PLAP 3140 - Quiz 1

6 dominant Players in Entertainment and News Media

Comcast NewsCorp Disney TimeWarner CBS Viacom

Public Ownership in the US

Concentration is blown out of proportion Global Agency for Global Media informs and engages people around the world to support freedom and democracy Targets outside the US to support democratic systems in closed information developing countries Protection of American thought and institution (soft diplomacy)

Food Lion vs. ABC News

ABC had a tip that a series of Food Lion supermarkets violated numerous public health regulations - ABC sent 2 undercover producers to work at Food Lion wearing secret cameras and microphones - ABC broadcasts this - Food Lion files a lawsuit for fraud bc they filed for employment under fraudulent conditions - Food Lion argues that journalistic ethics are ignored in this situation and ABC argues that the public has the right to know

Mystery of the Multiplying Red Ties

C-SPAN started live broadcasting speeches and debates in the Senate Fact that they were being televised made Senators feel like they needed to look better -- hence the red ties

Issenberg - Why Campaign Reporters are behind the Curve

Few journalists have access to the data that campaign professionals do and are unable to keep up with the micro targeting of campaigns

Trump's Usage of Twitter

Getting around the media is not new (Presidents have long sought to use new media to speak to the American public directly) Trump does not use his official @POTUS account, instead uses @realDonaldTrump--which he used before he became president) His tweets are nasty, brutish, and short, and regularly uses them to bash the press (among other institutions) The frequency of attacks on news orgs is new Very self-aggrandizing tweets -- complete disregard for the norms of civil discourse He is able to set the agenda through his Twitter (outrageous tweet-->gets media attention)

McChesney

Giants furnish TV programs, movies, videos, radio shows, music, books, and other recreational activities - Maximizing profits for their shareholders Regulators have let mergers slide Media Concentration has accelerated in the last decade Today firms are vertically integrating - producing content and owning distribution, prohibiting newcomers from entering the production industry and enables the company to increase market power Good journalism is bad business while bad journalism can bee very good for business -- cover controversial stories about celebrities, natural disasters, sensational crimes, etc. Four General Propositions for Media Reform 1) Shore up nonprofit and commercial radio 2) Strengthen public broadcasting 3) Toughen regulation 4) new media antitrust statute - should emphasize ideological diversity, reduce barriers to entry, and increase competition If you have 2 or more divisions you can't have divisions investigating other divisions because it makes the corporations look bad

Freedom of Information Act

Guarding national security information has been relatively ineffective

Two Ways of Arguing Media Bias

Inferential claim -- make claims based on the journalist' attitudes and characteristics and public opinion Observational claim -- make claims based on actual media content

Walter Lippmann

Issues must be very important before the news account contains any definition information as to what is in dispute. There is no objective standard, but there are conventions of keeping the reader engaged and forming their own opinions on the issue. News and Truth must be clearly distinguished. News should signalize an event, whereas truth should bring to light hidden facts. Journalists must bring a foundation of truth from which their opinions are founded. Press is regarded as an organ of direct democracy.

Kovach

Journalism's first obligation is to the truth, and by nature, journalism is reactive and practical Citizens and society depend on accuracy and reliable accounting of events to function. Two tests of truth: getting facts straight, making sense of the facts. Mixed Media culture creates new journalism of assertion and adds new context and interpretation.-- we need more synthesis and verification.

Simple Muckraking

Journalists decide to investigate a problem --> investigation leads to the publication of news which stirs public opinion --> aroused public mobilizes policy makers Usually results in modest/delayed outcomes because many Americans are complacent or cynical about the political status quo

Nichols and McChesney

The collapse of Journalism is a threat to self-government No one has business model to sustain digital journalism -- newspapers cannot switch to online Consequences -- governments and federal departments will go without public accountability Solution -- Government Intervention - implement policies and subsidies to provide an institutional framework for quality journalism - 1st order of any government intervention would be to assume that no state or region would be without journalism - journalism should be regarded like an education system -- government should help bridge the disconnect with young people and journalism by allocating funds to student newspapers, radio stations, and accompanying websites - expand funding for public and community broadcasting

Swensen and Schmidt

Turn Newspapers into Non-Profit, Endowed institutions - this will enhance newspapers' autonomy while shielding them from destructive economic forces going digital --> business model erodes - this will promote journalistic independence because it insulates reporters from pressures to produce profits and please advertisers

Knight First Amendment Institute - Open Letter to Donald Trump

Use of Twitter has afforded Americans valuable insight into policies, actions, and beliefs and supplied the public with a way of engaging with him directly Twitter is a designated public forum (covered under the First Amendment) and viewpoint-based blocking is unconstitutional The protection of speech critical of government officials is the core concern of the First Amendment and the ability to engage in this type of speech is crucial to self-governing

FCC's ongoing challenge

balancing deregulation w competition, localism, and viewpoint diversity

What content conflicts with First Amendment Freedoms?

clear and present danger (threat to national security) "fighting war" and hate speech obscenity and indecency defamation: slander (verbal) or libel (written)

Federal Communications Commission

implementing federal regulation of telecommunications 5 members -- at least 2 from each party 2003 Rule Changes lifts ban on cross-media ownership, can own up to 3 station in nation's largest markets, broadcasters can reach 45% of national audience

