Media & Politics Flashcards
Peter Desbarats
Believed that Canadian journalism traditions are closely related with American ones, but developed at different times.
Wilfred Kesteron
Canadian News historian who divided up Canadian Journalism into 4 periods: The Transplant Period, Growth Period, Westward Growth, and 20th century onwards.
The Transplant Period
1750-1800. Canada’s first journalism period. Newspapers or publishers from Britain and the US were transplanted to Canada. The government provided the information and funding for newspapers = censorship.
First Canadian Newspaper
The Halifax Gazette
The Growth Period
1800-1850. After the war of 1812, immigration increased, leading to a population increase. The Industrial Revolution encouraged people to move to cities to work in the factories, and newspapers thus became more popular. This led to a dramatic increase in the number of newspapers, hence “Growth Period.”
As a result of this growth, newspapers depended less on the government for economic success, so Canada entered into a kind of “partisan” press period where newspapers took sides based on political lines.
Joseph Howe
Advocate of an unshackled press.
Westward Growth
1850-1900. Population increases led to Canadians moving west. The Press moved with them.
20th century onwards
Improvements in technology and continued immigration continued to increase newspaper demand. Emergence of large newspaper enterprises. News Agencies began to form in Canada. Act of Parliament in 1923 established the Canadian Press (CP)
The Canadian Press
CP - provided news for print and broadcast outlets. Like AP
Variables affecting the news
News hole, news flow and staffing, perceptions about the audience, competition, and gatekeeping
News Hole
Space/time left for news after ads are inserted into newspapers and broadcasts.
Is the news hole consistent?
Usually consistent for broadcasts, not so much for print. Longer newspaper, greater news hole.
News Flow
variations from day to day in the significance of the events worth covering.
Staffing
availability of staff resources to cover news.
Perceptions about audience
how a news network perceives its audience affects its news coverage.
Competition
Journalism is a competitive business. Journalists want the scoop to beat competitors - leads to fresh content.
Downsides of competition
News organizations always think they need to play catch up when someone else breaks news. This leads to similarities in coverage, which drives the phenomenon known as the consensible nature of news (pack/herd journalism)
Gatekeeping
News reporting is a team effort. Messages are edited at various points along the communication chain, called gates.
Journalism Trends
Newsrooms in transition, non-stop coverage, live news, unedited blogs, exploratory reporting, and soft news.
New realities of coverage
Less comprehensive coverage, less enterprise, fewer beats, less independent reporting
Less enterprise
Hard stories not pursued, less investigation.
Fewer Beats
Reporters of specialized topics and/or geographic areas assigned to cover broader beats.
Less comprehensive coverage
Less competition, newsrooms understand that they can’t cover all the breaking news.
Less independent reporting
Rereporting stories from other news agencies like the CP (canadian press)
Non stop coverage brief history
Originally done only by news agencies, but spread in popularity.
Problems with non stop coverage
Emphasizes event based reporting over context/understanding the news. Can be trivial at times.
Live news
Technology allowed for live news to be possible. Live news bypasses traditional editorial process.
Blog short for what?
Web log
Blog
Amateur website, generally personal, often focused on a narrow subject such as politics.
Criticism of blogs
People with no journalism experience act as journalists. They focus on getting hits instead of producing good journalism. In order to get hits, they sensationalize stories, act like a dick, and report on gossip. Blogs, however, can not be ignored, as they influence the media and play an important role.
Blogs exploded during what event?
the 2004 presidential election
What initiated exploratory (investigative) reporting?
Watergate scandal with Bob Woodward - investigative reporting
Exploratory reporting
Going beyond mere chronicling events.
Soft News
News geared towards satisfying the audience’s information wants not needs.
Examples of soft news
celebrity reporting, lifestyle reporting
In world war II, journalists…
wore soldiers’ uniforms and essentially reported propaganda.
What kept reporters out of Grenada during a surprise war?
Naval blockade by the US.
Reporting during the Vietnam War
reporters were given a lot of freedom to report the Vietnam War. Led to Rice roots reporting, which was mainly negative. increased public opposition to the Vietnam War.
Rice roots reporting
Uncensored field reports from the Vietnam War.
Pool System, and problems with it.
Reporters chosen on a rolling basis to cover an event to which access is limited. Pentagon still tried to control information, and the reporters knew only what the Pentagon told them.
Embeds
An Iraq War term for journalists who accompany, or who are embedded with, U.S. Military Combat Units.
Ground rules for embeds
Don’t report combat positions, occasional blackout of coverage to ensure operational success.
Feedback from Pentagon about embedded reporters
Quite pleased.
Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman wrote:
Manufacturing Consent: The political economy of mass media
What did Chomsky and Herman argue in their book?
News is a propaganda tool (filtered by various filters) that the elite use to stay in power. System manufactures consent.
Manufacturing consent
System limits debate on important social and political matters for consumers.
First way of manufacturing consent (about owners)
Due to conglomeration, most media are owned by the upper class. Fewer people own most of the media. Their views thus tend to be conservative, which likely leads to conservative reporting.
Gramsci
Elite rules through hegemony. Marxism is a conflict about ideas, not just economics.
hegemony
coercion through consent
Second way of manufacturing consent (experts)
Most experts used by the media tend to be part of the elite. This is because gov and corporate sources tend to be recognizable and seen as credible due to their status and prestige. This limits diversity of opinions and thus hinders democracy.
