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55 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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What is the role of a linkage institution in a democratic republic?
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The role is to convey preferences of constituents to representatives and to convey policy preferences/actions of representatives to constituents.
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What is the difference between the Police Patrol and the Burglar Alarm standards
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In police patrol standard citizens must engage in constant surveillance like watching news, reading newspapers burglar alarm standards interest groups, the journalists keeps constant surveillance in whats happening, just need to be close enough to the “burglar alarm” and citizens just need to be able to hear it
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From the perspective of a citizen, what are some of the advantages and disadvantages of the Police Patrol and the Burglar Alarm standards?
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Some advantages of the Police Patrol model is that we as citizens make sure were on top of everything and keeps us really in touch of whats going on, some disadvantages are time. Some advantages of the Burglar Alarm model is that t saves you time, it is much easier to do and all the citizens have to do is be close enough to hear the alarms. The disadvantage is “what happens if nobody pulls the alarm?”.. Also economic values prevail over journalistic values, so journalists may put stuff thats going to sell over ones that are important. Another is desensitization meaning they may pull the alarm so often, that there is no breaking news.
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What is the Objective Fact (Mirror) model of journalism?
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The Objective Fact model says the content should reflect d, and that journalists are transcribers of facts.
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What is the Public Advocate model of journalism?
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Focuses on important issues as determined byt he journalists. It enhances citizens ability to perform their democratic functions It gives an activist role for journalists and it is assumed that market forces will reward this approach.
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What is the “Marketplace of ideas” model of journalism?
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The media should cover all perspectives on an issue that way people watching have a better way of understanding all ideas
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What is the “Watchdog” model of journalism?
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The Watchdog model uncovers attempts on part of policymakers to adopt policies at odd with the interest of citizens/consumers. The mass media is a check on the government keeping the in line by watching over them. There is a permanent adversarial relationship between the government and journalists.
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What is the “Profit-seeker” model of journalism?
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The profit seeking model seeks profit and puts audience as consumers first, and citizens second. It is shaped by the preference of the audience and the process is driven by market-demand.
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What is the “Propagandist” model of journalism?
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To legitimize the interests of the dominant class and status quo, designed to serve the interest of the dominant class.
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What is the “Organizational” model of journalism?
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The whole structure of the journalist system , it shapes the way the journalists behave, the kinds of ways journalists gather information, specific places they go, specific people they talk to, specific rules they use. Certain set of rules, unspoken rules. (ie institutional beat system)
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What is the difference between mediated and unmediated information? What is the significance of this distinction?
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Mediated news is our knowledge of the world as mediated through the media. Unemediated news is no intermediary between the source and recipient, meaning the news goes from the world straigh to you, noone is mediating the information
It is important to keep in mind that most citizens political preferences are shaped by mediated information |
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What are some characteristics that make “raw material” (i.e., information) easy to convert into “news”?
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Include vivid imagery - if transcribed into news it'll catch audience attention with picture, conflict - people like fights its interesting and wild, familiarity - we like to see things that are within our experiences, novelty - like something new and wild and impact - no ones gonna watch tv if its not going to impact them
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What is the leadership structure of the Federal Communications Commission?
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The FCC regulates who gets access to media and regulate its content, it consists of 5 commissioners nominated by the President (Senate). They serve 5 year terms and the president designates the chairperson. Only 3 commissioners may be members of the same political party.
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What are the five patterns of media ownership in the United States?
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The five patterns were government ownership (The Voice of America, Arms Services Network), private individuals or corporation, multiple ownership (same media outlets own multiple media outlets but the same kind, for example a company that owns 5 radio stations), cross media ownership (several different types of media ownership, like TV and radio) and conglomerates
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What are some of the consequences of private ownership of the broadcast media?
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With private ownership there is an increased emphasis on profits. Also there is an increased focus on entertainment as there is a low production cost and it is desired by the audience. Also news programs once permitted to be “loss leaders” (did not expect to turn a profit), valued for prestige and encourage investigating reporting. Now there is expectations of profit, so there are reduced staffs, resources, bureaus and there is an increased homogeneity of broadcasts.
