The Media (Ch. 6)
media leaks
The Pentagon Papers were released as a result of C)a leak by a minor Defense Department staffer. In the Pentagon Papers case,the Supreme Court ruled that C)the government could not block the release of the papers. In recent years,________ has released thousands of secret government documents Exposing government corruption,torture,and war crimes. C)WikiLeaks Edward Snowden is most known for C)leaking the material that revealed widespread global surveillance programs by the U)S.government and major telecommunication companies.
right of rebuttal rule
An FCC regulation that people attacked on a radio or television broadcast be offered the opportunity to respond. In Red Lion Broadcasting Company v.Federal Communications Commission (1969),the Supreme Court upheld the B)right of rebuttal. If a radio station aired a personal attack against a candidate but refused to allow the same candidate the opportunity to respond to that attack on its station,the station would be in violation of the C)right of rebuttal. The fairness doctrine required that . B)broadcasters who aired controversial issues provide time for opposing viewpoints. In 1987,the federal government stopped enforcing the ________,arguing that it was no longer necessary due to the increasing number of television and radio stations. A)fairness doctrine
Media & priming
process of preparing the public to take a particular view of an event or political actor Priming refers to the B)process of preparing the public to bring specific criteria to mind when evaluating a politician or issue.
Online news & Selection bias
selection bias (p. 192) the tendency to focus news coverage on only one aspect of an event or issue, avoiding coverage of other aspects Journalists exhibit selection biases in favor of news stories they view as B)having a great deal of dramatic or entertainment value.
Comedy shows &political news
talk shows with political content, such as The Daily Show, The Late Show, and Saturday Night Live, attract millions of television viewers. These shows use humor, sarcasm, and social criticism to discuss serious topics, gener- ally covering almost every major political event. Pew surveys have shown that these talk shows are important sources of political news, especially for young people and liberals, and that followers of comedic talk shows are well informed about politics.20
Digital divide
the gap in access to the internet among demographic groups based on education, income, age, geo- graphic location, and race/ethnicity The fact that only 63 percent of high school graduates have broadband internet access at Home while almost 90 percent of college graduates do is an example of C)the "digital divide."
Media & framing
the power of the media to influence how events and issues are interpreted ________ is the power the media have to shape what issues Americans think about and ________ is the power the media have to influence how Americans think about those issues. A)Agenda-setting; framing The fact that journalists referred to the Obama administration's health care initiative as "reform" instead of as "health care rationing" is an example of B)framing.
media regulation
Which of the following best describes the relationship between the government and the media In the United States today? C)The government does not own but regulates the content and ownership of broadcast media.
who gets their political news from social media
Which of the following is NOT a reason why many Americans appear to prefer online news? A)the accuracy and objectivity compared to traditional media outlets Which of the following statements best describes where younger and older Americans get their news? A)Social media tend to be a secondary news source after television for most Americans,but a primary news source for the young.
characteristics of digital media
Which of the following news sources reaches the MOST Americans? B)television Despite its widespread availability,________ typically report(s)on the narrowest range of Topics and provide(s)the least depth of news coverage. B)television it is estimated that over ________ percent of Americans have a television. 95 Which media source is regulated by the federal government? B)television
John Zaller's model of public opinion
Zaller's model Receive stage uindividual receives info from different sources Accept stage uIndividual assesses info through lens of her own political views & accepts only those messages that are in line w/ previously held beliefs Rejects some political info Sample stage uIndividual selects some accepted political info - often the most recent info-- & form an opinion
Equal time rule
the requirement that broadcasters provide candidatesfor the same political office equal opportu- nities to communicate their messages to the public The ________ provides candidates for the same political office equal opportunities to Communicate their messages. A)equal time rule If a television station sold commercial time to a Republican candidate for governor but refused To sell time to the Democratic candidate for governor,this station would be in violation of the C)equal time rule.
social media & filtering
"Filter bubbles" appear when B)search engines automatically screen out information that might challenge or broaden a person's worldview.
Media ownership US & Europe
A key feature of the traditional media in the United States is the concentration of its ownership. A small number of giant corporations control a wide swath of media holdings, including television networks, movie studios, record companies, cable channels and local cable providers, book publishers, magazines, newspapers, and increasingly online and digital media outlets. Large global corporations own much of the media offline and online. Which of the following statements best characterizes media ownership in the United States? C)A small number of giant, privately owned corporations control most of the country's television networks, movie studios, record companies, cable channels, book publishers, magazines, newspapers, and digital media sites. The trend in concentration of traditional media ownership occurred in large part due to A)the relaxation of government regulations in the 1980s and 1990s.
