Lesson 30: The Media in the United States
In this lesson, we will talk about the roles of the media, including the roles
it plays in identifying public problems and influencing public opinion. We will
then look at the financial crisis many newspapers are going through and the
continuing influence of television in this age of Internet. Finally, we will
look at how big business can control information to advance their own political
agenda, and the recent battle over Net Neutrality.
Print media was historically how the people were informed. The invention of the
television brought about a new form of media. Now, the internet is playing a
huge part in informing the public. Looking at all three forms of media, there
are six roles that media could be defined as playing in our daily lives.
When talking about the roles of media,
it seems fitting to mention entertainment first. The battle over viewers
indicate how important providing quality entertainment is to the networks. It
is a growing reality that a good bit of entertainment is provided with
political content. So much so that young viewers report that humorous programs
such as The Daily Show are where they get much of their information about
political issues.
Another glaringly obvious function of the media is to
inform the public about current events. Nowadays, images and videos are
circulated with the facts about events almost as soon as they happen.
One great function the media has is bringing public problems to
the people's attention. In this way, the media creates a public agenda.
The Public Agenda refers to the issues that
are perceived by the political community as meriting public attention and
government action.
It is important to keep in mind, however, that
the media can take certain freedoms when identifying problems. One freedom is
Priming, a practice in media reporting where journalists cherry-pick their
facts to shape the public's response to an issue.
Another practice is Framing, which when it occurs in a media report,
is the technique of embedding an issue in
particular examples or story lines to alter public perceptions of the issue.
Another function the media serves is when it influences beliefs and
opinions of the audience. Embedded in entertainment,
some shows utilize the attention to
shape young minds. The internet is just as influential in its own way.
Candidates and elected officials can use the news to inform the audience about
their stance on political issues and to combat negative press. When used
correctly, media can be very influential in helping voters decide on their
candidate of choice.
Of course,
no one does any of this out of the kindness of their heart. There are profits to
be had in the media. Advertising dollars speak loud and clear. This can cause
problems as advertisers can influence reporting when they push for a certain
slant on a news article that they like or dislike.
It is no secret that print newspapers have fallen on hard times because of the
ever-increasing use of the internet. Some newspapers have gone out of business
while even the largest ones face financial difficulty. Going online with their
own websites is one way to combat the issue, but it is ironic that they do not
really get much revenue from advertising even though they are providing fresh
content as "content providers." Most of the profit goes to "aggregators" like
Google who actually provide search results and direct users to the content.
Just like television took on print media and
won, the internet appears to be doing the same to television. For now, though,
television is hanging on because it continues to offer value to many viewers.
In spite of the rapidly growing dominance of the internet as a form of media,
older generations are not as quick to adopt new trends and have been slow to
switch away from traditional media. They still rely on television to provide
them with entertainment and information they need concerning current events.
Interestingly, 31% of this same older generation also still reads the newspaper.
Of course, there were some "early adopters" among the older generation, but
they are a far cry from the overwhelming majority of young people that are
fully integrated into new forms of media. Even email is somewhat outdated to
the young generation, having been replaced by Facebook, texting, and other
forms of communication.
That does not mean that
television and newspapers are
completely obsolete. The age group still relying on this media makes up a large
portion of the people who actually get out and vote.
Even though life is not always simple,
the news only seems engaging when it is packaged into a neat little narrative
known as a sound bite.
A Sound Bite is a brief,
memorable comment that can be easily fit into news broadcasts.
In order to maintain interest,
news programs put every story into this format and commentators suggest that
it is highly influential on political events.
Today, corporate conglomerates own the media outlets. That means that the same
entity that creates the television programming and the movies is also providing
the same content as your cable, satellite, or internet provider. This raises
the concern that the entity providing the service and the media might use it to
influence their own political agenda.
Even though the internet is an invention the government developed in
the form of ARPANET, early internet pioneers were somehow capable of preventing
the government from turning it into a regulated commodity. Any individual can
have access to the internet through an ISP.
ISP stands for Internet Service Provider, and
is a corporation or service that sells access to the Internet.
A controversial issue that has hit the headlines once again is net neutrality.
Net Neutrality is the principle that an ISP should treat all traffic equally.
At one time, the FCC was informed by a court ruling that in order for it to
issue regulations and enforce net neutrality, it would have to declare the
internet a public utility. It did that in 2015 to stop ISPs from blocking
content or creating special fast lanes, which in turn would have given lesser
consumers slower traffic.
However, they returned to the issue and
reversed their decision in 2017. Net neutrality is no longer in place.