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Who are the principal actors in Zaller’s “Theory of Media Politics?” What are their respective goals?
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The principal actors are Politicians, Journalists and citizen-voters. Ther espective goals of politicians is to use journalists to get there story out. Journalists goals are to make money be commercial and seek profits. Also journalists care about the profession of journalism and want to do high quality news. Citizen-voters dont want their time to be wasted. They want everything to be broken down and told in the simplest ways. “I just want information to know enough to go vote correctly”
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What is the nature of the conflict between journalists and politicians?
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Politicians want to control content of the news and want journalist to function as transcribers, while journalists want to make a distinctive journalistic contribution.
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What is the nature of the conflict between journalists and citizens?
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Journalists prefer sophisticated news product while citizens prefer simplicity and brevity.
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What is the nature of the conflict between politicians and citizens?
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Politicians want to highlight their successes and hide their failures while citizens want to hold politicians accountable.
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What is the Rule of the Market? What evidence does Zaller provide to support it?
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The Rule of Market is that the market competition tends to force journalists to lower the overall quality and amount of political news
He looked at cities that had only 1 newspaper and cities that have multiple newspapers, the ones that had 1 newspaper had higher quality news, and the more newspapers a city has the lower the quality of news. |
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What is the Rule of Anticipated Importance? What feature(s) of election news coverage does the rule purport to explain?
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The Rule of Anticipated Importance is journalists tend to devote attention to occurences in proportion to their anticipated importance in American politicals
..... |
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What is the Rule of Product Substitution? What feature(s) of election news coverage does the rule purport to explain?
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The Rule of Product Substitution is that journalists don’t like to be told what to say, so journalists tend to substitute their voice with the politicians. An example is the Flag Factory.
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What is the personalization bias in news coverage? How does this bias affect citizens understanding of politics?
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The personalization bias is the tendency to focus on individuals rather than complex social issues or problems.
The coverage activated interest/emotion rather than thoughtful analysis. Citizens do not understand much of the politics because most apeal is to their emotions. (ie Hurricane Katrina) |
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What is the dramatization bias in news coverage? How does this bias affect citizens understanding of politics?
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Is the tendency to focus on crises, conlict (real or manufactured) over continuity
IT shows people hte “most extreme” rather than the “most representative” cases. (ie Coverage of town hall meetings, where the most extreme cases are usually covered but effect the citizens the least) |
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What is the fragmentation bias in news coverage? How does this bias affect citizens understanding of politics?
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The tendency to treat events in isolation of their more general context
The simplicity is highlighted and the complexity is ignored. It gives the citizens a simplistic view about things and does not allow them to understand the true complex nature of certain events. (ie Violence in Iraq - It comes down to good guys vs bad guys rather than complex cultural history behind it) |
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What is the authority-disorder bias in news coverage? How has it changed over time?
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Tendency to focus on the breakdown of order (social, political, economic, etc.) and government officials efforts to restore order (ie BP oil spill)
It has changed overtime from pre-vietnam/watergate journalists rarely questioned authorities’ assurances and there was a presumption that crises would be resolved. Post-Vietnam/Watergate journalists frequently questioned authorities’ assurances and there was no presumption that crises will be resolved. |
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Give some examples of the political content in newspapers changing in response to changes in their primary source of revenue?
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An example would be from historical reference, early on we had party papers, and were funded exclusively by the party, so wouldn’t portray both sides of the news. Later on when there was the Penny Press and advertising was the source of revenue a more objective type of news came, they wanted to capture a wider audience, because of industrialization there was an emergence of a middle class which had disposable income and could pay for this. Advertisers wanted a more objective type of news because it could sell more.
Development of telegraph and the Associated Press, if you want to sell papers to as many people as possible make it neutral. |
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Why did the emergence of a middle class increase journalists’ incentive to provide more objective news coverage?
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The emerging middle class had a lot of disposable income, which led to businesses opening up and thus providing advertisements in papers. However, they wanted to advertise in papers with the most readers, thus those that had no party affiliates and were objective. The advertising revenue replaced the money the interest groups were giving the paper.
