American Government and Organization

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American Government and Organization
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• PS1301
• Tuesday, 26 October

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Announcements
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• Midterm grades are posted 10 points have been
  added to your score
• One week left before the election. Who will win?

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Bribery?
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• Money buys time not votes. PACs give money
  because they want access. Contributing money is
  seen as an important advantage in getting
  policymakers to pay attention to their problems
  rather than someone elses. Talking to
  politicians is fine, but with a little money they
  hear you better.

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Where does the money go?
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• Money is used to buy access, so it goes to
  individuals who stand a good chance of getting
  elected. If the election is seen as a toss-up,
  then it goes to both parties. Usually, it goes to
  incumbents.

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How money influences behavior
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• Money flows to members who are either strongly in
  favor or strongly against.
• PACs through money to members who are against
  legislation to buy inactivity.
• Why dont you think of something else to do with
  your time.
• Money just changes how people spend their time.

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Criticisms of PAC money
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• Operate primarily to protect incumbents
• Nationalizes campaign financing and weakens the
  link between the representative and his or her
  district.
• Accountability. Money comes from outside the
  district.
• Overrepresentation of business interests (rapid
  increase in bus. related PACs)
• Fragmentation of American politics by encouraging
  groups that focus on narrow interests.
• Weakens the role of the individual in politics
  (1000 opposed to 5000)
• Undermines political parties

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Negative Advertising
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• Attack opponents character and platform
• When outcome is uncertain, competitive election
• Challengers more likely to use negative ads than
  incumbents (backlash against incumbents)
• Designed to not only to change preferences but
  also behavior by discouraging turnout (for
  supporters of opponent)

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Party ads
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• RNC ads
• DNC ads

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Candidate Ads
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• Bush
• Kerry
• Stenholm
• Neugebauer

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Do the News Media Matter?
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• Most people believe the media exert considerable
  influence on public opinion
• Early studies of media effects following WWII
  emphasized the importance of propaganda
• Later studies found minimal effects
• Debate continues

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Influence on the Agenda

• Setting the Political Agenda
• What people believe is important
• Crisis

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Influence on Policy

• News media's coverage of an issue can put
  tremendous pressure on government officials to
  act.
• Government officials also try to influence media
  coverage through Spin control.
• Reciprocal relationship

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Changes in the Media

• Changes in the conventions of journalism
• Changes in the sources from which the public
  obtains its news
• Changes in the pattern of media ownership.

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Changes in Coverage

• Partisan press (early 1800s)
• Formal ties to political parties or other
  political interests.
• Penny press (1830s)
• Emphasized human interest stories rather than
  business and political news in its bid to attract
  readers
• Yellow Journalism (1890s)
• emphasized sensational and sometimes lurid news
  coverage.
• Objective press (1920s)
• Emphasizes that journalists should strive to keep
  their opinions out of their coverage of the news.

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Changes in News Consumption

• Decline in Newspapers
• Rise in cable television
• Rise in talk radio
• Rapid growth in the internet

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Decline in Newspapers
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Rise in Television
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Trends in News Consumption
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News Ownership

• Concentration of news ownership
• In 1981, just 46 corporations controlled a
  majority of the business in newspapers, radio,
  television, magazines, books, and movies.
• By 1990, the number had shrunk to 20.
• In 1995, Walt Disney Company bought Capital
  Cities/ABC (the parent company of ABC)
  Westinghouse bought CBS, and Time-Warner bought
  Turner Broadcasting (the parent company of CNN).
• In 1999, Viacom, owner of MTV, Nickelodeon, and
  UPN, bought Westinghouse/CBS. In 2000,
  Time-Warner merged with America Online.

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Ownership of Newspapers

• In 2003, the Gannett Company owned USA Today as
  well as 99 other dailies, and Knight-Ridder owned
  thirty-one daily newspapers, including the
  Detroit Free Press, the Miami Herald, and the
  Philadelphia Inquirer

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What is news?

• Conflict
• Wars, fires, heated debates, scandals
• Proximity
• Pack journalism
• Television, splashy video

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Survey
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Ideological Bias

• Polls show that roughly half of all Americans
  believe the news media are ideologically biased
• Most complaints accuse journalists of a liberal
  bias
• The claim that the media promote liberal causes
  and undermine conservative ones might seem odd.
  After all, three times in the 1980s and once
  again in 2000, the American public elected a
  conservative candidate president conservative
  hosts, as we have seen, dominate talk radio and
  Bill Clinton certainly received considerable
  negative news coverage.

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Coverage of Bush and Clinton
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Campaign Coverage

• Horse Race
• Photo ops
• Sound bites
• Election Night 2000 debacle
• The role of the VNS
• When Americans were asked to grade coverage of
  the 2000 campaign, 69 percent gave it a grade of
  C or lower.

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Attention to News and Bush Approval Prior to 9/11
Source Pew Research Center For The People The
Press, 15 July 2001
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Approaches to Studying Media Effects

• Public Opinion Surveys
• Experiments
• Compare aggregate opinion data and media content
  (content analysis)
• Merging of content data with survey data (for
  each individual)

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Attention to News and Bush Approval September 6
Do you approve or disapprove of the way George
W. Bush is handling his job as president?
Source Pew Research Center For The People The
Press, 6 September 2001
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Attention to news and Bush Approval After 9/11
Source Pew Research Center For The People The
Press, 19 September 2001
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Media Effects

• Selective perception
• People often see the same events differently
  recall the role of party id.