Partisan Ideological Sorting

individual's party and ideological identity have converged

Three Kinds of Biases

informational affective ideological/partisan

Citizen journalism

more opportunities to produce content new possibilities for citizen-citizen communication through social networking creates problems with anonymous sourcing and what kind of protections these people deserve -- what defines journalism?

symbiotic relationship

mutually beneficial relationship between the press and the government Ex. Leaks - political actor cannot go on the record saying something, gages readers and viewers

Agenda Building

news stories rivet attention on a problem and make it seem important to many people

Nourishing Social Movements and Interest Groups

promote selected group that are working for public causes Publicity has legitimized consumers organizations and environmentalist groups in the eyes of the public and in the eyes of public officials

Libel Laws

provide redress when published information has unjustly tarnished a person's reputation must prove harm was from defendant's negligence or recklessness

Relevant "intelligence" for the Media to provide?

public record, private record, war and peace, policy developments, statistical data on social/economic conditions, opinions and views, and information about leaders

2006 FCC study

study finds that locally owned stations air more local news and on-location news than network owned and operated stations Barbara Boxer confronts FCC because they never published the results of this study

semi-public ownership

tax dollars fund but int is not controlled or operated by government officials (PBS)

Muckraking

the exposure of political corruption and social injustice

Lewis

untrustworthiness of news photography photographs are supposed to be proof of a story, however photographers too make editorial decisions all the time. Captions can change what we think we are looking at and captions physically limit our ability to see the entire picture

Experiments

vs. Observational Study - subjects assign themselves to different groups Internal Validity - how confident we are about the relationship between a and b External Validity - how generalizable are the results are the study Experiments have high internal validity because the random assignments result in 2+ similar groups therefore the only difference is thee treatment Experiments have lower external validity because the sample might not be reflective of the entire population and the setting might not be ~real world~ enough

Feeding Frenzies

when there's an event/scandal it consumes all coverage All outlets are fishing for something to add Standards are lowered because if everyone else is talking about something you have to start talking about it

Sabato - Attack Mentality in the Media

"News cycle without end" - increasing pressure to include marginal bits of information, gossip, and producing novel/distorting angles on the same news to differentiate one report from another "horserace reporting" - focus on who is ahead and who is behind Emphasis on sensational and the dramatic "Star Journalism" - "good" stories results in both money and fame Journalism's 2 imperatives -- 1) don't get beaten to a story by another news outlet 2) if we don't break this, someone else will encourages bad judgement and premature decisions Increasing emphasis placed on the character of candidates and psychoanalysis of public figures. Social factors have lead Americans to prefer more information on the private lives of public officials Loosening of the libel law -- defamatory falsehood no longer enough to incur judgement (must prove intent of malice) Preconceived images and stereotypes become candidate's subtext which guides and sets the tone for press coverage "Feeding Frenzies" Bias (liberal tilt among the press that we refuse to recognize) helps us predict stories chosen for coverage and which subjects are avoided by the press

Impacts of Presidential Debates

- better for the candidate if expectations for their performance are low - appearances matter because they shape what criteria candidates are evaluated upon

Ladd - News Media Trust and Voting

- Party identification powerfully shapes voting because it is a baseline for voting decisions - Contemporary messages influence voting mainly by sending massages about national conditions (mostly economic conditions) - if economic conditions are good, voters tend to reward incumbent party candidate and vice versa (RECENT conditions) - Media distrust induces Partisan voting and Economic voting

Hershey (2001) - The Campaign and the Media

- media frame - a storyline or central organizing idea that calls attention to some aspects off the story and connects events to one another - frames can pull an opinion to the forefront of individual's thinking and are more likely to rely on these facts when interpreting campaigns Does Media Framing Matter? - once a frame has become well-established in coverage it can serve as a filter through which journalists assess and report later campaign events - Media frames screen what voters learn about their candidates for president - strategic frames were more dominant in the closing dates of the campaign (when undecided voters tend to tune-in)

Ideological/Partisan Bias

- partial reemergence of partisan press in ideologically branded cable news outlets and news websites - there is a difference between delivering bias covertly under the shadow of objectivity or being branded partisan media

Farnsworth - Fairness, Negativity, and Accuracy

- partisans of both parties regularly charge the media with bias against their side w/o justification - it is always a race among reporters to be the 1st to report, and this has intensified with increased use of media technologies and the Internet - Watergate has triggered suspicion and contempt towards the government from media actors and a continuation of muckraking journalism trends - citizens have become increasingly cynical of government - CPMA studies of presidential elections 1992, 1996, 2004, and 2008 found that there is a significant imbalance in the tone of network news towards the major party candidates, either favoring the Democrat or no party at all - Project in Excellence in Journalism reveals that both print and television have the same problem of horse-race coverage

Graber and Dunaway - Incivility, Negativity, and Bias in the Media

- politicians increasingly attack the media in the face of scrutiny or unfavorable coverage - most often biases are affective and informational due to the effort to make the news attention-grabbing - press is overzealous in investigations that destroy reputations needlessly - attack journalism - bullying public figures into action by threatening to publicize stories - negative information has more powerful influence on individuals than neutral/positive info Effects of Negativity - linked to decline in political participation, trust in our government, and trust in the media - undermines citizen motivation to become engaged/take part in political life