Jurgen Habermas
People need to debate political ideas to be truly informed. In the past, people debated the news in coffee houses, which were public spheres. Now, due to conglomeration, debates don’t happen, no diversity of opinion. People thus can’t truly be informed.
Public sphere
Where people debate political ideas.
Media and government have what type of relationship?
Symbiotic
Medieval societies divided into what? How were they divided?
Estates. First Estate: Clergy. Second Estate: Nobility. Third Estate: the Common People. After Gutenberg, the fourth estate: media
Coined Fourth Estate
Edmund Burke
Who convinced jurors to make journalism free in Canada
Joseph Howe, who convinced jurors to unshackle the press.
Opinions on news coverage of politics
Disappointing, portrays politicians as out of touch or bad people.
Paul Lazarsfeld on the influence of the media on voters.
The media has a generally indirect influence on voters.
Agenda setting
The media can’t tell people what to think, but can tell them what to think about.
If the media didn’t continue to cover Watergate, what would have happened?
Nixon’s role would never have been discovered.
How can an individual be concerned about something?
They first have to be aware of the issue.
Most potent media for agenda setting
TV
CNN Effect
The ability of television, through emotion-raising video, to elevate faraway issues onto the domestic public agenda.
Framing
Selecting aspects of a story for emphasis in a mass media message, thereby shaping how the audience sees the reality
Framing during the Iraq War
During the Iraq War, embeds gave a positive spin on coverage, due to the camaraderie developed between them and the soldiers. Pentagon was pleased, inspired by Falklands war.
Donna Brazile
Al Gore’s campaign manager
Can framing be avoided?
No, limited time and space for news. Can’t report every single detail.
Is framing present in Canada?
In Canada, framing is a common activity in politics. eg. Ignatieff framed as arrogant.
Are the media politically biased?
No, studies do not support the idea that the media are politically biased. They do have obsessions however.
Media obsessions
Scandals, Politics, Conflict, Horse Races, Brevity.
Consequences of scandal stories
Trivializes political coverage
Journalists have what obsession with politics?
They know that people like stories about people, so they obsessively cover the president, ignoring other parts of government.
Why is conflict important for journalists?
Audiences love conflict. Conflict often indicates newsworthiness, indicates change (people care about this issue).
Horse Races
Media obsess in reporting the polls. Treatment of elections like horse races underplays the issues.
Brevity - shorter sound bites have changed what in political coverage?
Politicians avoid complex issues that take a long time to explain, and instead focus on one liners.
Newspaper that first started shortening stories
USA Today
How did Teddy Roosevelt influence overage? How did this method work?
He chose to make major announcements on Sunday, because he knew that journalists didn’t have a lot of news to report as government and business were shut down over the weekends. His message would therefore be much more prominent on the Monday editions of newspapers.
John A. MacDonald told journalists what about a Greek convocation at McGill?
The Greek was perfectly pronounced, even though he didn’t speak a word of Greek.
Scrum
journalists meet with politicians after question period
How did Stephen Harper change scrums
He reduced the number of scrums to make it easier to control messages and he made journalists sign an attendance sheet to ask questions.
Trial Balloon
A deliberate leak of policy, to test public response. If negative, deny it as press speculation.
Leak
A deliberate and anonymous disclosure of classified or confidential information.
Stonewalling
Person refuses to answer questions, and sometimes doesn’t even meet with reporters. Generally bad for PR - something to hide
News Blackout
Variation of Stonewalling - institution issues no statements and does not answer questions.
How politicians use overwhelming information
Overwhelm journalists with too much information so that they don’t have enough time to look too deeply.
Criticisms of media coverage
PAIIIID - polling, agenda, issues, interpretation, inside coverage, instant feedback, depth
Polling
Report competing polls, ask the same questions
Agenda
don’t allow candidates to control their coverage. Avoid pseudo-events and photo ops as they lack substance.
Pseudo-events
Staged events
Photo ops stands for
Photo opportunities
Photo ops
staged photo opportunities.
Interpretation
Provide context.
Inside coverage
Look into machinery of campaign. Particularly political consultants, as they are becoming more important.
Instant feedback
Twitter feeds lack substance.
Depth
Analyze!
Documentaries emerged as a political tool due to what? When did this happen?
Emerged with Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 during the 2004 election.
Negative ads
Criticize opponent rather than emphasizing one’s own platform
Attack ads
More vicious negative ads
Herbert Alexander on presidential campaign spending
He noted that there is no correlation between winning and campaign spending in US presidential campaigns
In Canada, who governs election advertising?
CRTC
CRTC fundamental principle on election advertising
Broadcasters must allocate time for political ads equitably. Equitable does not mean equal.
When are political ads crucial?
For close elections.
Cultural models of the news media
Authoritarian model, Libertarian model, social responsibility model
Authoritarian Model
No freedom of the press
Libertarian Model
Laissez-Faire, absolute freedom of the press
Social responsibility model
Mainly free, but some regulation - modern Canada
Structural Functionalist Analysis of the News Media
News media function as an integral part of the social structure. They teach people politics (political socialization) and are part of the daily political process.
Social Conflict analysis
Political and Economic elites control information to their own advantage. Manufacturing consent, Political economic theory
Chomsky and Herman said these filters lead to conservative news
Ownership filter, advertising filter, sourcing filter, flak filter
Flak filter
people and corporations threaten the media, libel suits possible
Political Economic theory
Whoever controls the media controls the flow of information (social conflict analysis). Applies to all societies and all press systems.
Fifth estate
news media outside of mainstream news media
