences where they take questions from the media. Other times, they speak to single reporters or to a group on background or off the record, meaning that they can be quoted, but not by name.
But attempts to shape media coverage only work some of the time: while politicians can control press access, they cannot control what reporters write on. Mistakes and gaffes might hurt a politician’s standing, but they tend to reach a large audience and boost recognition of the reporter.
People inside the government with access to sensitive information (either politically embarrassing information, evidence of illegal activity, or even classified information) can leak information to the media. In an organization as large and complex as the federal government, leaks are almost inevitable.
When presented with a leak, the government has two (imperfect) types of recourse:
It can investigate and attempt to prosecute the leaker, or
It can plead with news agencies not to release sensitive information.
The first option risks a popular backlash against heavy-handed tactics; the second relies on the judgment of the media. We saw this play out when Eric Snowden leaked information about the previously unknown extent of National security Agency (NSA) surveillance to Glenn Greenwald and the Guardian.
The relationship between shield laws and the First Amendment is a complex and controversial one. Those who are in favor of what are sometimes called “press shield laws” argue that the media has a crucial role in a democracy: providing the information citizens need to make truly informed decisions. They also analogize this “privilege” to those who maintain that spouses cannot be compelled to testify against each other, as well as the doctor-patient privilege and the priest-confessioner privilege.
Critics of shield laws make two principal arguments:
Shield laws can endanger national security, and
The First Amendment is guaranteed to all Americans; the media, who are unelected, do not constitute a special class with additional rights.
[To students: Which argument do you find more persuasive?]
Exposure to political coverage changes what people know, which in turn can shape demands we place on politicians. But these effects are modest. People tend to choose their media sources based on their ideological consonance—liberals seek out MSNBC and conservatives seek out Fox News—and thus are not choosing ideology based on the media they consume. Moreover, media effects on opinion tend to be short-lived.
It is hard to find evidence that, on the whole, there is a systematic media bias. Fox News is clearly conservative, and MSNBC is clearly liberal. What we do find ample evidence of is the hostile media effect—Democrats tend to view neutral coverage as unfair toward their candidates, while Republicans tend to view the same coverage as unfair toward their candidates.
The way a story is reported—which information is included in an article or which images are used—makes a big difference in what people learn from it. Stories that focus on cases of violent crime suggest an epidemic of murders, rapes, and assault, but actual data
on crime rates paint a very different picture.
Press attention to gun control spikes upward after a mass shooting, then fades as reporters move to other stories. How does this pattern help opponents of gun control legislation to preserve the status quo?
When people think that we spend 25 percent of our budget on foreign aid (instead of 2 percent), it’s easy to blame the media for the widespread political ignorance in America.
But most people do not seek out news, do not spend the time to distinguish whether something is accurate, and do not spend time making coherent conclusions.
The knowledge gap persists, in part, because many Americans choose to remain uninformed.
Many criticisms of American media’s coverage of politics seem to merely point at easily confirmable aspects of everyday political coverage. [Question: What is the danger with this sort of conventional thinking?] For examples, see the slide. And there is an emphasis of soft news over hard news:
Soft news: media coverage that aims to entertain or shock, often through sensationalized reporting or by focusing on a candidate or politician’s personality or even appearance.
Hard news: media coverage focused on facts and important issues surrounding a campaign.
A bigger question is why does American media report politics the way it does—with certain strengths (frequent use of reliable polling) and the weaknesses listed in this presentation?
Why Media Coverage Falls Short: Market Forces Play a Big Role
Major media outlets are for-profit businesses; they need “eyeballs” to be watching or reading their work. Sex and violence titillate and fascinate. Conflicts of opinion are often more interesting than even-handed presentation of facts. Public opinion itself can affect the tone of media coverage. Moreover, even if reporters did explain how government works and why debate and compromise are necessary, it is not very likely that citizens would start loving politics and the political process.
Citizens do not like being exposed to uncertainty, debate, bargains, and so forth. An old saying in American politics is, “If you want to enjoy sausage or legislation, don’t watch it being made.”
The lawmaking process can leave many Americans disgusted or frustrated—but just as many are bored or more interested in something else.
Question: What impact do you think the American public’s appetite for politics—or lack thereof—has on the governance of the nation?
Yellow journalism emphasized sensational stories and bold headlines, but also made information about contemporary politics available to a wider audience.
Across the world, from Black Live Matter protests to citizens documenting the scene after the Paris attacks, the Internet makes it easy for ordinary citizens to share political information and report on political events as they happen. #BlackLivesMatter #PorteOuverte
The easy availability of doctored photos of many elected officials on the Internet highlights the dangers of relying on unvetted websites as a primary source of political information, as in the case of this fake photo of Hillary Clinton with a Confederate flag.
Information and coverage of important events become instantaneously available through Internet sources like Twitter feeds and blogs. For instance, Clinton’s campaign announcement was followed by commentary and analysis. @HillaryClinton #I'mWithHer
The publication of thousands of government documents, including some sensitive reports and communications, raised new questions about press freedom and national security. Here, demonstrators protest government surveillance and thank Edward Snowden for his revelations. @Snowden
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump being interviewed by George Stephanopoulos, a so-called “liberal” media person. Some critics of media coverage claim that a liberal interviewer would not be able to do an impartial interview of a conservative candidate (or vice versa).
The way a story is reported—which information is included in an article or which images are used—makes a big difference in what people learn from it. Stories that focus on cases of violent crime suggest an epidemic of murders, rapes, and assault, but actual data on crime rates paint a very different picture.
Rows of journalists prepare to cover the second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis. Did the media provide debate watchers with the information they needed to judge which candidate they should vote for?
Numerous articles published in late 2015 and early 2016 raised alarms about a sharp increase in homicides in large U.S. metropolitan areas, citing data from cities like Baltimore (138 homicides in 2014 to 215 in 2015). But homicide rates in any city can vary sharply from year to year simply because homicide is a fairly rare crime. As a result, drawing conclusions about the entire country requires aggregating data across a large number of cities. What do the numbers say about the media’s coverage of violent crime?