Graber and Dunaway - The Struggle for Control: News from the Presidency

- presidents receive vastly more coverage than any other political actor in the US - tone of media evaluations of the president changed sharply after Vietnam and Watergate -- press became suspicious and critical - politicians desperately need the media to meet their goals - newspeople want to monitor and appraise government performance and feel bound by economics to present exciting news stories and attract large audiences Media's 4 Major Objectives - inform president of current events in other parts of the government - keep the executive branch attuned with public concern - enable executives to convey their messages to the general public - allow chief executives to remain in full public view -- keeps human qualities and professional skills on constant display Presidential Communication Strategies - win reporters' favors - shape the news flow - orchestrate coverage - publish on government websites

Graber and Dunaway - Elections in the Digital Era

- recent advancements in technology and data gathering and analysis allows campaigns to micro target voters by matching individual-level voter characteristics with media and internet behaviors Three Main Impacts of Digital Era Elections - power of journalists to influence selection of candidates - requirement of candidates to "televise well" - explosive growth and diversification of made-for-media campaigns Media Campaigning Strategies - New Venues -- entertainment shows, candidate websites, social media - Attracting coverage -- planning schedules around events that will attract reporters Patterns of Coverage - newspeople feel compelled to write breezy infotainment stories that stress the horse-race and skim over policy details - newsworthiness > intrinsic importance - prevalence of negative information about candidates makes it seem like they're all poor choices - inadequate analysis of policy issues

Three Major Objectives of Investigative Stories

1) Produce Exciting Stories 2) Gain praise from fellow journalists 3) Trigger political action/be a part of it

Patterns of Media Exposure

1) Television remains main source of political news 2) print newspaper readership has declined 3) social media increasingly important for news 4) Americans watch a lot of TV 5) Declining network news consumption 6) rise of cable news (even though network news still dominates) 7) Viewing varies by Partisanship 8) Declining and Polarizing Trust

Three Ways Investigative Journalism can lead to Political Action

1) engendering massive public reaction that can lead to widespread demands for political remedies 2) arouse political elite who are officeholders/may have influence with officeholders 3) direct collaboration between investigative journalists and public officeholders

Common Features of Election News Coverage

1) more unfavorable news coverage of candidates increased 2) more game schema frames than policy schema frames 3) increase in interpretive vs. descriptive frameworks 4) shrinking sound bites

1996 Telecommunications Act

1st major piece of legislation addressing issues of increased media ownership Increased number of media stations a company could own and the % of households a company can reach to 25% to 35%

Net-Neutrality

2010 - FCC votes that internet services cannot block access to any legal content, applications, or services 2014 - net-neutrality taken away, Jon Olivier generates public arousal 2015 - net-neutrality brought back, FCC Chair Pai claims that government is trying to regulate the internet 2017 - Pai proposes overturning net-neutrality This is ongoing

Shaw - Abortion Bias Seeps into the News

80-90% of U.S. journalists personally favor abortion rights Because it is an emotional issue, reporters on each side allow personal beliefs to take over their obligation to be fair and partial Subconsciously, coverage is presented from the abortion-rights perspective -- culture in newsrooms assumes that abortion is right Class Issue -- more money, more education, less religious, more likely to favor abortion rights Language embraces the rights of the woman and not the fetus -- even pictures feature women and not babies (media avoids using the term "pro-life" and instead uses "anti-abortion")

2004 Super Bowl Halftime Show

9/16 of a second showed Janet Jackson's nipple FCC's response implied that this was a deliberate stunt, launches an investigation and found that it violated indecency rules, Viacom suffers a fine Third Circuit Court of Appeals overturns fine finally in 2011

Journalists as Political Actors

Acting as Surrogates -- actively participating in evolving situations. as media celebrities, they are instrumental in moving crises from obscurity to the political agenda Acting as Mouthpieces -- government officials who are unsatisfied with current policies for whatever reason may leak information to sympathetic journalists Acting as Chief Framers -- reporting the news from a particular perspective so that some aspects come into close focus while others fade into the background

Bollinger

Advanced Public Funding for Journalism - state support does not necessarily translate into full control - financial stability of US press has been shaken to its core because communication outlets have fractured base of advertising and readers

Most Important Form of Linkage

Citizen-to-Citizen - citizens are able to act together in concert using Facebook, Twitter, newspapers, etc.

Gilens and Hertzman

Asses the influence of corporate media ownership over news content--specifically addressing the claim that financial interests of corporate owners lead America's news bureaus to downplay the growing concentration of ownership of the country's mass media Corporate owners will not hesitate to permeate the membrane between business owners' interests and news content Evaluates coverage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act which clearly benefits newspaper-owning companies that have substantial investments in TV stations Separated 100 largest media companies into three categories (no TV holdings, owning 5 or fewer TV stations, 9 or more TV stations) Found that newspapers with greater TV ownership gave coverage to proposed changes in TV ownership caps but put this change in a positive light Conclusion -- financial interests influence not only newspaper editorials but also straight news reporting as well

Kovach and Rosenstiel

Basic news values have remained relatively constant throughout time. News satisfies a basic human impulse--the need to know what is occurring beyond their own experience New technologies compete for attention. Journalism that provides something other than independent, reliable, accurate, and comprehensive information subverts democratic culture. Discontent with the media began because of the failure to live up to these values. Journalists have adapted to the changing marketplace by delivering news in the form of entertainment.

