{"id":84,"date":"2025-07-09T15:32:50","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/routledgelearning.com\/americangovernment\/?p=84"},"modified":"2025-08-14T22:06:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T22:06:15","slug":"chapter-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/routledgelearning.com\/americangovernment\/chapter-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 5"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Mass Media and the Political Agenda<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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In this chapter we saw the development of the role played by the media in our government and society. First, we read about the development of the media from a partisan press through the muckraker period, and finally the emergence of the modern media we know today. Second, the chapter revealed to us both the structure of the media in its various forms as well as trends regarding the decline of the old media of newspapers and newsmagazines. Additionally, it portrayed the emergence of the broadcast media with radio and TV as well as later the wireless new media of the Internet, satellite and cable TV\/radio, and social media, including e-mail, blogging, Facebook, Twitter, and other sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Issues regarding the media, including the privatization, conglomeration, and de-regulation of the American media, were extensively reviewed. The negative impacts of the media relative to political campaigns, both regarding the cost of campaign advertising and the horse-race style coverage that emphasizes style over substance as well as a view of general negativity toward politics, provided a strong critique of the media. However, their role as an educator, agenda-setter, issue-framer, and persuasion-maker gives some credence to a more positive evaluation of the media within this country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, the issue of bias within the media seems not to be resolved.  There is a clear indication that the media have a status quo-oriented style of political coverage, since the government is the main source for their own coverage.  When government information is combined with their journalistic norms of objectivity, a bias becomes apparent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also a pronounced profit bias in the media, which influences its coverage toward sensationalized \u201cinfotainment.\u201d  As revealed in the \u201cFox Effect\u201d and the fixation on \u201cfake news,\u201d a horse race mentality toward political campaign coverage often dominates news reporting.  Media programming during the presidential election cycle of 2024 contained an excessive amount of coverage specifically attuned to emphasizing the high consumer prices in the economy, massive undocumented immigration on the southern border, and war in Gaza and Ukraine.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In turn, these issues provided a game frame for congressional coverage that is not that different from general campaign coverage emphasizing perceived winners and losers on an issue-by-issue or event-by-event basis.  The same occurred regarding the superficial court coverage that emphasized constituencies of interest relative to specific cases and painted decisions on those cases in ideological terms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Quizzes<\/h3>\n\n\n\n