UNIT 1: FOUNDATIONS OF GOVERNMENT

U.S. GOVERNMENT | Peterson

Chapter 8 Media
The Media's Functions
The mass media performs six functions in U.S. society. These functions are: (1) entertainment, (2)
reporting the news, (3) identifying public problems, (4) socializing new generations, (5) providing a
political forum, and (6) making profits. The media devotes the greatest amount of its time to
entertainment and sometimes stimulates discussion of important issues presented in drama form.
Reporting the news is a primary media function in a democracy. The media is crucial in identifying
problems and helping to set the public agenda. The content of media, particularly television, offers
children and immigrants a view of the basic American values. The political forum function allows citizens
a way to participate in the public debate. Finally, media is privately owned for profit.

History of the Media in the United States

The earliest media in the United States was the newspaper. Some historians feel that the printed media
played an important role in unifying the country. Many of these early newspapers were politically
sponsored. In the nineteenth century, the high-speed rotary press and the telegraph led to the creation
of mass-readership newspapers. The late nineteenth century saw sensationalistic, often irresponsible
journalism among these newspapers, a situation referred to as yellow journalism. In 1920, the first
scheduled radio broadcast transmitted the returns of the presidential election. This was the beginning of
the age of broadcast media. Today, cable, satellite television, and the Internet have created narrow
casting, which allows the electronic media to target small sectors of the audience. Another development
is the rise of talk shows on television and thousands of radio stations. Finally the Internet has become a
major source of views and opinions on public issues with the advent of blogging and podcasting.

The Primacy of Television

Television is the most influential medium. The use of images conveys powerful content. While
capturing images is a strong point for television, careful and deliberate consideration of the intricacies of
public issues is not one of its strengths. Television tends to focus on brief comments of politicians,
referred to as sound bites, which can be easily fit into a relatively short news broadcast, for audiences
with relatively short attention spans. This has impacted the manner in which campaigns are conducted,
as candidates present their views in ten second sound bites rather than in comprehensive
considerations of the issues.

The Media and Political Campaigns

Advertising for political candidates is one of the most influential ways to use the mass media. Perhaps
the most effective political ad of all time was the Daisy Girl ad, used by President Johnson against
Barry Goldwater in the 1968 presidential election. Since this advertisement the concept of negative
advertising has come to play a major role in many political campaigns. Political advertising is the most
expensive part of the political campaign, so candidates have attempted to use free coverage by the
news media to their advantage. Political campaign advisers, sometimes referred to as spin-doctors,
attempt to interpret events in a positive way for the candidate and present this view to the public. The
purpose of this spin is to influence the people to see the events in a way most favorable to the
candidate. Televised presidential debates have become a feature of the presidential elections since the
1960 debate between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Candidates soon realized that the image they
presented on television was a critical aspect of the campaign. The question of how much influence
media coverage has on voters is difficult to quantify because of the many factors that influence how

UNIT 1: FOUNDATIONS OF GOVERNMENT

U.S. GOVERNMENT | Peterson

someone votes. Studies do tend to indicate that media seems to have the biggest impact on voters who
are undecided.

The Media and the Government

While the mass media has an impact on political campaigns, it also has an influence on government and
government officials. The president has a love-hate relationship with the media. The job of the White
House press corps is to uncover news about the president and his administration, while the presidents
press secretary attempts to provide the press corps with only the information that the president wants
them to have. The media and the president have what is called a symbiotic relationship, in which one
party needs the other to survive. Perhaps no president was as successful at using the media as Franklin
D. Roosevelt, who brought a new spirit to a demoralized country during the Great Depression. The
media also plays an extraordinary role in setting the public agenda. Although the media does not
definitively and exclusively determine the public agenda, it is undeniable that media can raise the issues
that are likely to become matters of public concern.

Government Regulation of the Media

Although the United States has the freest press in the world, regulation of the media is a reality.
Electronic media, which obviously did not exist when the Constitution was drafted, has been regulated
more extensively than print medium. The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) was created to
regulate broadcast media. In the 1996 Telecommunications Act, Congress imposed restrictions on
Internet pornography, but its efforts were so broad that the Supreme Court ruled such restrictions
unconstitutional. Also in the Telecommunications Act Congress opened up the telephone, television,
and Internet industries to vast mergers. The question for the future is how to prevent the
telecommunication companies of today from becoming giant monopolies with an iron grip on the flow
of information, in a nation founded on free press as an essential part of an informed citizenry. One of
the more controversial areas of governmental regulation concerns the issue of indecency, spurred in
large part by public outcry over the wardrobe malfunction of Janet Jackson during the Super Bowl
halftime show, as well as the antics of radio talk-show host Howard Stern.

Bias in the Media

Many studies have attempted to determine if there is some clearly identifiable bias in media. For years it
was assumed that there was a liberal bias. Today many commentators believe that the media is biased,
not toward an ideology, but rather in its own self-interestconcerned mainly with issues that can be
exploited to produce high ratings and significant advertising revenues.