Comm 160 Exam #3

Front 1

Why so little coverage of agencies/bureaucracies?

Back 1

Iron triangles (more dependent on narrow audience that they already reach -> IG and congressional committees)

Unpleasant beat (minimal conflict, unfamiliar figures, dense document searches, pigeonholed reporters, low status beats) unless scandal or presidential/congressional involvement

Front 2

Two main routes to influence: Interest Groups

Back 2

Insider strategies: lobbying, campaign contributions, access within system. More money and expertise/credibility helps

Outsider: attempts to move public opinion and policy,

insider astroturf groups mimic outsider efforts

Front 3

Tools for IG Strategies

Back 3

1. Establish “issue ownership” or expertise in a field (ACLU; Sierra Club,APA, ABA, etc.)

2. Press releases (in some cases, ready-to-use video)

3. Op-ed pieces (sometimes ghostwritten) aka opinion pieces

4. Advertising (Harry and Louise/Swiftboat Vets/Willie Horton; campaignindependent expenditures, GOTV efforts (huge in presidentialelections))

5. Want to match tools to resources of group (Large financial resourcesoften favor insider strategy; large membership fosters outsider strategy...independent expenditures excluded)

Front 4

Disadvantages of Relying on "Free Media" Coverage

Back 4

Basically, candidates don’t rely on newsmedia because they CAN’T rely on them.

Huge loss of control over message

(interview as example), timing, spin, etc.

Worse yet, might not be able to get a story done at all.

Unless in a sparsely-populated media market, downticket races won’t get muchcoverage (unless they get arrested)

Challengers face especially hard timebreaking through. [Most 2016presidential candidates basically ignored]

Front 5

Favorite Son

Back 5

political figures (often Governors, Senators, or Representatives) who ran for the Presidency, usually campaigning only in their home states, for the purpose of retaining control of state delegations. Once at a convention, the favorite son typically used his delegates as bargaining chips, to influence the party platform, to help secure the nomination for a preferred candidate, to seek future political favors, or to enhance his own prospects as vice presidential nominee.

Front 6

Dark Horse

Back 6

Compromise candidate when in gridlock; someone who originally wasn't in running

Front 7

Smoke-Filled Room

Back 7

Party leaders get together; Negotiations amongst elite behind closed doors

Front 8

McGovern-Fraser reforms:

Back 8

1972 McGovern–Fraser reforms:shifted to having voters select delegates inprimaries and caucuses (rather than party leaders)

Nominee often has sufficient votes well beforeconvention.

Front 9

What four groups are important in selecting nominee?

Back 9

Patterson [not assigned] says entrepreneurial candidates, weakparties, “freewheeling interest groups”, and “floating voters” makenews media centrally important in selecting nominee.

Front 10

Discovery, Surge, Decline STEPS

Back 10

Step 1: Candidate who had previously gotten little coverage “did or saidsomething that reporters and commentators judged to be novel, important,and therefore newsworthy.” [Difficult to distinguish change in polls as causeor effect]. Boosts attention.

Focus on media coverage because straw polls, events, debates notwatched by large audience... response was mediated.

Step 2: Newly viable candidate scrutinized more by press & opponents(drop oppo on them); sometimes had gaffes. Negative.

Step 3: After documenting decline, more interest in writing about othercandidates. Quantity of coverage declines.

Part of the reason why Rep. opponents thought Trump would collapse

Front 11

Perry, Cain, Gingrich

Back 11

Perry: Strong start, then straw poll loss to Cain, gaffes & negativestories on prior stances/statements (picked up in debates - forgot the department budgets he wanted to cut)

Cain: Straw poll “upset” helped spark run; criticism of 9-9-9 planand especially sex scandals (and evasive response)

Gingrich: Early criticism for not running rigorous campaign(manager quit) & intra-party sniping; did well in debates &speeches [polls led increase; coverage never net negative?]

Turning point? Romney attacks and party resistance

Front 12

Three Key Decisions for Ads

Back 12

Medium (price; impact of visual information; ability to target audience)

Audience (likelihood to see; likelihood to believeor support; likelihood to vote, etc.).

Message content (pos/neg; issues/themes).Traditional focus of ad analysis.

