mass media

structure of the mass media

print media

the mass media has been called "the fourth branch" of government. equating the media with the executive, the legislative, and the judicial branches of the national government indicates the powerful role of mass communications in the united states today. the flow of information has always played a vital part in out democracy. newspapers hav conveyed political information since the colonial times.

news papers

in the early 1800s few americans subscribed to a newspaper, but newspapers were shared and read in public. teverns were a cusumary meeting place to hear news. having read their personal paper, subscribers usualy mailed it to someone else. much of the mail in the 1830s was newspapers. these early newspapers provided a sense of national community. circulation boomed in the late 1800s as papers sold for a penny or two-affordable to those who earned only a doller per day. publishers expanded ciculation, believing that democracy needed informed citizens. by 1900, an average of one newspaper was published for each united states house hold. this ratio continued untill the 1960s, when daily news paper circulation failed to keep pace with population growth for the first time. what caused the decline of the newspaper? many believe that the daily newspaoper decline was primaraly caused by television. blaming television for declning newspaper subscriptions overlooks other important factors. following the lead of magazines, many dailies actualy dicouraged subscriptions among readers who they belived were not good targets for upscale advertisers. rather than reinvesting profits in news gathering and in promoting readership, many local papers simply became vehicles for slick advetising. their resulting step away from complete news coveraage opened the door for national news papers such as usa today.

concentration of newspaper ownership

many american citizens used to have two or more daily newspapers. as a result of mergers, however, daily local dewspapers today have no competitors in 98 percent of american citis. in addition, national chains have bought many independant newspapers. the gannett newspaper chain, for example, owns more than 100 daily and weekly newspapers accross the country, including USA today. another chain, knight ridder, ownes more than 30 daily newspapers. newspaper chains now account for 80 percent of daily newspaper circulation, a large increase since 1960. the increasing trend tword mergers raises questionss. does concentration of ownership limit the variety of veiws and opinions that reach the reader? is disscusion narrowed by the lack of competitiors in many cities?

magazines and books

more than 10,000 magazines are published every year in the united states. the major weekly national news magazines-time, newsweek, and us news and world report-have become important vehicles for setting the agenda for discussion of national issues. other magazines such as buuisness week focus on economic issues. some journals publish essays and stories representing political opinions on current issues. these include the national review, which favors conservative points of veiw, and the new republic, which represents liberal ideas. many highly specialized magazines such as oil and das weekly and aviation week and space technology carry news about political issues and government actions of interest to their readers. aproxomatly 40,000 book tittles are published every year in the united states. many have political themes, ranging from memoirs by former presidents to issues such as forighn policy.

wire servises

a wire servise is an organization that employs reporters throughout the world to collect news stories for subscribers. the two major wire servises are the associated press (AP) and the United Press International (UPI). wire services send the news electronicly to subscriber newspapers and to the radio and television stations. these organizations are ot considered mass media in themselfs becouse they do not communicate directly to the public. they are however, a vital scource of news stories.

what makes news

in a democracy the media also have a duty to present thw news that will inform citizens and promote the public interest. what is news? generaly news events must be current or recently undiscovered, quickly communicated, and revelant to the audience. the news should enable citizens to understand the key discisions being made by government, buisness, interest groups, and individuals that will affect their lives.

news has entertainment value, and news reporting has commercial valule. becouse of their need to make a profit, the mass media need to deliver a larger audience to advertisers. the more people who watch, the more the network can charge for commercial airtime. ratings servicis provide the statistics that show audience size. these ratings help determine who gets the advertisers dollers. so the media has to find what they can show that will get the most veiws, however, sometimes they overlook the important issues at hand.

americans learn about whats goin on in the world mainly from the mass media. however studys have shown that if given the choice, americans dont try to find world news. for example, when nbc broadcasted a one hour interview with soviet leader mikhail gorbachev, only 15 percent of americans watched, and furthermore, polls show that two thirds of americans are usualy not aware of whats goin on globaly. due to this, global and forign news usualy gets a small timeframe to say what they have to say. forign news almost always has to have some violent dispute or disaster to compete with national news.

electronic media

Radio, television, and internet make up the electronic media. as several political scientists have noted, the continued development and use of electronic media affect political life in the United States:

" in todays technological world, the media...are everywhere. the american political system has entered a new period of high tech politics, a politics in which the behavior of the citizens and policymakers, as well as the political agenda itself, is increasingly shaped by technoligy"

-George C. Edwards III,

martin P. wattenberg,

Robert L. Lineberry

radio

radio brought americans closer to their government-the voices of politicians came into homes from maine to california. radio had served only one generation bu the 1950s, when television brought the whole family into one room to watch an event. the growth of television, however, did not displace radio, as some had predicted it would. nearly all americans (99.9 percent) have radios in their cars or homes, totaling in more than 500 million radios. thousands of AM and FM radio stations specialize in different formats.