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In what way did the penny papers represent a significant shift from earlier newspapers?
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They were a major shift in the audience for whom they were intended on. A shift from the upper and middle class to the lower class and “average joe.” They increased reliance on advertising, lacked the poltical content of other newspapers and increased the number of human interest stories aka what people were interested in reading about.
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What were some of the factors that contributed to increased chain ownership of newspapers in the first half of the 20th century?
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The technological advancements like steam power, printing press, and wired services that made newspapers faster and easier to produce and cheaper as a result as well as national advertisers as a revenue stream grew (make it easier for advertisers to do there job, becauese they got larger chains, where advertisers can go to one place and post an add), and larger companies could capitalize on economy of scale (the idea the more you can produce, the cheaper it is to produce, so you can make the same profit and sell your product at a lower price)
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How did the invention of the telegraph affect the content of newspaper reporting?
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The telegraph was headlined by the Associated Press, which was depended on by a large number of people. The wire services sold stories to as many newspapers as they could. They increased their profits by providing objective, balanced and neutral news that could apply to all.
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What was the rationale behind the development of the institutional beat system?
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Because journalists are looking for stable ways to access raw materials. Journalists always want to fill the news hole, so they go to places where they know they can get raw material, so the executive branch gives them this material to fill those holes and it is easy to convert news from their
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How does the “Golden Age of Journalism” fare when measured against the “Marketplace of Ideas” and “Watchdog” models?
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Golden age is 1950s and 1960s
For the “Marketplace of Ideas,”The model shows that there was little differentiation between the networks and there was a heavy reliance on official sources and this led to one ideal and everything was mainstream. The marketplace of ideas was the belief that the media should cover all aspects of news. There should be little differentiation among networks and heavy reliance on official sources. The watchdog model says that the journalists are adversaries to the government and should regulate them. The Golden Age of Journalism, the 50s and 60s, is reluctant to criticize the media, thus it is very at odds with the Watchdog Model. The Golden Age also fails according to the Marketplace of Ideas model because journalists aren’t held in high esteem in the Marketplace, they just say the same news stories as each other. |
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Which branch of government is more successful at controlling the news production process?
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The executive branch because they have the resources to do so, you have multiple places where journalists are going for information and they’re all articulating the same message. Multiple points of delivery with a unified voice.
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What is the difference between institutionally-driven and event-driven news coverage?
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An institutional driven is where the president or party puts together an event to get media coverage (ie press conference, Bushes landing, presidential address), and event driven media covers event as it happens so us and political leaders see it at the same time. (ie the War, coverage of tsunami, 911)
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Which branch of government is least successful at controlling the news production process?
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The judicial branch, because they don’t care how their things are understood. They don’t space out the handing out of rulings, they just dump out like 5 rulings on them in one day.
Judicial Branch. This is because they don’t care about the message interpretation nor do they make it easy for the news to be reported. They write in language that people can’t understand (ex: Making 5 rulings in one day instead of spreading them throughout the week) |
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What is the difference between an “opinion” and an “attitude?”
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Opinions are what people actually say and what they verbalize, an imperfect indicator about an underlying or unobservable attitude (this is because we have multiple and conflicting attitudes and people may not state there whole opinion about an attitude).... their attitudes is how the a persona actually feels about anything, its unobservable, an enduring predisposition responding in a positive or negative way (ie I don’t like democrats) (people have multiple and conflicting attitudes about things)
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What is the Hypodermic Needle theory?
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The hypodermic needle theory says that mass media has a direct, immediate, powerful and uniform effect on individuals. It sees people as helpless and defenseless against the media, and that the media can always persuade them. Examples are War of the Worlds and Seduction of the Innocent.
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What is the process that takes place when people answer survey questions, according to the memory-based information processing model?
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The memory based information processing model describes when individuals have many and conflicting attitudes about the same issue. The process does not search all of the considerations in one’s mind, but rather people randomly sample the most important considerations, or whatever is at the top of their head.