Front 13

Audience has affected ad effectiveness by:

Back 13

Likelihood to see - try to reach specific geographic and political audiences through program choices

Likelihood to vote - sophisticated modeling and monitoring in 2012; failure in 2015

Likelihood to believe - prior beliefs and key issues. Persuadability is key characteristic

Front 14

Targeting Ads

Back 14

Demographics and Geography

Front 15

Evolution of Campaign Communication

Back 15

19th Century campaigns: partisan media and a lot of party-initiated peer-to-peer communication (rallies, parades,buttons). Parties ran hierarchical machines designed to getsupporters to the polls (tracked them carefully; rewarded themfor voting party ticket)

Early TV campaigning: did large national ad buys on three TVnetworks. Mobilization efforts largely de-emphasized & run outsideparties (labor unions, religious groups, etc.)

Early 21st Century: More targeting of ads by geography anddemographics. Data-based get-out-the-vote efforts on election day

Now: Ongoing contact & mobilization; experimental validation ofcommunication effects; detailed profiles of electorate and householdsleading to narrowly-targeted appeals and monitored impact

Front 16

EIP

Back 16

Experiment-informed Programs

Randomly assign target population to receive different messages or communication; monitor results

Modeled voters’ likelihood to vote for Obama and turn out; monitoredvoting (including mail ballots) and modified canvassing/ad strategies

Front 17

Trump's Voter Suppression efforts at groups:

Back 17

idealistic white liberals, young women, and African Americans

Used wikileaks revelations and TPP to target Sanders supporters (Dems manipulated Hillary into winning primaries)

Used Bill Clinton “sexual assault” allegations to undermine with younger women

Used “Super Predator” comments and Foundation Haiti claims to “discourageinfrequent black voters from showing up at the polls—particularly in Florida”

Local radio and FB “dark posts” [targeted ads?] only seen by target audience

Front 18

Hypodermic Needle view

Back 18

Notion was that public was passive recipient ofmessages that were “injected” without any thought orresistance to the message.

Fear of demagogues taking over here like they had inother nations.

Led to a lot of research to empirically measure effects ofmass media on opinion.

Front 19

Minimal Effects

Back 19

Or “Minimal consequences”: Mediaviewed simply as information carriers thattended to simply reinforce people’sexisting attitudes, particularly in politics.

->Effects of media were mitigated byinterpersonal communication and cuesfrom opinion leaders, among otherfactors.

Exceptionally difficult to change people’sminds... contrary info “bounces off”

EXAMPLES

WWII US propaganda movies:didn’t shift military audience’sviews about war or motivate them to volunteer for combat units.

1940 Erie County study: Only 5% of residents switched theiropinion during campaign. Tended to become more certain oftheir preexisting beliefs during campaign.

1948: Dewey/Truman race showed no last-minute switches;folks who paid most attention to the campaign were least likelyto switch their votes.

Front 20

What makes media more persuasive?

Back 20

Lots of factors, but four biggies (Hovland didfirst three):

What’s said? (message)

By whom? (source)

To whom? (receiver)

Through what medium? (channel)

Front 21

Different types of message effects

Back 21

Learning, Priming, Framing, Agenda-Setting

Front 22

Learning

Back 22

Education; increase in knowledge or information. [Where is Crimea? ].

Front 23

Priming

Back 23

“Reminding” people to think about particular things, particularly in thecontext of an evaluation of politicians. [“Don’t think of an elephant”; bad song youcan’t get out of your head]

ie. Michael Richards aka Kramer from Seinfeld and backlash for screaming racial slurs at audience

ie. Attendance up at zoo after tiger attack

ie. Mark Foley page program and scandal with teenagers in program (sexual banter) -> Page Program more popular

Front 24

Framing

Back 24

Altering opinion about an issue by changing what facets are emphasized/de-emphasized [1992: “It’s the economy, stupid”]. Also, can frame responsibility forcausing or solving a problem (ISIS/terrorism, Amtrak crash).

Vouchers vs. opportunity scholarships

Trade promotion authority vs. fast track

Estate tax vs. death tax

Gun control vs. gun safety

Front 25

Agenda-Setting

Back 25

Changing what a person thinks is important or should be the focus ofpublic concern. [Famine; terrorism; War in Afghanistan; Social Security; economy;unemployment; deficit]. Also, establishing the menu of choices [think invisibleprimary]

ie. Group shown terrorism paragraph: 24% selected “FP/Terrorism/War” asMost Important Issue facing the country.

