Midterm 2 Flashcards
How has news reporting changed?
- This new digital age in news is described as one in which there is virtually unlimited access to information, news, and analysis; and a decline in the presence and importance of the mainstream media.
- In recent years, people have turned increasingly to the internet as a source of news, while decreasing their reliance on tv, newspapers, and radio.
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Favorited source of political news?-
- The mainstream news media retain their central role in the gathering and reporting of serious political and governmental news. They are a collection of nationally prominent newspapers, tv networks, usually with the help of wire services.
- Serious national news comes from Washington D.C., the seat of the federal government, and New York City; the center of publishing and finance in the United States.
- The vast majority of all news stories, were drawn from situations over which the newsmakers had substantial control: press conferences, interviews, press releases, and official proceedings.
How is the media a watchdog?
Watchdog-the role of the media in scrutinizing the actions of government officials.
- The founders subscribed to the idea that a free press was essential for keeping an eye on government and checking its excesses .
- The idea that the press should dig up facts and warn the public when officials are doing something wrong.
- The First amendment helps ensure that the news media will be able to expose officials misbehavior without fear of censorship or prosecution.
What is the political reality presented on the media?
- Tends to present a narrow, stereotypical reality.
- Tends to be fragmented and superficial
- Anything complex that deals with larger social political issues doesn’t get covered or is presented in terms of some specfic individualized story.
The problems of media mergers
- A few see efficiency gains and an increase in the output and availability of information. But some critics maintain that the concentrated corporate control of our media adds dangerously to the already strong business presence in American policies. Those who use the term media monopoly worry that media corporations are so large, powerful, and interconnected , that alternative voices to the economically and politically powerful cannot have their views aired.
- Others worry that news organizations may pull their punches when reporting about the activities of their corporate parents.
How foreign news is covered by the news media?
- Foreign news, tends to be episodic.
- A story comes as a surprise to most Americans because they have not been prepared by background reports. For a few days or weeks, the story dominates the news, with intensive coverage through pictures, interviews, and commentaries. Then, if nothing new happens, the story grows stale and disappears fro the media. Most viewers are left with little more understanding of the country than they began with. Thus, they find it difficult to form judgments about foreign policy.
How is the media an instrument of democracy?
The news media should fulfill several roles in this democracy.
- -Watchdog over government
- -Clarifying electoral choices
- ——–what the political parties stand for and how the candidates shape up.
- -Providing policy information
- ——-citizens need to know about emerging problems that will need attention and how well current policies are working.
-In a democracy, government should respond to public opinion, but that opinion should be reasonable well informed
What is a public interest group?
Private organizations and voluntary associations that try to influence what government does
How lobbyists try to influence members of congress?
Build relationships with important legilative and committee staff members.
Critiques of pluralism
Pluralism is a political scientist who views American democracy as best understood in terms of the interaction, conflict, and bargaining of groups.
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What is hard/soft money?
regulated money for candidates/not regulated
How political parties contribute to democracy?
They facilitate majoritarian rule
Parites at War
a
How do third parties affect American politics?
- articulate new ideas that are eventually taken overby one or both major parties
- change the outcome of prsidential contest by changing the outcome of the electoral vote contest
Barriers to success for minor parties in the US
5 percent of the vote in the genral election to get public funding
Advocacy groups and their affects on the political parites
a
How to decide whether to be involved in a social movement
a
what is disturbance theory?
A theory positing that interest groups originate with changes in the conomic, social, or political enviorment that htreaten the well being of some segment of the population.
Common methods of organization used by social movements
a
causes of social movements
social distress
- resources for mobilization
- supportive enviorment
- sense of efficacy amongg the participants
- catalyst
tactics of social movements
- typically unoncentional and dramatic
- often disruptive
- mass demonstrations
- hungre strikes
- labor movement
- sit down strick
- nonviolent civil disobdience
what is suffrage
the right of something
amend the constituion.
for rights
incumbent advantages
the electoral edge afforded to those alrady in office. achieved through: high visibility -experience -organization -fund raising ability
what are primarys
presidential elections
-every four years
What is retrospective voting?
a form of election in which voters look back at the performance of a party in power and cast ballots on the basis of how well it did in office
what is realignment
the process by which one party supplants another as the dominant party in a political system
what is prospective voting
voter decides what government will do in the near future by choosing one or another responsible party.
-must provide a real choice to voters
what is dealignment
a gradual reduction in the dominance of one political party without another party supplanting it.
electoral reward/punishment
The tendency to vote for the incumbents when times are good and against them when times are bad
what is the process of apportionment
The reallocation of house seats among the states, done after each natinoal census, to ensure that seats are held by the states in proportion to the size of their populations.
what are congressional committees and what do they allow congressmen to do?
Committees are where many of the details of legislation are hammered out.
Where much of the oversight of the executive branch takes place.
-and allow enhancment of chances for reelectoin
What is the delegate model of representation?
The representative mirror perfectly the views of their constituents.
-act in perfect accord with the wishes of their constituents.
What is first-past-the-post?
electoral reform
Senate service in states(elected when, for how long?)
6 years, eleceted every two
What is the NEcessary and proper clause?
gives congress authority to make whatever laws are necessary and proper to carry out its enumerated powers.
What is the elastic clause
Article 1, Section 8.
- also called the necessary and proper .
- gives congress the authority to make what ever laws are necessary and proper to carry out its enumerated powers/
How is bicameralism a check on power
it check the executive
