Mass Media

I. American involvement in Somalia (1993) ended in part due to the internationally televised incident of an American soldier's corpse being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. American intervention had also begun in part as a result of media images of starving children. Media play a tremendous role in shaping public opinion of events and can even help shape foreign policy.

A. These events illustrate how today's pervasive media coverage of world events influence both domestic and international political decisions.

B. In the Persian Gulf War (1991), both Saddam Hussein and the U.S. military saw the media as a vehicle to influence public opinion.

C. The news media both assist and complicate the government process. Freedom of the press is essential to the democratic process, but, like other freedoms, it must be balanced with the need to maintain order.

II. The mass media play an important role in communications between the people and government.

A. COMMUNICATION is the process of transmitting information from one individual or group to another.

1. MASS COMMUNICATION is the process by which individuals or groups transmit information to large, heterogeneous, and widely dispersed audiences, such as nations.

2. MASS MEDIA refer to the technical devices employed in mass communication.

a. PRINT MEDIA communicate information through the publication of the written word.

b. BROADCAST MEDIA communicate information electronically through spoken words.

B. The mass media are in business to make money, which they do by selling advertising.

C. The mass media also perform specific functions for the political system:

1. REPORTING the news.

2. INTERPRETING the news.

3. INFLUENCING citizens' attitudes and behavior.

4. SETTING THE AGENDA for government action.

5. SOCIALIZING citizens about politics.

III. The development of the mass media in the United States reflects the growth of the country, technological inventions, and political attitudes toward the scope of government.

A. NEWSPAPERS, which operated during the American Revolution, were initially expensive and had small circulations.

1. Improvements in printing led to the penny newspaper and mass circulations in the 1830s.

2. By the 1890s, every major city had several newspapers engaged in fierce circulation wars, which spawned YELLOW JOURNALISM.

3. By 1993, newspaper competition had dwindled to the point that only 36 cities had two or more daily papers under separate ownership.

B. MAGAZINES, which tended to have much smaller circulations, became important as forums of opinion.

1. MUCKRAKING journalists exposed political corruption and business exploitation in magazines such as THE NATION, MCCLURE'S, and HARPER'S.

2. In the 1920s and 1930s, three weekly news magazines--TIME, NEWSWEEK, and U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT--attracted mass readership.

C. RADIO, which began in the 1920s, made celebrities out of news personalities broadcasting over national networks.

D. TELEVISION, whose development was retarded until after the end of World War II, now claims by far the largest audiences of the mass media.

1. Television increased the visibility of broadcast journalists and promoted the careers of politicians who learned to use the medium.

2. Like the 1890s newspapers that engaged in yellow journalism, television news coverage favors events that have audience appeal.

IV. The mass media are privately owned in the United States.

A. Private ownership of the mass media gives the news industry more political freedom in the United States than in most other countries.

1. But private ownership also makes the media more dependent on advertising profits.

2. Potential news stories are judged for NEWSWORTHINESS according to their audience appeal, which means high impact, sensationalism, familiarity, close-to-home character, and timeliness.

B. Media owners acquire additional media to increase their profits.

1. The result has been a growing concentration of ownership in both print and broadcast journalism.

2. Fears of concentrating broadcast media under single ownership have led to government regulation.

V. Government regulations that are targeted at the broadcast media fall into three categories.

A. TECHNICAL regulations arise because of the limited number of electronic airwaves available for broadcasting.

1. Government regulation was requested by station owners who wanted their signals to be received clearly.

2. The FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS ACT OF 1934 forms the basis for current regulation of the broadcast industry.

B. The FCC also regulates the OWNERSHIP of the electronic media.

1. One FCC rule prohibits any company from owning more than one AM, one FM, or one TV station in a single community.

2. Another rule, which limited to seven the number of AM, FM, and television stations that a single company could own, has been expanded to permit the ownership of twelve stations of each types.

3. In recent years, pressures have developed to remove all congressional restrictions on media ownership.

4. The technological advances of the INFORMATION HIGHWAY may cause new developments in FCC regulations.

C. The FCC also regulates CONTENT of the electronic media.

1. The EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES RULE provides that a station must make available an equal amount of time under the same conditions to all political candidates.

