Mass Media

The History of Media in Politics

BREAKING NEWS: The crawl at the bottom of the 24-hour news channels was born on 9/11

What percentage of Americans…..

• Are black?• Are white?• Are American Indian?• Are Asian?• Are of Hispanic/Latino origin?• Were born in a foreign country?• Speak a language other than English at home?• Graduated from high school?• Graduated with a BA/BS or higher?• Live below the poverty line?

Yellow Journalism- 1890s

• Newspaper battle between Pulitzer and Hearst

• “You provide the pictures, I’ll

Provide the war.”

FDR’s Fireside Chats- 1930s

Checkers Speech September 23, 1952

• How television and

A black and white spotted

Dog saved Nixon’s career

• “And I don’t care what

they say, we’re going

to keep him.”

Nixon-Kennedy Debates1960

• First ever

Televised debates

• People who

listened on radio

thought Nixon

won but people

on TV thought

Kennedy won.

LBJ

The Great Communicator(s)

The Amazing Shrinking Soundbite

“If you spin….. you will win”

• Spin Doctors• Spin Alley• Can you spin it?• “Why does a dog wag -Is the dog public opinion,

its tail? Because a dog is and the tail the media?

smarter than its tail. If the - Is the dog the media,and

tail was smarter, the tail the tail campaign managers?

would wag the dog.” - Is the dog the people and

the tail the government?

White House Press Secretary

• Ari Fleischer, Scott McClellan, Tony Snow, Dana Perino, Robert Gibbs, Jay Carney

• “Outer Orbit”

White House Press Conferences?

• “We’ve secretly

Replaced the

White House Press

Corps with actual

Reporters.”

To have a good career as a reporterDo you have to drink the Kool-Aid?

Heroic Secret Service AgentTakes question intended forBush.

Take Out the Trash Day

Dump your smelly news on theday that people pay the leastattention to the news

Which is?

LEAKS

Media Conglomerates

• Concentrated ownership of the media• Gannett owns USA Today and controls

the biggest daily circulation in the nation + owns 100 additional papers

• Rupert Murdoch owns 124 radio stations, New York Post, Weekly Standard, FOX News, and Wall Street Journal

• Regulates the content, nature, and existence of radio and television broadcasting.

• Need a license to broadcast• Rules - Broadcast TV>Cable>Print• Fines for violations• Control the airways (digital cable

switchover)

The Amazing Race

NCIS

The Big BangTheory

How I Met YourMother

Young and theRestless

60 Minute

Person of Interest

Conservatives

Children

Teens

Men

Liberals

Adults “old people”

women

Children

Conservatives

Teens

Men

Liberals

Adults

Women

“Old people”

Essential Question: To what extent does the media influence your political views?

Propaganda Techniques and the Media

• Name-calling

- use of derogatory language or words carrying a negative connotation; attempt to arouse prejudice

• Card-stacking

- aka selective omission; only presenting information that is positive to an idea and omitting information contrary to it

• Plain Folks

- views reflect those of the common person; working for benefit of common person; “one of you”

• Transfer

- transfer blame or bad feelings from one politician to another

• Glittering generalities

- words that have different positive meaning for individual subjects, but linked to highly valued concepts; i.e. honor, glory, love of country, freedom

• Bandwagon

- one side is the winning side; join in because others are doing so as well

• testimonial

- endorsements, in or out of context, attempting to connect a famous or respectable person with a product or item.

Follow Up:

• Which advertising techniques do you think are the most effective, and why?

• The least effective, and why?