Week 4: Impact of Changing Media

1. WEEK 4: IMPACT OF CHANGING
MEDIA
POL 367 – Mass Media and Politics

2. Expansion of Choice
 Era of Broadcast Television
 Quickly became the
dominant form of news
consumption
 FCC rules required
broadcasting of news and
public affairs as part of
licensing requirements
 Limited options in content
because of small number of
channels and similar content
across channels

3. Expansion of Choice
 Rise of Cable and the Internet
 Expansion of cable television and
Internet has greatly increased
choice.
 Early though hoped that Internet
might serve as a knowledge
leveler due to the low cost of
getting information
 Instead, research by Marcus Prior
suggests the increase in
entertainment options has lead to
an increase in the knowledge gap
between high and low interest
individuals

4. Politics in the New Media Landscape
 Research on media in the current media landscape has
overwhelmingly focused on three questions:
 Are new media outlets more polarized?
 Do audiences purposefully engage in selective exposure?
 What are the implications of selective exposure?

5. Polarization in Media
 Content analysis of media does find
that new media outlets, such as Fox
News and MSNBC, are more polarized
compared to traditional media, such as
wire services
 Diana Mutz:
 Incivility and disrespect, particularly
towards political opponents, is
widespread in shows that include large
amounts of political content
 Berry & Sobieraj:
 Partisan media routinely engages in
hyper-partisan and outrage-inducing
rhetoric, particularly in cable news and

6. Selective Exposure
 Strong partisans generally do engage in some level of selective
exposure in their media consumption:
 Primarily consume pro-attitudinal news sources
 Website traffic usually occurs in ideologically similar webs
 May cultivate social media networks to see mostly pro-attitudinal
 Impact
 Democrats and Republicans learn information at different rates,
dependent on if the information is pro or counter-attitudinal.
 Active efforts to avoid counter-attitudinal information is low, incidental
exposure
 Impact dulled by large number of people who opt out of political content

7. Practice and Profession of Journalism
 New versus Old
 Many older news outlets have begun shifting to primarily online offerings
 Comparisons between traditional outlets and their online coverage
suggest little difference in terms of content
 In general traditional media still a major driver of content: new media has
mostly opened new venues of distribution
 Social media has become a supplement to more traditional media
 Real-time reporting
 Less pressure from traditional media constraints
 Collection of sources and potential stories

8. Citizen Journalists
 Jay Rosen: “when people
formerly known as the audience
employ the press tools they have
in their possession to inform one
another”
 Offers greater variety of sources
and viewpoints, greater sense of
engagement.
 Concerns about professionalism
and ethics, spread of
misinformation
During the Arab Spring in 2009, social media
served as both a major tool for organization of
protests as well as a source of news and
information about events.

9. Blogs
 Growing and popular source of political information
 Usually consist of a mixture of news and commentary
 Background of many prominent blogs similar to traditional journalists
 Most blogs are personal blogs, allowing for greater focus on
advocacy journalism and critical analysis of things mainstream
media may not focus on
 Impacts of blogging
 Some agenda setting power
 Mixture of commentary & news
 More engaging, particularly for partisans

10. Campaigning and New Media
 Campaign Websites
 Have become an essential feature
for soliciting funds, recruiting
volunteers, and developing
communication networks
 Dean 2004
 Obama 2012
 Sanders 2016
 Social Media
 Encouraging supporters to share
and engage with candidates on
online media
 Campaign apps to help organize

11. Digital Democracy
 Impact of “digital democracy” has been more subdued than
expectations had hoped.
 Traditional organization still have advantage in traditional democratic
venues, such as presidential campaigns.
 Production and readership of political information still mainly political
elites.
 Traditional organizations also making headways into using new media (ex:
astro-turfing)
 Mobilization and Political Organizing
 Main role of digital media has been to reduce costs of organization
 Communication with other activists
 Coordination and information outside traditional media

12. Mobilization and Social Media: Hong Kong
2014

13. Engagement and New Media
 Political engagement conditioned on political interest
 Pros:
 Online news content favors interactivity and communities
 Social media and aggregation can allow for incidental exposure
 Cons:
 User-generated content may be of lower quality & accuracy
 Fragmentation can contribute to polarization and knowledge gaps