2. The REASONABLE ACCESS RULE requires stations to make their facilities available to conflicting views from all responsible elements in the community.

3. Neither of these regulations is imposed on the print media, and the FCC has been asked to exempt broadcast media from content regulation in the future.

VI. The media MAKE the news by deciding what to report as news.

A. The major news media maintain journalists in major cities and government centers to report political events firsthand.

1. Washington, D.C., has the largest press corps of any city in the world--almost 6,000 reporters.

2. White House correspondents rely heavily on information they receive in the press room in the west wing of the White House.

3. They receive stories routinely through news releases, news briefings, and the news conferences.

4. Reporters are expected to observe rules associated with news given "on background" and "off the record."

5. Through the press secretary, the White House feeds reporters the information and "photo opportunities" they need.

6. Fewer reporters regularly cover Congress, which does not maintain as tight a control over news stories as the White House does.

7. Recently, television coverage of the House and Senate has attracted a small but loyal audience.

B. Media executives, news editors, and prominent reporters function as GATEKEEPERS in presenting the news, deciding which events to report and how to handle their elements.

1. Television in particular operates under severe time limitations, and the average news story lasts about one minute.

2. Television news devotes far more time to the president than to Congress or the Supreme Court.

3. The media tend to personify issues for the purpose of audience appeal.

4. The result in covering election campaigns is HORSE-RACE JOURNALISM, which focuses on "who's ahead" rather than on what the candidates stand for.

5. Many news events are staged as MEDIA EVENTS to attract coverage because of audience appeal.

6. Television news is particularly partial to news that has visual impact.

C. Since the 1960s, most people report getting most of their news from television.

D. However, people do not remember very much of the political information they see on television.

1. In a 1987 survey, 17 percent of Americans could not name a single public official, including their state's governor.

2. However, two-thirds knew that Dan Quayle had criticized a show called "Murphy Brown."

3. The TELEVISION HYPOTHESIS suggests that television is a prime reason for the public's low level of knowledge of public affairs.

VII. Virtually all citizens must rely on the mass media for their political news.

A. Almost nine out of every ten Americans believe that the media strongly influence political institutions and public opinion.

1. It is difficult to determine the extent of such influence.

2. Television news commentary has been found to have probably the single greatest influence on public opinion.

B. The media play a role in setting the POLITICAL AGENDA--the issues that need government attention.

1. The media heighten the public's concern about social problems, such as crime.

2. However, the media also distort the incidence of the problem and confuse policymakers and the public alike about what should or can be done.

3. There is ample evidence that public opinion is influenced by media coverage.

4. Political leaders believe that the media are influential, and they act accordingly.

C. Even through its entertainment programs, television operates as a medium of POLITICAL SOCIALIZATION.

1. Compared to the early days of radio, however, television programs tend to erode confidence in the criminal justice system.

2. Although the media promotes popular support for government in celebrating national holidays, they also erode public confidence by publicizing citizen grievances, airing investigative reports of corruption, and covering assorted political critics, protesters, and terrorists.

VIII. The media have diverse impacts on democratic government.

A. Critics contend that the media color reality in reporting it.

1. News reporters are said to have a liberal bias in reporting the news, whereas editors and publishers are suspected of having a conservative bias that tones down their reporters' liberalism.

2. Several studies of voting behavior and ideological self-placement show that reporters do have a liberal orientation.

3. However, the more pronounced bias of reporters is against politicians, especially FRONTRUNNERS and INCUMBENTS.

B. The media contribute to Majoritarian democracy in the United States in two ways.

1. By being critical of politicians and searching for weaknesses in their public statements, reporters improve the accuracy of communication from government to citizens.

2. By polling citizens' reactions to political events and  governmental actions, the mass media improve communication from citizens to government.

C. The media have played an important role in advancing equality, especially racial equality, in the United States.

D. Although the media are willing to mobilize government action to infringe on personal freedom for equality's sake, they resist attempts to infringe on freedom of the press to promote public order.