Number of working journalists
During the last decade,the number of newspaper journalists working in the United States has B)decreased by 40 percent.
Federal Communications Commission
Federal agency that regulates the radio, television, wire, satellite and cable communications. American radio and television are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), an independent regulatory agency established in 1934. Radio and TV stations must have FCC licenses, which must be renewed every five years. Licensing provides a mechanism for allocating radio and TV frequencies to prevent broadcasts from interfering with and garbling one another. Through regulations prohibiting obscenity, indecency, and profanity, the FCC has also sought to prohibit radio and television stations from airing explicit sexual and excretory references between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., the hours when children are most likely to be in the audience. Generally speaking, FCC regulation applies only to the "over-the-air" broadcast media. It does not apply to cable television, the inter- net, or satellite radio. Which agency regulates broadcast media? B)Federal Communications Commission Which statement about the FCC is correct? D)The FCC does not regulate newspapers. Which of the following requires an FCC license in order to legally broadcast in the United States? D)over-the-air television stations
Impact of Profit motive on media coverage
For-profit private companies dominate U.S. political media. Media companies earn most of their revenue from advertising, rather than subscriptions, although revenue from subscriptions has been increasing. the U.S. media are more focused on soft news—such as entertainment, sports, and celebrity news— than are European media, which provide more hard news coverage of politics and civic events. This means media actors—from journalists to editors to the owners of media companies—are motivated by what audiences want, because higher ratings generate more advertising revenue And when it comes to political news, American media tend to focus increasingly on dramatic, highly conflictual events and issues. Sensational stories of scandals or candidate attacks often generate more interest—and thus revenue— than the stories of everyday governing and details of public policy. Nonetheless, objectivity is still the goal, and standard practice is that news, opinion, and ads should be separate and distinct; that is why the opinions of editors are reserved for the opinion pages. Which of the following statements best characterizes the traditional news media's relationship to objectivity? B)While completely objective reporting is unattainable because people inevitably have biases that shape their understanding of events,journalists attempt to be objective by reporting both sides of a story. Privately owned media companies in the United States earn most of their revenue from A)advertising. Which of the following stories would an American news outlet that relies primarily on advertising revenue be LEAST likely to cover? an economics professor providing testimony to a congressional committee on the effect of tariffs The profit motive of the news industry may have contributed to Donald Trump's unexpected victory in the 2016 election
Media & agenda setting
If public concern and interest in data security issues increased after a number of television And newspaper stories about "hacking," it would be an example of the media's A)agenda-setting power
Online-processing model of public opinion
Individual keep running tally of information Uses the tally to form an opinion on a policy issue or candidate By time individual votes or voices an opinion on a specific issue - May have forgotten older info used to make decision
characteristics of newspapers
Large media conglomerates,such as the Hearst,McClatchy,and Gannett corporations, Own approximately ________ percent of daily newspapers. D)75 The practice of training reporters to produce a standardized, seemingly neutral news product Was the result of B)the newspaper industry's realization that the best way to make a profit was to not alienate potential readers who held liberal or conservative political views. Digital subscription models in which people pay to access news content have B)proven to be a profitable approach for many elite,national newspapers but not for smaller or mid-sized local newspapers.
media monopolies
Media monopolies, such as that of The Walt Disney Company, have prompted questions about whether enough competition exists among traditional media to produce a truly diverse set of views on political matters.4 In 2019, for example, Disney purchased 21st Century Fox to become the third largest media company in the United States. As major newspapers, television stations, and radio networks fall into fewer hands, the risk increases that politicians and citizens who express less popular or minority viewpoints will have difficulty finding a public forum. Which of the following is a good example of a media monopoly? D)Disney
principles of journalism
Most practicing journalists receive training in schools of journalism and mass communication. Journalists are guided by standards in reporting the news in the public interest, known as the principles of journalism. Above all the news media seek to report the truth via fact-checking, verification of sources, and investigative journalism. This includes reporting factual claims by relying on legitimate sources, and Principles of Journalism - Reporting the factual claims & evidence - Relying on multiple sources - --People with credible position, eyewitnesses & participants - Documents from recognized & credible institutions truth via fact-checking - Verification of sources
Net Neutrality & 2017 protestmedia