Group shown SocSec paragraph: 9% selected “FP/Terror/War”

ie. Fox almost one mention of Benghazi per mention of Obama's name

Front 26

split-ballot survey

Back 26

A method where people are randomly assigned between twoversions of a survey to see how the results vary.

Often used to make sure there are ordering effects or problemswith question wording

Here, link to survey was actually a cgi that split class in twogroups, one seeing the 80% C- or above wording; other having20% D or below.

Front 27

Equivalency framing

Back 27

“use of different, butlogically equivalent, wordsor phrasing” to describe thesame outcome.

Kahneman and Tversky andrisky hypotheticalsregarding killing or savingpeople with a medicaltreatment. Gains versuslosses.

Front 28

Probability of persuasion

Back 28

Probability of persuasion from a media message = probability of reception * the probabilityof acceptance.

Front 29

Costly credibility

Back 29

Messages thatimpose costs on the speaker aremore persuasive than “cheap talk,”all else equal.

ie. supporting the other party

Front 30

Partisan credibility

Back 30

Messages thatare delivered by a member of one’sown party are more credible thanmessages from the other party, allelse equal

Front 31

Processing costs

Back 31

Low/God/appealing to audiences for TV: Somereason to think they behigher for images? Thinkcomputers... page of textvs. scanned graphic ofpage of text.

Front 32

McGurk Effect

Back 32

visual information isintegrated into our perception of speechunconsciously and automatically

Results of combination of recorded “Ba”combined with visual of “Ga” -> We hear "Ga" when looking at the screen and "Ba" when eyes are closed

My younger daughter (Sen. Carrie) heard “Ba”when she was 6, but says “Da” now that she’solder.

Front 33

7 Sources of Credibility

Back 33

1) Interpersonal, non-verbalcharacteristics (I’m especially bothered by “crazy eyes”)

2) Knowledge of source: Are some of yourfriends more likely to lie than others? Know what they’re talking about?

3) Penalties for lying: Perjury; flunking

4) Screening: Weed out the bad seeds

5) Similar incentives: Used car saleexample; Incentives aren’t aligned

6) Possibility of verification (link topenalty)

7) Costly action (vs. “cheap talk”)

Front 34

3 important functions of National Conventions

Back 34

· nomination of candidates for the officeof President and Vice President;

· formulation and adoption of a statementof party principles—the platform;

· and adoption of rules and proceduresgoverning party activities, particularly the nomination process forpresidential candidates in the next election cycle.

Front 35

How has tv coverage of the national conventions changed its dynamic and the way they are run?

Back 35

1. Television coverage led to a completereorganization of scheduling and events. Convention sessions, once primarilyconducted during the day, are now largely scheduled for peak viewing hours, inorder to attract the widest television audience.

2. time-consuming demonstrations are morestrictly limited, and lengthy speeches have largely been curtailed oreliminated.

3. stage-set platforms geared more totelevision viewers than convention participants.

4. increasing use of professionallyproduced films on the candidates and the party

5. dual purpose of entertaining delegatesand broadcasting a carefully tailored image and message to viewers nationwide.

Front 36

Name and describe the threeviewer credibility hypothesis discussed in Chapter 5 of When Politicians Attack

Back 36

· Independent Viewer Credibility Hypothesis – Independent viewers should be most swayed by presidential-partycriticism and nonpresidential-party praise. They should be least swayed bypresidential-party praise and nonpresidential-party criticism

· Presidential-Party Viewer Credibility Hypothesis – Because itcombines both partisan and costly credibility, presidential-party criticism should be the most damaging type ofmessage for presidential-party viewers. Conversely, because it lacks bothcostly and partisan credibility, those same viewers should be unpersuaded by nonpresidential-party criticism

· Nonpresidential-Party Viewer Credibility Hypothesis – Because itcombines both partisan and costly credibility, nonpresidential-party praise should be the most persuasive type ofmessage for nonpresidential-party viewers. Because it lacks both partisanand costly credibility those same viewers shouldbe unpersuaded by presidential-part praise