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The Media and Politics

The Media and Politics. Media ARE Plural. Not a monolith Different Outlets Different Formats Different Audiences Affects content. Formats I: Books and Magazines. books Small (but influential) audience Not a significant source of news Indirect effect on coverage magazines

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The Media and Politics

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  1. The Media and Politics American Politics

  2. Media ARE Plural • Not a monolith • Different Outlets • Different Formats • Different Audiences • Affects content American Politics

  3. Formats I: Books and Magazines • books • Small (but influential) audience • Not a significant source of news • Indirect effect on coverage • magazines • Political magazines similar to books • Newsweeklies have larger “activist” audience American Politics

  4. Formats II: Television and Newspapers • Television • “mass media”: large audience, similar coverage • believable because visual • Mass impact limited by cable TV and “narrowcasting” • Newspapers • Few “national” newspapers • Collectively, large audience but shrinking for decades • Compare nature of coverage • TV: “if it bleeds, it leads” • Newspapers: “Big picture, local focus” American Politics

  5. Formats III: Radio & the Internet • Radio • Homogenization of programming • News content rare except during “drive time,” on “talk radio,” all-news and on NPR • Internet • Increasingly important as source of news, especially for younger people • Vast array of information; many more ways to avoid political content • Narrowcasting becomes “slivercasting” American Politics

  6. Roles of the Media • What criteria shape what’s considered “newsworthy”? • Media as (political) watchdogs • Media as a “fourth branch” of government • Media as businesses American Politics

  7. Media as Watchdogs • provide the information the people need to know to protect themselves from government • investigative journalism • focus on scandal and abuses of power • political effects American Politics

  8. Media as Businesses • Media outlets run as for-profit enterprises • What’s covered determined by what sells (Demand) • bad news, superficial gossip has large audience • substantial political news has “upscale audience” • look at the advertisements • Production costs (Supply) • Gathering and checking news more costly than acting as conveyor of information • Media mergers often result in cuts to news divisions American Politics

  9. Media Relationships with Politicians and Government • Why “relationships?” • Implied by roles • Crucial for assessing media power • Access • Leaks, background sources, trial balloons • Government management of access • Information • News releases, news conferences • Sound bites, image manipulation American Politics

  10. Limitations on Print Media • First Amendment blocks most limits • No “prior restraint” • Thus, limits directed at keeping information out of newspaper’s hands in first place • Consider Pentagon Papers (1971) • New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) • Limited scope of libel • Had to show “actual malice” • Extended to any “public figure” in Hustler Magazine v. Falwell (1987) American Politics

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