American Government Unit IV Assessment (MATHGUY08 ONLY)

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Chapter 10

10-2

Historical Development: From the

Nation’s Founding to Today  The objective-journalism era

 Yellow journalism

 Radio, the new mass communication system

 The FCC and regulation

 The Communications Act

10-3

Historical Development: From the

Nation’s Founding to Today  The rise of the “new” news

 The end of the Fairness Doctrine

 Cable news

 CNN

 Founded by Ted Turner in 1980

 Chose to pursue a path of partisan neutrality

 Fox News

 Founded by Rupert Murdoch in 1996

 Chose a partisan (conservative ) format

10-4

Historical Development: From the

Nation’s Founding to Today  The rise of the “new” news

 Partisan radio talk shows

 Without the Fairness Doctrine, radio programmers were free to

move to a politically partisan format

 Emergence of the Internet

 Low-cost entry compared with other mass media

 Some “new” news outlets a stunning success

 The Drudge Report, Daily Kos, Instapundit

10-5

Journalism and Politics  The signaling function

 Alert the public to important developments

 U.S. media well-equipped to play this role

 Performed by the traditional media

 Wire services (AP, UPI, Reuters)

 Daily newspapers

 Television networks

10-6

Journalism and Politics  The signaling function

 Agenda-setting of U.S. media results in similarity in

national news everywhere

 News media are meant to inform the public, but also need to

attract an audience

 Media focus on politics instead of policy

10-7

Journalism and Politics  The common-carrier function

 Conduit for political communication

 TV news has become more journalist-centered

 Topics sometimes distilled to the “sound bite”

 Framing: the way events are cast

 Priming: the process by which a communicated message,

because of its content, activates certain opinions but not

others

10-9

Journalism and Politics  The watchdog function

 Objective journalism fosters watchdog reporting

 Watergate

 Watchdog function failures

 Post-9/11 terrorist attacks

 Internet has expanded watchdog capacity of media

10-10

Journalism and Politics  The partisan function

 Traditional media: mostly neutral

 Talk shows: mostly conservative

 The Internet: mostly liberal

10-11

The News Audience  The partisan divide

 Until the 1980s Americans had three TV networks

 Huge daily audiences—newscasts varied only slightly

 Viewers exposed to the views of both political parties

 Patterns disrupted

 Fairness Doctrine rescinded

 The emergence of cable TV and the Internet

10-12

The News Audience  The information divide

 More news outlets, yet viewers less informed

 Fragmented news sources have led to partisan polarization

among audience

 More news available, but alternate programming aids

avoidance of news