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What is the Minimal Effects theory?
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This theory says that mass media has a minimal affect on political preferences, and that the mass media doesn’t influence people. Also it says that interpersonal discussion with people who are opinion leaders ( someone you trust or look up to) means more than the media does.
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Thinking in terms of the RAS model, what does the “R” stand for?
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The R in RAS which is Zaller’s model stands for Receive, which refers to the information they get depending on how politically aware they are. More aware means you are likely to get more of the message.
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What is the fundamental insight of the Subtle Effects theory?
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Is that the media may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but is successful in telling the audience what to think about. (ex: Agenda setting, priming and framing)
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Thinking in terms of the RAS model, what does the “A” stand for?
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The A in the model stands for Accept, which refers to how likely they are to accept them; based off their prior beliefs.
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What is the agenda setting effect?
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This effect says that the more coverage an issue receives in the mass media, the more importance individuals place on it. It talks about positive and negative effects on citizens ability to perform their democratic function. The positive effects are that important problems are highlighted and that citizens hold the leaders accountable. The negative effects are that less highlighted and unwise demands are made on policymakers. (ex: 1990s increased coverage on crime when it was actually going down.)
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Thinking in terms of the RAS model, what does the “S” stand for?
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The S in the model stands for Sample, which deals with univalents and ambivalents. Univalents have consistent considerations and stable preferences. Ambivalents have multiple and conflicting considerations and unstable preferences.
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Does the agenda setting effect have a positive impact on citizens’ ability to perform their democratic function?
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Yes. The positive effects are that important problems are highlighted and that citizens hold the leaders accountable. Also, the conditions of the news are connected appropriately to policymakers.
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How do univalents differ from ambivalents?
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Univalents have consistent considerations, are highly likely to counter-argue, and have stable preferences. They have a base from which they do not deviate. Ambivalents have multiple and conflicting considerations, are unlikely to counter argue points, have unstable preferences and are swing voters.
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Does the agenda setting effect have a negative impact on citizens’ ability to perform their democratic function?
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Yes. The negative effects are that less highlighted and unwise demands are made on policymakers. (ex: 1990s increased coverage on crime when it was actually going down.) Also negative is the clash between business values ( big audience, revenue) and professional values (coverage of important issues).
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According to the On Line Information processing model, how do individuals form opinions about political candidates?
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People received info by the media about a particular candidate, they evaluate that candidate in real time and assign a score for that candidate, (like score 8/10) then when they receive info again later they don’t really remember why they gave a score for a candidate and they update accordingly, so when they ca, it explains why peopled ont remember why they voted for a candidate. People don’t want to know the reason for voting for a candidate they just want to vote.
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What are priming effects? How do they affect citizens’ evaluations of leaders, parties, etc?
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The Priming effect is the fact that by focusing on certain issues or attributes, news coverage can affect the way we evaluate leaders, parties etc. Talks about the change in broadcast between groups, one see national defense and the other see talk about inflation. Result is that subjects were “primed” to think about inflation or national defense.
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What are framing effects?
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Framing effects are the belief that journalists interpretation of events influence citizens understanding of the event. (ex: The ku klux klan rally shown in a “free speech” view or in a “public safety hazard” view.
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How do framing effects influence citizens’ understanding of political events?
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Framing is the fact that how journalists interpret stories affects citizens. Episodic framing is a focus on individuals, emotion and causes people to blame the individual while thematic framing is focus on the experts and is more official, usually causing people to blame the system.
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What is the difference between an episodic and thematic frame?
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Episodic- focus on the individual. Causes people to blame the person.
Thematic- focus on the expert or superior figure. Causes people to blame the system. |
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From the perspective of a journalist, what are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using episodic frames?
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Advantages- It is high in business values and generates a large audience which means that it is good for revenue generating.
Disadvantages- It has a reduced impact and is mainly emotional. |
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From the perspective of a journalist, what are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using thematic frames?
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Advantages- It has a greater impact and may cause people to get involved in the issue.
Disadvantages- It has a smaller audience and is harder to gain revenue. |