Sludson - Evolution of the Penny Press

Before the penny press: commercial and party -- confined to the elites and content was limited to commerce and politics Commercial revolution in American press -- enormous circulation, income based of advertising and sales, political independence, reflected activities of a diverse, urban middle-class. More human interest stories. What explains this revolution? Technological Argument -- advances in printing and railroad transportation, paper manufacturing, and development of the telegraph; Literacy Argument -- increased literacy is a result of increased printing and extension of economic and political right; Natural History Argument -- struggle for existence, struggle of circulation, extension of a function that was spontaneously performed by the community (gossip) Democratic market society - replacement of a political culture of gentry rule with idea and institutional fact of mass democracy Jacksonian democratization of politics - more people and greater range of good participated in the marketplace How is the penny press the forerunner of the modern press? accessible, local/human interest

Introduction of the "Penny Press"

Break with partisan sponsorship, started to support the papers with advertisements Mass circulation was possible because of affordability, technological and social change Redefined news -- rise in independence and "objectivity" democratic market society - rise in the urban middle class

Stewart

Census projections indicate that minorities will become a majority in the US by 2044, however little progress has been made on covering communities of color Journalists are afraid to have open, honest conversations about race, gender, and ethnicities because they can damage relationships w editors or colleagues Helps editorial organizations avoid the bland and also false conventional wisdom held in a room full of people who come from similar places

Parenti

Conditional Autonomy and Self Censorship -- journalists are independent agents in a conditional way - they are free to report what they like as long as superiors like what they report (ideological leash) Self-Censorship - anticipation that superiors might disapprove "pack journalism" -- media organizations taking cues from one another. Opinion inertia favors existing framework of an institution - conformity comes from being exposed to the same schools, communities, universities, pop culture, and media that socialize dominant belief systems Profile of Journalists -- most are raised in upper/middle class homes and almost all have college degrees and have attended graduate school, they lack contact with working class people and have low opinions of labor unions yet they are liberal in choice. Journalism schools make journalists more understanding of the business viewpoint "professional advice" is masked as ideological conditioning class-power relationships -- news executives are subject to the judgements of corporate directors and owners (monopolized by mainstream conservatives)

January 2004 Rules Change (again)

Congress overturns 45% cap and rolls back to 39% because one of the "Big Six" was already at 38.7% (criticism for accommodating a large media company)

Three Kinds of Bias

Corporate Bias -- media publishes stories that favor or feed into the viewpoints of the owner - leads to sins of omission and sins of commission (upper echelons of corporations are mainstream conservatives) Reporter Bias -- conditional autonomy (journalists are independent as long as they demonstrate competence), self-censorship (not submitting anticipating discontent), pack journalism (organizations use each other to decide what news is relevant) Political Biases -- views we are receiving are not representative of most of the population (mostly liberal -- affects public perception of what is right and wrong)

Digital Ad Revenue

Decline from print ad revenue and classified advertisements Is not sufficient for compensating decline of print advertisements

Ladd - Why is everyone mad a the mainstream media?

Decline in media trust was accompanied by fragmentation of the news industry 4th branch of government to serve as a check on the official three branches. Distrust prevents journalists from checking political power and the public from learning essential information about public affairs. Factors working against the existence of a dominant institutional news media: politicians desire public support and feel threatened by independent sources of information, market denied for more partisan/entertaining news. What are the effects of media distrust? substantial information loss among the mass public and polarization of the political system Re-Polarization of the Party System -- politicians and political activists began to aggressively attack the institutional media's trustworthiness Fragmentation of the Overall Media Environment -- increasing number of alternative media outlets which places competitive pressure on the institutional media and pushes them to report more "soft" news Growth in political attacks on the institutional news media comes from both greater criticism from existing opinion outlets and strong criticism from the new alternative media Most Americans have a relatively clear and firmly held attitude toward the institutional news media

Different Roles of the Media

Democratic Systems - media helps bring government policy in line with public opinion Authoritarian Regimes - media helps bring public opinion in line with government policies

Alexis de Tocqueville

Democratic citizens need to know the state of their public weal. This helps execute a common goal, which each citizen may have conceived on their own Newspapers are necessary for democracy to exist because people only have power if they are numerous. Newspapers can exert influence over a large number of readers. Power of the press should increase as men become more equal.

Graber and Dunaway Ch 4 - Media and Politics in the Changing Media Landscape

Digital and Social Media make capturing and sharing news information cheap and easy, but the dissemination of fake news raises serious concerns. Low-cost accessibility to news would naturally enhance the levels of political knowledge, however, political learning is influenced by the way information is presented. Media Polarization and Selective Exposure -- increasing number of media outlets has created economic incentive to isolate markets and provide special interest programming. Citizens purposefully select pro-attitudinal messages and deliberately ignore counter-attitudinal messages, which causes increasing dislike/hostility between partisans and strengthens partisan identity. Changing News Habits and Political Journalism -- media hybridity (both old and new media exert substantial influence on the public and public officials), allows 1 and 2 way communication between political elites Mobile News Consumption -- most engagement on social media happens on mobile devices and news outlets are adopting "mobile first" strategies to meet audiences, however, this is limited by problems with functionality and connectivity and limited attention span Citizen Journalists -- when the people formerly known as the audience employ the press tools they have in their possession to in form one another Blogs -- outlet for sharing information and commentary, have an economic impact on news business, and open doors for advocacy journalism and critical analysis. Bloggers can also sometimes bypass the mainstream media to leak stories. Opinion-driven Political Campaigns -- campaigns develop a digital presence, blogs establish 2 way communication and a space and structure for constructing and sharing narratives Digital Democracy? more traditional entities with better funding are still able to retain an advantage, web also has limited ability to democratize because not everyone is heard Mobilization and Political Organizing -- modern communication technologies allow a speed of mobilization and more fluid organizational forms that require less infrastructure, membership, and funding Engagement, Citizenship, and Civil Life -- media has become more fragmented and so have audiences due to partisan media and selective exposure