Net neutrality—the principle that all data and content on the web must be treated equally and not blocked or slowed for certain users—has been a hot-button issue. Anooha Dasari is just one of many young people who have spoken out and organized in support of net neutrality. When the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, proposed to end "net neutrality" in 2017, teenagers across the country leapt into action. Many had lived their entire lives in an era of neutrality, aspects of which began in 2006 and were codified by President Barack Obama in 2015. Under net neutrality, internet service providers were regulated like a utility. They could not block websites, slow some data transmission while imposing fees for fast transmission, or charge consumers to connect to certain sites. Chairman Pai asserted that such rules overregulated the internet. But many teenagers, who get the majority of their news and information from the inter- net, disagreed. They used social media to coordinate letter-writing, tweet, and protest efforts. Sixteen-year-old student Will Howes led a protest in front of a Verizon store in Sioux Falls, South Dakota (Pai formerly worked for Verizon), arguing, "They can throttle your Netflix, they can change your Google results. The right to access information online is threatened." His fellow protesters worried that rural South Dakotans might get priced out of internet service, which was already limited there. Teen protesters in front of a Keene, New Hampshire, Verizon store had similar concerns about the price and availability of high- speed internet, holding signs asking, "Hey Siri, how much does this sentence cost?" As high school senior Harrison Hicks said, "The internet is imperative to my education, and it's really hard to be a self-starter and to teach yourself the information you need without the internet especially since we're the first generation who's grown up with the internet having been around our entire lives." Anooha Dasari, a high school junior from Mundelein, Illinois, who sent classmates links for emailing the FCC, said, "For research, for news, to com- municate with friends, the internet is a big part of my life. It has formulated my personality, opinions and political ideology. If it is controlled, my generation of students could be inclined to be just on one part of the spectrum. That's dangerous." In December 2017, Chairman Pai cast the deciding vote to end the neutrality rules. Dasari vowed to continue to fight: "I will tweet and email and call and stay in the process." Moreover, without active (indeed, aggressive) media, citizens would be hard-pressed to make informed choices among competing candidates at the polls. That is one reason that the teenaged defenders of net neutrality we discussed at the beginning of the chapter hoped to keep the internet open as a source of information on public affairs.
Transformation of US news media
New competition from free digital sources has put pressure on traditional subscription-based news sources as Americans have migrated to reading the news online. 93% read news online today 20 % in the 2000 Despite the digital transformation of the news media, much of what makes the media important in American politics remains the same. Major newspapers and TV networks—even if their content is increasingly delivered in digital form—remain pop- ular and important sources of news. Political leaders are successful in making head- line news and setting the news agenda. And journalists trained in professional schools create and develop much of what we consume as news, including original reporting. Before the internet, journalism organizations largely controlled the news through original reporting, writing and production, packaging and delivery, and selecting editors. Over time, technology companies like Facebook, Apple, Google, and Amazon have become major players in the content and delivery of the news. These companies are partners in the business of journalism, from the financial side to how the news is produced and delivered to consumers. They report the news using advanced technol- ogy, engineering, and market research to push specific news alerts to specific people, based on their interests and preferences. And it seems to be working: Facebook and Google, for example, generate the most digital advertising revenue for newspapers.9 The interdependence between technology and media companies continues to grow, representing a major change in the industry. In one of the latest trends, technology companies and their CEOs have been purchasing or developing major news media companies, such as the creation of the Intercept by Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar, or the purchase of the Washington Post by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Both the Intercept and the Washington Post have a reputation for forceful investiga- tive journalism and original reporting. And at Facebook, editors control trending topics in the news on the global platform, a key editorial role in what makes the headline news. Beyond making the news profitable again, these high-tech collaborations are changing how Americans learn about current events. The tech world has long valued transparency, networked environments, and participation.10 This is evident in the growing number of Americans who read news by using social network platforms, such as Twitter or Facebook. How citizens read the news has changed in the digital age, but the role of the media in politics remains as important today as during the founding of our nation. Americans get their news from (1) newspapers and magazines; (2) broadcast media (radio and television); and, increasingly, (3) digital media. Each of these three sources—newspapers, broadcast, and digital—has distinctive characteristics.
National Public Radio & PBS
Public broadcasting refers to television, radio, and digital media that receive funding from the public through license fees, subsidies, or tax dollars. In most other democratic countries public broadcasting plays a major role in informing the public about politics and current events. public broadcasting in the United States—such as National Public Radio or PBS—plays a very small role in the media system, at just 2 percent of market share, compared to 35 percent in France, 40 percent in Germany, and 65 percent in Denmark. "Public broadcasting" refers to any television,radio,and digital media that A)receive funding from the public through license fees,subsidies,or tax dollars. Public broadcasting in the United States B)accounts for a much smaller share of the media market than in other Western democracies,such as France,Germany,and Denmark.
adversarial journalism
Reporting in which the media adopt a skeptical or even hostile posture toward the government And public officials is referred to as A)adversarial journalism. The frequent reporting on the federal investigation by Robert Mueller regarding whether Anyone close to Trump participated in Russia's 2016 election interference is an example of the Media's commitment to A)adversarial journalism.
