Week 5-Politics Flashcards
Political Functions - How does politics Inform Citizens?
■ ‘‘A basic tenet of democratic theory is that voters’ choices must be based on informed thinking about political issues’’ (Bode et al. 2013).
-We are reliant on mass media for information to get to us + politicians to get their message across
■ Dissemination of information is the primary political function of the media
■ New information and retrospective evaluation
■ Political socialisation (what we think and who we endorse) and opinion development
■ People often seek out information in other media (e.g., watching news),
whereas social media use is primarily driven by maintaining social ties, with information obtained incidentally to that primary goal
■ 2004 election, 51% of Internet users encountered news or information
about the elections when going online for other reasons (Pew, 2004) (not something we seek out bur rather encounter in our daily lives)
Political Engagement: What did Xenos et al. (2014) find?
■ Social media use may increase knowledge of political issues, which then promotes political engagement
■ Information is often viewed from friends etc. (rather than intentional information seeking)
Xenos et al. (2014):
■ 3685 people completed surveys
■ Two measures of political engagement (individual engagement and collective engagement)
■ Strong positive relationship between social media use and political engagement (both individual and collective) in all three countries (Australia, the USA, and the UK)
Political Engagement: What did Boulianne (2015) find?
■ Meta-analysis on 36 studies assessing the relationship between social media use and participation in civic and political life e.g. voting, protesting and volunteering
■ Overall, positive relationship between social media use and participation
■ Causality unclear (those who are politically motivated will use social media more often)
■ Only half of the coefficients were statistically significant
■ Scheufele et al. (2002) –media use influences involvement in local politics (more engaged in the local community, more aware of local issues therefore more involved in their local politics)
Political Functions – Supporting
Actors: What does the success of political actors depend on?
Politicians NEED mass media
- Gaining positive attention from the media e.g., visiting children’s hospitals
- Presenting persuasive stories
- Creating a receptive political environment
■ Press releases are framed to meet media need (shaped by the politicians)
What did Lee et al. (2018) find about disclosure?
■ Two experiments investigating politicians’ personal disclosures (social media engagement) on social media and voter intention
■ Study 1 - Personal (e.g., “Happy 25th Anniversary! Thank you, Pat, for staying by my side for all these years. #MarriageBliss #FamilyLove,” OR impersonal posts (e.g., “Today I visited the CDC to see how America is tackling adolescent obesity”)
■ Study 2 – similar (different cultural context in South Korea - found simila results)
■ After reading a male politician’s personal stories participants liked him more and became more willing to vote for him – but not for women (her perceived competance was higher on impersonal disclosures)
-Not the case that all messages are received similarly (for women, personal disclosures could be seen as not dedicating their full time)
Political Functions – What’s a Watchdog
■ Media obligation to act as a watchdog (to keep politicians in check ensuring they are acting with honesty and integrity)
■ US – media protected by the First Amendment
■ Example: Watergate corruption scandal uncovered by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
What’s Fact-Checking?
■ Assessment of the truthfulness of political advertisements by news media organizations and watchdog groups
Fridkin et al. (2015):
■ Used negative advertisements (deflecting to the other candidate so they use time to defend themselves rather than their plans) running during the 2012 U.S. Senate race in Ohio influence people’s impressions of the candidates
■ Fact-checks influence people’s assessments of the accuracy, usefulness,
and tone of negative political ads
■ Those with a low tolerance for negative campaigning are most responsive to
fact-checks
■ Negative (they’re not telling the truth) fact-checks are more powerful than positive (they’re telling the truth) fact-checks
What’s Mediatization? (Stromback, 2008)
-We have undergone as a society this process of mediatization where the media has come increasingly important.
-Left hand side the most important forms of information is from people we know
-Right hand side the most important forms of information we get is from the media
-The media is now governed by media logic (i.e., when they want to run a debate for millions to access where politicians will want to join for their benefit).
CHECK SLIDES FOR IMAGE
What are some Actions and Behaviour in Politics?
■ Gatekeeping – Media select the events and information to cover (i.e., what gets through)
■ Agenda-Setting – Influence the political issues deemed important (i.e., it’s through but where? is it on the front page? or a small section in the middle page)
■ Framing – Report information from a particular perspective (e.g., the winter fuel allowance to portray it in an empathetic way)
■ Framing is increasingly prevalent in the hyper-partisan news environment
What are the four narratives which dominate political stories (Van Zoonen, 2005)
- Quest - politics as an individual struggle for a goal e.g. for election - struggling to be elected and fighting to be in power (i.e., personal stories)
- Conspiracy - politics as a deliberate attempt by an organisation to thwart the good intentions of others (e.g., the government vs the middle guy)
- Bureaucracy - frustrated ambition attributed to the political system (e.g., the processes people get caught up in)
- Soap - people struggle together to achieve
What are the 4 types of bias, varying according to the explicitness of the bias and the intention behind it? (McQuail, 1992)
■ Partisan bias – cause is extreme and explicitly and deliberately promoted e.g. editorial
■ Propaganda bias – story reported with the intention of making the case for a party or policy or point of view (without explicitly stating this)
■ Unwitting bias – reflecting the decision to include or exclude a story
■ Ideological bias – bias is hidden but can be detected at a close reading of the text
What’s Partisan Media?
■ Partisans trust co-partisans more than supporters of the opposing party (Iyengar & Westwood 2014)
■ Substantial proportions of both Republicans and Democrats are distressed
by the prospect of a family member marrying a supporter of the opposing
party (Iyengar et al. 2012)
Lelkes et al. (2017):
■ Access to broadband Internet increases partisan hostility and consumption of partisan media whereas this is seen much less with Dial-Up (as they spend less time online)
Partisan Media: Taber and Lodge (2006) What is the theory of affect-driven ‘‘motivated reasoning?
Three mechanisms of partisan or biased reasoning:
1. Partisan voters evaluate supportive arguments more positively than opposing
- Voters spend more time and cognitive resources picking apart counter-arguments
- When voters are free to choose and they seek out confirming rather than disconfirming arguments
Partisan Media: What are politicians view around Climate Change?
■ 1989 Gallup poll - 67% of Democrats and 66% of Republicans worried a great deal or fair amount about global warming
■ 2016 Gallup poll – Democrats 84% and Republicans 40% level of concern
Carmichael et al. (2017):
■ When Republicans are presented with opposing frames about climate change from liberal media, they reject the messages and become less concerned about the issue
What are Comedy Partisan Programmes?
■ Use of humour to convey news from a bias perspective (i.e., viewers want the show to have similar political views)
■ Widely used throughout the US and increasing in popularity