Patterson - Game and Governing

Dominant Schema for Reporters - around the notion that politics is a strategic game and it's all about whether the candidate plays the game well or poorly Dominant Schema for Voters - politics is a means of choosing leaders and solving problems, and the key dimensions of presidential politics are policy problems, leadership traits, and policy debates **Press's version of the campaign does not mesh with voters' concerns** - Press's game schema is more pervasive today than it has been in the past -- emphasis on the more dramatic and controversial aspects - In the past, the news was a forum for the candidate's ideas -- the candidates still use the media to get their message across, however the messages are refracted through the game schema - by emphasizing the game dimension, journalists strengthen voters' mistrust of candidates and reduce their sense of involvement

Three Domains of Media

Entertainment Paid News

ClearChannel

Example of Multiple ownership owns 1200 stations (including iHeart Radio) Predictability and reliability of iHeartMedia is comfortable for many listeners

Graber and Dunaway Ch 3 - Censorship in the 21st Century

Expanding spheres of digital communication platforms have only provided new means by which governments can monitor and censor posts Terrorist groups, militant,s and authoritarian governments use digital communication strategies to produce and disseminate their own versions of the news to enlist supporters and recruits among the naive public Even though we are technically free of censorship, we are heavily dependent on the government for news gathering During periods of unrest or hewn we perceive high levels of external threat, we are more willing to trade freedoms for security Controlled Media -- Right to Equal Time (make same time amount available to all candidates--all or none), Right to Fair Treatment (free air time for expression of issues of public concern and of opposing views), Right or Rebuttal -- right to respond when individuals are assailed on radio/TV in a way that damages their reputation Speed and predictability are important predictors of whether people use the Internet to seek out news and political information Neither ordinary citizens nor media have constitutional rights to gather information Governments routinely bar certain types of documents from disclosure -- essential to protect individuals and business enterprises, censoring information that deem harmful to national security Individual Rights vs. The Public's Right to Know -- public officials/figures do not enjoy constitutional right to privacy because people are interested in their lives. Ready availability of the Internet has wiped out privacy rights

Challenges in Studying Media Effects

Experiments - random assignment of subjects to treatments - controlled experiments allow us to make casual inferences and eliminates self-selection

Bernard Goldberg

Exposes how the media distorts the news Specifically mentions the critique of the flat tax through a liberal bias. Claims that people are so in tune with politically correct times -- journalists surround themselves with liberal friends and see conservatives as morally deficient, see their views as "correct" and not "liberal" (Conservatives are out of the mainstream and need to be identified) News is not a coalition of facts--it is how reporters and editors see those facts and interpret them Press glances over the fact that bias clearly exists. Suggests we get behind a conservative action program for conservatives in journalism

Los Angeles Times Editorial Board - Trump's War on Journalism

Facts that contradict Trump's version of reality are dismissed as "fake news" Trump is not the 1st president to whine about the news media, however Trump has escalated this negative relationship Trump regularly condemns legitimate reporting while most other presidents have acknowledged the media's essential role in American democracy

Druckman - Power of Television Images

How to TV Images Affect... 1) criteria by which individuals base candidate evaluations 2) overall candidate evaluations 3) learning about politics Participants, Design, and Procedure - individuals w/o prior knowledge of Kennedy-Nixon debates and allied viewer-listener disagreement - short questionnaire w demographic questions - random assignment to either watch the debate on TV or listen to the audio version Results - dependent variable - which candidate won the debate - independent variables - what criteria evaluations are based on - Television viewers relied both on perception of leadership effectiveness and integrity - Audio listeners relied only on leadership effectiveness Conclusion - TV images prime people to rely on personality perceptions and enhance political learning

Smith-Mudd Modernization Act

Lifts ban on domestic propaganda Increased accessibility to everything and anything around the world via the internet

Democratic Linkage

Linkage is a 2-way street: Media provides information critical to democracy. Information flows from citizens to representatives and from the government to citizens. This linkage does not exist in authoritarian countries

Decline in Number of Daily Newspapers

Major cities used to have multiple newspapers that sometimes would come out multiple times per day, now shifted to weekly Many newspapers have begun to merge/go out of business and may places are now "news deserts" (without a daily or weekly paper)

Compaine

Media Universe continues to expand and diversify Competitiveness in media compares favorably with other industries Deregulation unless market policies that make it increasingly difficult for any company to dominate an industry Both local and national media outlets are driven by the profit motive -- local owners are more likely to have ties to local and political business establishments