Number of news-gathering organizations
The actual number of traditional news-gathering sources operating nationally is actually quite small—several wire services, four broadcast networks, a few elite print newspapers, and a smattering of other sources, such as a few large local papers and several small, independent radio networks. More than three-fourths of the daily print newspapers in the United States are owned by large media conglomerates such as the Hearst, McClatchy, and Gannett corporations. Much of the national news that is published by local newspapers is provided by one wire service, the Associated Press. More than 500 of the nation's television stations are affiliated with one of just four networks and carry that network's evening news programs. The traditional news media aims to provide objective reporting on current events by A)excluding the personal views of reporters or editors from their coverage. Wire Services: Main source of National & World News in state/local papers Reuters Associated Press United Press International Four Broadcasting Networks ABC CBS NBC Fox News A few elite newspapers New York Times Washington Post Los Angeles Times Chicago Tribune Economist
Three main roles of media in democracies
The media serve three important roles in American democracy: to help inform the public about current political issues and events to provide a forum through which candidates, politicians, and the public can debate policies and issues to act as a watchdog on the actions of the government and political actors. If a number of newspapers published stories exposing an elected official's acceptance of Monetary bribes from a corporation in exchange for passing a particular law,it would be an Example of the media serving in their role as C)a watchdog. The media are sometimes referred to as the "fourth branch of government" because D)they provide a check on the power of government and political leaders. Without the work of journalists and the media, democracy and self-government would not be possible. Individuals learn about politics, current events, government policy, and political candidates and parties from the news media. The information presented by the media allows citizens to cast informed decisions in elections and to form opinions about policy issues. This communication ensures that elected officials adopt policies consistent, for the most part, with the preferences of the citizens and serves as a counterweight to communication among elites, the wealthy, and corporations. Perhaps most important, the media serve as a watchdog for the public, scrutiniz- ing the actions of elected officials on behalf of citizens, most of whom do not have the opportunity to closely follow the actions of politicians and government. The media are like an alarm system for a home—notifying the public of actions taken by government that may harm them. Important political news is reported on page 1 of print newspapers or in news alerts on your mobile phone. The media prioritize cov- ering major decisions by the government. They inform the public about important policy issues and expose those individuals and groups that exert power in politics, including their tactics and strategies. They reveal scandalous and illegal behavior of politicians, and therefore serve as a check on political power.
characteristics of broadcast media
The number of radio stations in the United States has grown from ________ in 1990 to more Than ________ today. D)400; 2,000
Fake news
The term "fake news" is most accurately characterized as B)false news stories circulated to generate ad revenue or to benefit one political candidate or party over another. A widely circulated story during the 2016 presidential election stating that the Pope had endorsed Donald Trump for president was a good example of A)fake news.
1996 Telecommunications Act
The trend in concentration of traditional media ownership occurred in large part due to the relaxation of government regulations in the 1980s and '90s. The enactment of the 1996 Telecommunications Act opened the way for additional consolidation in the media industry, and a wave of mergers and consolidations has further reduced the field of independent media across the country. But as more digital-only news sources come online, these trends toward concentration in media ownership may reverse. The 1996 Telecommunications Act was important because D)it allowed for a greater concentration of media ownership than had been possible Since regulation of the industry began in 1934.
Economic self-interest & public opinion
To this way of thinking, economic self interest is a prime determiner of where one stands 05:39 politically, and it also explains why white conservatives, especially those who are wealthy, 05:42 favor policies of lower taxes and less government intervention. 05:45 One problem with this purely self interested view of political ideology though is that 05:49 there is a large number of low income, low wealth white voters who also do or would gain 05:52 from more government benefits. But they tend to be conservative. 05:55 In other words, be careful when you try to define a person's politics by looking at their bank account.
News aggregators
an application or feed that collects web content such as news headlines, blogs, podcasts, online videos, and more in one location for easy viewing Google News,Reddit and Real Clear Politics are good examples of C)news aggregators.
Citizen journalists
news reported and distributed by citizens, rather than by professional journalists and for-profit news organizations News produced by individuals and organizations who are not employed as professional journalists Is called C)citizen journalism.
Niche journalism
news reporting devoted to a targeted portion (subset) of a journalism market sector or for a portion of readers or viewers based on content or ideological presentation What is niche journalism? A)news reporting targeted for a demographic of readers based on content or Ideological presentation A website devoted entirely to reporting on climate change and other environmental issues would Be an example of ________ journalism. C)niche