1. Compared with the public, journalists are far more likely to regard freedom of the press as sacrosanct.

2. On the topic of press freedom, the media operate as an interest group in pluralist democracy.

3. The media's interest in reporting whatever they wish whenever they wish erodes government's efforts to maintain order.

a. The sensationalist coverage of terrorist activities tends to encourage the activities.

b. Sensationalist coverage of brutal crimes tends to produce "copycat" crimes.

c. Publicity given to deaths from adulterated substances tends to prompt further adulterations.

TOP "CENSORED" STORIES

While millions of Americans were absorbed in the stories of Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, Michael Jackson, Heidi Fleiss, and O.J. Simpson, vital news affecting the lives and well-being of large numbers of anonymous people was neglected by the major media outlets.

I. The media have its preferences regarding which stories are likely to grab public attention.

A. Stories that highlight well-known public figures are desirable.

B. Stories that combine public figures with scandal are extremely good material.

C. Stories that involve complex emotional, legal, or sexual issues are "hot properties."

1. In the early nineties, the public was offered large doses of the above categories.

a. One big media event was the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan story of the 1993 Winter Olympics.

b. Another was the Heidi Fleiss / Hollywood Madam story. 

c. Michael Jackson was accused of molesting children.

d. President Clinton was sued for sexual harassment.

e. O.J. Simpson was accused of murder.

2. In each case, relatively few individuals were involved or harmed, yet the media gave attention to these incidents as if they were stories involving major international events.

D. The media are caught in a self-perpetuating cycle of trying to gain viewers/ readers at any price.

1. Even when the public says it's had enough of sensation, the race to get the "scoop" continues.

2. The media outlets are caught up in a frantic effort to gain market share and beat the competition.

II. Meanwhile, as the public attention is focused on these emotion-laden events that involve big names, the stories that are NOT told would fill books.

A. In 1993 alone, there were ten major issues or events that were barely mentioned in the media despite their importance to the American people and to the world.

1. The United Nations Children's Fund found that the United States has the highest rates of childhood poverty of all industrialized nations. 

2. The U.S. intervention in Somalia was not merely "humanitarian" but involved major investment issues, such as the property rights of Amoco, Conoco, Chevron and Phillips oil companies. 

3. Public education in America is not as bad as portrayed; the report commissioned by former President Bush revealed that the nation has one of the highest high school completion rates (85 percent) and challenged the view that our public system is decayed beyond repair. 

4. Welfare cheating is greatest among multinational corporations.

a. Government funds science research, which results in new medical breakthroughs; private corporations earn profits and don't return anything to government.

b. Revisions of federal banking law in 1986 have led to corporations being permitted to do business even while they have outstanding debts to individuals, labor unions and to the government itself.

c. Under laws made in 1872, corporations can mine for gold and other profitable minerals on public lands without paying any fees to government.

d. Nearly $40 billion in public funds have been given to nuclear power companies for research, yet these industries return nothing to the treasury when they create safety hazards for the public.

e. Over the last twenty years, the U.S. Forest Service has given away several billion dollars by selling public timber areas to private companies at less than full market value.


5. The Chernobyl nuclear power disaster in the former Soviet Union was much worse than has been publicly mentioned. Fifteen similar reactors in various new nations (formerly Soviet republics) continue to present high risks to millions of people.

6. The U.S. still conducts biological warfare and chemical weapons research at a site in Utah that has been cited for 22 violations of hazardous waste regulations. 

7. A slow version of an environmental disaster equivalent to the damage done by the Exxon Valdez could pose a threat to the Los Angeles water supplies. 

8. Inadequately trained doctors as well as doctors who are substance abusers may be responsible for as many as 150,000 American deaths per year. 

9. Low-income Americans are the target of profit-seeking corporations that provide services at exorbitant rates. Examples include check cashing, second-mortgage companies with 30 percent interest rates, and trade schools that help students get federal loans but leave them with few skills and big debts.

10. The U.S. ties to Haiti's corrupt government involve major drug running with the "knowledge and active involvement of high military officials and business elites"--the same people who have kept elected President Aristide from returning to his country.