Hershey (2017) - The Media Covering Donald Trump

Media's Definition of News - democratic citizens' need to know and the media's need to gain an audience Media Norms - most people are interested in drama, movement, and conflict Donald Trump was a ratings machine - constant creator of audiences for newscasts, blogs, and social media - resulted in profoundly unbalanced coverage of the presidential candidates and he was able to set the agenda for his own coverage Two-Handed Journalism - follow a statement that suggests a typical point of view w a quote of the other side of the issue False-Equivalences - to report a lie and its rebuttal as being two reasonable alternatives - journalists are bound by the two-handed norm to support claims whether accurate or not as factual and equivalent Covering Hillary Clinton - she was a very old story AND a precedent breaker - media coverage elicited larger conversation about gender bias - didn't give her much credit for her female values - focus was on her scandals How well does media campaign coverage provide what citizens need - Trump coverage led to a campaign w less policy substance - media's need for an audience gave way to fake news stories - powerful of false equivalence normalized Trump's statements

Sinclair

Multiple Ownership example owns 191 TV stations around the country in 89 media markets Company is very active int he direction they give to the local news staff

McClatchy

Multiple Ownership example owns newspapers all over the country and all newspapers are independently operated

What Political Actors need from the Press

Need favorable publicity to 1) maximize support of their policies both among the citizens and Congress/the exec branch and 2) maximize electoral support and political position

What Media Actors need from Political Actors

Need stories to 1) maximize the competitive position of their news organization 2) maximize individual reporters' professional reputation

Kalb - Scandal Coverage

New confusion and breakdown of traditional standards puts a far greater burden on news consumers to become their own sifters of evidence, their own judges of credibility, and their own deciphers of hidden motives and biased sources. Pursuit of scoops on scandals reached wide levels of distortion and exaggeration with reporters out-sensationalizing each other and using unchecked sources Technological revolution has fractionalized the communication market and hundreds of news sources are competing for a smaller share of a distracted audience New economics places more value on profits than contributions to societies "New News" -- decline of mutual trust between the White House and the press - defined by... 1) lack of sourcing - usage of flimsy, questionable sources - if they take a few minutes to double check their sources they could risk losing an exclusive story - economic pressures have cut fact checkers 2) "out there" - Chinese wall separating tabloid from traditional news vanished in the crush of competition 3) rush to judgement - presumption of presidential guilt and complicity in wrongdoing 4) blurring the lines - journalists are both the observed and the observers because they have gained distinctiveness as personalities and are expected to deliver their opinions. many former politicians are switching over to journalism Rise of "soft news" -- proliferation of pundit television and the power of ratings

Four Permeable Membranes

News vs. Entertainment News vs. Advertisement News vs. Opinion Social Media vs. Mainstream News Sources

Trends in Newsroom Diversity

Newspapers with more female leaders have a lot more female staff and vice versa (same trend with minorities) Almost no newspapers are less white than the areas they are covering

ProPublica

Non-profit media enterprise that publishes investigative stories and partners with other newspapers Relies on donor support (shows Swensen and Schmidt model is not impossible)

Abdo (Knight First Amendment Institute) - @realDonald Trump and the First Amendment

Packingham vs. North Carolina Supreme Court Case -- establishes that social media is central to public discourse Rebuttal of objections to the statement that "@realDonaldTrump is a designated public forum" - Even though Twitter is a private company, the government uses the platform to deliver official messages, therefore the public-forum doctrine applies - @realDonaldTrump is not a personal account because he uses it to communicate government affairs, make official announcements, etc. his tweets are even recognized by the press secretary as "official statements" - Twitter is entitled to allow users to block whoever they want to, however, the president's account being used in official capacity should be banned from blocking people with differing viewpoints - the injuries to blocked individuals are not trivial, firstly because they 1) cannot see Trump's messages to the public, 2) cannot respond to Trump's messages to the public, and 3) cannot participate in the conversations triggered by Trump's messages to the public

Graber and Dunaway Ch 5 - News-Making and News-Reporting Routines

Personality and Background Factors of U.S. Journalists -- at start of 21st Century, 4/5 were white, 2/3 were male, and almost all were college grads. Tend to be socially liberal and have a keener sense of social responsibility. proportion of female and nonwhite journalists has risen over time but in recent years, remained flat. Demographically distinct groups are uniquely qualified to assess their own needs, which is why underrepresentation in media is harmful Organizational Factors -- incorporation of media enterprises within large, corporate entities has increased emphasis on high profits and led to damaging cutbacks in staff and other resources for fathering news, relationships with colleagues within large, prominent enterprises are important in which newspeople receive support from coworkers rather than their community at large Gatekeeping -- select journalists who have final control over story choices, end up wielding political power, increasing desire to cover negative, sensational, and entertaining drives the news selection process Five Criteria for Choosing News Stories 1) have a strong impact on readers/listeners - present events as they can happen to ordinary people (personalization bias) 2) violence, conflict, disaster, or scandal 3) familiarity 4) proximity - strong preference for local news 5) timely and novel - just occurred, out of the ordinary Gathering the News -- establish "beats" in places were events of interest are most likely to occur (in recent years newsrooms have shifted from beats to general assignment which minimizes source development and reporter expertise) New Tools for News-gathering -- digital and social media help find and keep up with breaking news stories, crowd-sourcing, and tracking political elites News Production constraints -- pseudo events (events created to generate press coverage), interviews are common when there's a lack of accessibility, digital media pressure to constantly put out fresh material Effects of Gatekeeping -- winnows the group of newsworthy people to a small cadre of figures, actions are largely limited to conflicts and disagreements among government officials, violent and nonviolent protests, crime, scandals, investigations, and impending disasters. Infotainment News -- economic pressures to generate large audiences. Focuses on novelty and excitement, familiarity and similarity, conflict and violence, and neglects major societal problems