radio continues to communicate pollitical messages through political programing and advertisers who buy time on specific stations to reach the voting audience they most want to reach. "talk radio" emerged in the 1980s as a forum for opinion and even canidates. during the 1992 presidential campaign, bill clinton took part in a series of talk radio interveiws that allowed him to discuss many of the frustrations that radio audiences were experiencing. michal harrison, an industry insider, said of clinton "he played talk radio like a piano"

television

in one generation television replaced the newspaper as americans main source of news. by the 1960s television had become a powerful force in american politics. three major networks-abc, nbc, and cbs-divided most of the television audience. the first televised presidential debates took place between democrat john f. kennedy and republican richard nixon in 1960. later in the decade, television brought the vietnam war directly into american living rooms every evening during the nightly news, considerably affecting ppublic opinion about the war. no political could ignore the impact of television on public opinion.

broadcast licensing

the Federalal Communications Commision (FCC) regulates and licenses private owners of breodcast stations in two catigorys: commercial and noncommercial. radio licenses are divided between am and fm bands. television bands are UHF and VHF. most commercial tv stations are network-affiliated, but more than 400 opereta as independants. FCC rules aim to prevent a few sources from controlling the flow of information. networks are limited in the number of am and fm radio stations and tv stations and tv stations they may own.

cable television

with the growth of cable television, the major television network began to lose their dominant position in providing news and entertainment in the late 1980s. cable reached only 18 percent of all households in 1980. by 2001 the cable companys served more than 69 percent of american homes. new networks, videocassette recorders (vcrs), and cable options reduced the share of the big three networks prime time audience to 47 percent. cable news network (cnn) began to challange the national networks in news coverage. many government agencies, forign embassies, and lobbiests in washington d.c., stayed tuned to CNN to keep up with late breaking news. CNBS, C-SPAN, and an increasing array of choices further splintered the news audience.

public broadcasting

not all radio and television stations in the united states ae commercial-operated for profit. the public broadcasting act of 1967 created the Corporation For Public Braoudcasting (CPB) to distribute federal money for noncomercial, or nonprofit, radio and television. CBP set up the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) in 1968. PBS scheduales, promotes, and distributes programs to television stations that are part of the system. in 1970 CPB set up national public radio (NPR), the radio counterpart of PBS. NPR and PBS programs provide alternatives to the commercial networks programs. public broadcasts focus on

cultural offerings such as classical music, opera, ballet, educational programs, academic lectures, documenterys, and nature shows. these programs generaly attract small but loyal audiences. public radio and televison stations depend on three scources of money: funds from the national government that CPB distributes; grants from private foundations such as ford foundation or rockefekker foundation; and donations from individuals and buisnesses. the corperation for public broadcasting does not tell stations what programs to broadcast. CPB does not influence programming, however, by paying for some programs and not others.

government broudcasting

the national government owns and directly operates a few radio and television stations for two purposes. first, the government creates and sends television and radio programs to american personal stationed at millitary posts throughout the world through the armed forces radio and television network. second, the government sends out general news and information through shortwave, medium wave, and FM broadcasts throughout the the world. over the years the former soviet union, cuba, and other communist nations often jammed the signals to prevent these broudcasts from reaching our citizens. the international broadcasting act of 1994 re organized all us nonmillitary broadcasts, placing the network under the united states information agency. the four branches-voice of america, radio marti, radio free europe, and radio liberty-are all now operated by the agencys bord of governers.

online servicis

in 1995 the neilsen research reported that only 11 percent of americans used the internet. rapid growth in the internet use, however, is affecting politics. by 1996 the major parties, leading presidential contenders, and some minor party canidates had established home pages on the world wide web. web sites allowed canidates direct access to the voters and even interaction with them via email. today many people use the internet for information and to access government at all levels-local, state, and national.

media ownership

who owns the mass media in the united states? since owners can influence the messages the media present, the question of ownership is important especialy for television, radio, and newspapers. in many democratic contries such as brittan, france, israel, and sweeden, newspapers are privately owned; the government, however, controls the broadcast media. with the exception of brittain, broadcast programing tends to support the policies of the political parties in power. in the united states, the print and nearly all the broadcast media are privately owned, profit seeking buisnesses. untill recently, many different owners have controlled the nations newspapers and radio and tv stations. currently, however, media ownership is much more concentrated. becouse media have an obligation to serve the public interest, national, state, and local government sets the rules. broadcasters, cable owners, and telephone companys all operate under government regulation. governments grant private companies monopolys to serve people within defined areas. untill the 1996 telecommunications act, competition among these services was very limited. one aim of this act was to broaden commpetition in order to lower costs to consumers.

how media impact the government

the mass media and united states government officials often have an uneasy relationship. they need to work together, but their jobs often place them in adversal positions. polititions want to use the mass media to help them reach their goals, such as convincing the public that their policys are worth while and getting reelected. polititians also want the media to pass on their messages just as polititans present them.