Three Sets of Actors

Political Media Citizens

Graber and Dunaway Ch 1 - Media Power and Government Control

Political Importance of Mass Media -- shape views of citizens about public policies and public officials, serves as a model fro which views/behaviors are acceptable and praiseworthy, informs public about government wrongdoing and sets forth cultural values that are accepted as part of US society Functions of Mass Media -- Surveillance (public - which news is reported and which news is ignored, fear of publicity and concealing objectionable behaviors, provide cues on importance of issues)(private - use media to keep in touch with what they see as personally important), Interpretation, Socialization (learning basic values and orientations to fit the cultural milieu), Manipulation (muckraking) Who Controls the Press? -- Attempts by governments to control the media are universal because it is widely known that the media are powerful political forces, however, the extent and nature of this control varies. (Authoritarian - control and use media to support goals out of fear that unrestrained media will create political instability)(Democratic - expected to scrutinize government performance and report findings) Control Methods -- manipulation of access to the news through censorship laws and regulations, treason and sedition laws (anything critical of the government, especially in times of war)

Ladd - Sources of Antipathy towards the News Media

Possible Explanations - hostile media phenomenon - tendency of people w divergent opinions on an issue view reports as biased against their views - reactions to specific styles of news coverage (negative/cynical political coverage, horserace coverage, tabloid-style news) - people see news as biased against their predispositions - elite rhetoric can influence opinions, especially among those that are politically aware Media Trust and Political Learning - Hypothesis : all else equal, learning from informative media messages is directly related to the positivity of attitudes towards the institutional news media - in the absence of trusted information, people increasingly fall back on partisan predispositions to conduct beliefs about national conditions - media distrust leads people to utilize alternative media sources -- more opinionated sources and less influenced by messages received through mainstream press

Three Types of Media

Print Broadcast Online

Forms of Ownership

Public Semi-Public Private

Graber and Dunaway Ch 2 - Ownership, Regulation, and Guidance of Media

Public Ownership and Control -- fear that it results in programming that uncritically supports government policies (but BBC shows that governments can avoid direct political interference) Private Control of TV -- divided among many owners is likely to bring in more conflicting interests than the government, political values are mainstream and middle class, offerings w mass appeal but not controversial social/cultural issues because of profit considerations (government-owned are free from commercial pressures and economic consequences) Public Broadcasting System -- mixture of public and private financing, supports educational and public service stations which don't attract large audiences and political appointees are kept separate from programming operations. airs experimental programs and high-quality news and public affairs programs Patterns of Private Ownership - independents (individuals, families or corporations that own a single media venture), Media Chains (individuals or corporations own several media outlets that offer homogeneity), Cross-Media Ownership (media enterprises own different types of media) , Conglomerate (individuals or corporations that own media enterprises along with other types of businesses aka Disney and profit maximization is the overarching goal Trend towards consolidation -- large enterprises can more readily absorb losses incurred and spend more money on talented people, research, investigations etc. Media Fragmentation -- there are as many providers of digital news and potential consumers, rarely providing original stories and fending off of news collected by traditional media Media enterprises have cut costs by sharing resources, trimming staff and shutting down the bureaus abroad and increasing human interest stories that are less expensive to produce Privatization -- take off the public market Opponents of Deregulation -- large conglomerates control the most popular stations and often share content across media holdings, which is contrary to the government communication diversity goals FCC handles most regulation -- limits numbers of stations owned or controlled by one organization and examines goals and performances of stations and enforces rules that protect individuals from damage caused by unfair media coverage - not effective enough to overcome pull of politicians and market forces Growing declines in press freedom -- political, criminal, and terrorist organizations efforts to homogenize and suppress the media, there is an excessive and unlawful coercion and physical violence that journalists face

What must be proven for a libel/slander claim?

Public figures -- ned to be able to show that statement is false and statement was published with malicious intent Private figures -- must rove statements are untrue and are a result of negligence

Internet-Based Media

Redefines journalism and the role of news Blurs the line between objectivity and analysis/viewpoint (increases permeability between news and opinion) Concerns about changing and declining quality of journalism and the viability of business models Rising to become the dominant news source and overcoming Television News -- new generation is becoming the voting population

Shield Laws

Reporters want laws to shield them from subpoenas forcing them to break confidentiality promises (exposing criminal activity often requires promising informants that they'll conceal their identity)

Fact-Checking

Rise in fact-checking is attributed to the need to identify and counter misinformation Important in a high-choice media environment where audiences can collectively search for claims matching their beliefs

Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics

Seek Truth and Report It Minimize Harm Act Independently Be Accountable and Transparent

Truncated Muckraking

Sequence is aborted at some point (reports are not published) (reports don't lead to reforms) When evidence is too weak, too risky because of costly lawsuits or damaging retaliation

Iyengar and Kinder PT 1

Sequential Experiments - participants were exposed to a sequence of unobtrusively altered network newscasts - participants watched 1 30 minute newscast every day over the course of 1 week - completed a questionnaire before and after the week Assemblage Experiments - participants viewed a collection of news stories taken from 3 networks in 1 sitting - put together in order to test predispositions about agenda setting and priming - questionnaire only after watching Recruited participants from Ann Arbor and New Haven areas Created realistic newscasts and edited stories into newscasts Agenda-Setting Hypothesis - those problems that secure prominent attention on the national news become the problems the viewing regards as the nation's most important Vividness Hypothesis - giving inferential weight to information in proportion it its vivid (contrast between personalized case history information and abstract statistical information) Lead Story Hypothesis - networks select the lead story to represent the day's most important news item Personal Predicaments and National Problems - Americans assess the course of national affairs by considering the circumstances of their own lives - people who are personally affected by a particular problem are more likely to be sensitive to news about it Victims of Agenda Setting - Education, Party identification, and Political Involvement as Key Characteristics

Three Muckraking Models

Simple Muckraking Leaking Impact Muckraking Truncated Muckraking

Four Possible Solutions to Save Newspapers

Subsidies Public Support Endowment Do nothing

Propaganda

Systematic propagation of information or ideas by an interested party especially in an untruthful way in order to encourage or instill a particular attitude or response. Features of Propaganda - systematic and deliberate - affect, share, and manipulate opinion - promote support for cause, regime, party, and position - often has biased, misleading, or false information - distributed by actors in positions of power

Iyenger and Kinder PT 2

The Priming Effect - by calling attention to some matters while ignoring others, television news influences the standards by which governments presidents, policies, and candidates are judged People rely on availability heuristics Hypothesis (which was confirmed) - viewers shown stories about a particular problem gave more weight to that problem when evaluating the president's performance Minimal Effects - media simply strength the predispositions that were already in place prior to the campaign - agenda-setting effects were confined to the particular problem featured in the newscasts - Americans are not w/o informative resources of their own - views clash w romantic ideal of democratic citizen who is informed, skeptical, and deeply engaged w public affairs and thoughtful about the state of union/quality of leadership

Executive Privilege

The right to conceal information that they consider sensitive -- undisclosed information frequently concerns failures, incidences of malfeasance, malfunctions, or government waste

Obscenity

Three Criteria 1) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that work as a whole appeals to prurient (sexual) intent 2) The work has to depict or describe sexual content specifically the applicable state law 3) the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literacy, artistic, political, and scientific value

State of the Public Weal

What do these mean to me? - public record (government policies and decisions) - private record (scandals and abuses of power) - foreign and domestic events (war, peace, and foreign policy) - social and economic conditions - information of leaders (both elected and appointed)

Leaking Impact Muckraking

When some elements of the model are skipped (officials act without pressure of public opinion) (investigations have policy consequences even when no reports have surfaced) Most common when newspeople and public officials openly collaborate

Does the government try to control the news in democratic systems?

Yes. during war, public opinion is increasingly negative. Government actors will still attempt to influence the independent media coverage and public opinion.

Starbucksification of Radio and Media

consolidation of ownership and homogenization of product (contrast to viewpoint diversity and localism)

Gag Orders

court censors pretrial publicity in fear it might influence judge and jury interferes with media's ability to report on fairness of judicial proceedings upheld when coverage will harm the accused many reporters have suffered jail-time/fines rather than obey gag-rules because they felt the courts were overly protective of criminal rights

sin of comission

covering something because it will benefit owning corporation Ex. ABC blatantly advertises for a bar that is mentioned in a Disney-distributed movie.

sin of omission

failure to cover something because it will affect owning corporation Ex. NBC doesn't cover GE tax scandal

Public Ownership

government owns and operates media outlets (mostly aimed at audiences outside the US)

Exchange Theory

journalists exchange their ability to bestow public for groups ability to supply newsworthy stories

Indecency

language/material depicts/describes in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards contains sexual/excretory references that do not rise to the level of obscenity indecent material can be restricted in order to avoid broadcasting during times where children may be in the audience

June 2, 2003 Rules Change to Telecommunications Act

lifted ban on cross-media ownership can own up to 3 stations in the largest markets broadcasters can reach 45% of the national market received stark oppositions (0.5million complaints to the FCC)

Semi-Public Ownership

longer needs stories most Americans do not watch/listen funded by taxpayer money CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) gives money to business that create and distribute content Assumption is that the private sector will not produce programming that serves the underserved and is locally relevant needed because it separates the government and the media but insulates media creators from members of Congress

parasitic relationship

media can be harmful to the political actors political actors an exploit media actors

Information Biases

personalization, dramatization, fragmentation, and the authority-disorder bias - personalization - focusing on human-interest side and missing the opportunity to discuss broader societal consequences - dramatization - emphasizes sensational elements and over-contextualized details - fragmentation - related stories are told in a way that isolates them from one another, which prevents citizens from fully considering the implications of issues and events - authority-disorder bias - concerned with leaders' ability to retain or restore order, seen in the context of a political event or national disaster

Private Ownership

revenue streams -- subscriptions, paying for a paper, advertisements dominant form of ownership