Media Politics – Chapter 2

Media Politics – Chapter 2

Comparative Analysis of Media Systems

Functions of News Media

• Deliver information on the issues of the day and provide exposure to a wide range of political perspectives (“public sphere”)

• Provide candidates, parties, and other groups opportunities to make political presentations before a mass audience (“electoral forum”)

• Monitor the actions of government officials (“watchdog function”)

Preview of Findings

• American media are preoccupied with consumerism and audience size; reduced levels of public affairs programming and pervasiveness of “soft” news

• Access to the electoral forum based on ability to pay (for TV advertising)

• Erosion of watchdog function, and increased manipulation of the press

Informed or Misinformed Citizens? The U.S. Case

Poll: Barack Obama was born in the United States

• True 58%• False 24%• Not sure 18%

Poll: Barack Obama is not a socialist

• True 40%• False 36%• Not sure 25%

Informed or Misinformed Citizens? The U.S. Case, continued

Poll: Sarah Palin is less qualified to be president than Barack Obama

• True 54%• False 34%• Not sure 12%

Informed or Misinformed Citizens? The U.S. Case, continued

Poll: Barack Obama is a racist who hates white people

• True 12%• False 70%• Not sure 17%

Informed or Misinformed Citizens? The U.S. Case

Foreign Affairs as “Dark Areas of Ignorance” (four-nation study)

US(%) UK(%) FI(%) DK(%)Tamil Tigers 24 61 46 42Kyoto Accords 37 60 84 81Darfur 46 57 41 68Taliban 58 75 76 68Britney Spears 93 90 88 87

The “Knowledge Gap”

Explaining Levels of Information

• Differences in media systems lead to differences in the production and supply of “civic” information

• Market-oriented, unregulated media systems systematically under-produce “serious” news

• Differences in political culture and civic norms lead to differences in consumer demand for information

Differences in “Demand” for News

• 39% of American respondents report that they watch national TV news more than four days a week; 78% in Denmark; 76% in Finland; and 73% in UK

• 37% of American respondents say that they read a newspaper more than 4 days a week; 58% in Denmark; 71% in Finland; and 44% in UK

Properties of Media Systems

• Ownership: public versus private• Regulation: weak versus strong• Party Parallelism: tradition of “objectivity”

versus expression of partisan views • Journalism: professionalized versus

politicized

Principles of Public Broadcasting

• The presence of a publicly-owned broadcaster ensures the provision of certain types of “welfare-enhancing” programming that the market alone would not provide

• Commercial broadcasters seek to deliver the largest possible audience at the lowest possible cost

• Private broadcasters therefore deliver programs with shallow but wide appeal

Public Broadcasting

• Public broadcasting” refers to television and radio networks funded by the government either in the form of “license” fees or general revenues

• Some public broadcasters (for example, Raidio Teilifís Éireann and Korean PBS also run advertising to supplement their revenues

• Germany €193; UK €178; France €116; Italy €94; No license fee in Spain

Public Broadcasters Deliver Public Goods

• Example of Switzerland: constitution specifies that programming must “promote mutual understanding and exchange between the various parties of the country, linguistic communities, and cultures”

• In 2005, news, public affairs, and educational programs accounted for 38 % of the programs aired on Swiss public broadcasting

Revenues of Major Public Broadcasters, 2005 (in Millions of UK Pounds)

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Public Broadcasters as Market Leaders

• In most European systems, prime-time ratings are won by public broadcaster; their entertainment fare is highly popular

• Public broadcasters are also given exclusive rights to cover major national sporting events

• Over time, public broadcasters in Europe have developed loyal audiences

The “Inadvertent” Audience

• Public broadcasters are required to deliver frequent news bulletins during prime time, e.g. during halftime of soccer matches

• News coverage therefore reaches people uninterested in politics

• The size of the inadvertent audience is a major explanation of the smaller knowledge gap in Europe

• Overall, European governments continue to treat broadcasting “not simply as a private commercial enterprise but as a social institution for which the state has an important responsibility”

Broadcasting in Europe

Role of Journalists

• Professionalized journalism in the US, with well-developed norms and codes of conduct (“social responsibility”)

• Autonomy from political movements/groups; “objectivity” in the US, “commentary” in Europe where newspapers are affiliated with parties (note: dominance of partisan press in the US, 1800-1850)

• Mediated versus unmediated coverage of political actors: interpretive coverage in the US, descriptive reporting everywhere else

Print Media: Tabloids versus Broadsheets• European tradition of tabloid journalism: high

circulation, entertainment-oriented newspapers• UK’s three tier system: “quality” broadsheets

(Times, Guardian, Independent), mid-market tabloids (Daily Mail, Daily Express), and popular tabloids (Sun, Daily Mirror)

• Circulation figures (2005): • broadsheets: 6 million• mid-market tabloids: 8 million• popular tabloids: 15 million

Why Regulate News Media?

• Regulations designed to ensure delivery of civic performance: broadcasters as “trustees” granted exclusive rights over a scarce public resource in exchange for programming in the “public interest”

• Regulations designed to promote the industry: FCC originally created as a “traffic cop” to address the problem of frequency congestion (originally with radio), DoD funding instrumental in development of Internet

Forms of Regulation

• Mandating frequency and timing of news broadcasts

• Diversity of perspectives• Equality of coverage across parties (case of

equal time in the US)• Ownership restrictions (i.e., ban on “cross

ownership”)• Subsidies

The Regulatory “Double Standard”

• Print media less subject to regulation than broadcasters

• Operation of a printing press does not interfere with any other press. Television and radio sets receive signals on a fixed number of channels, which have to be sufficiently far apart to avoid interference among the signals. Unlike newspapers, "one person's transmission is another's interference.”

• Broadcasters given access to a public resource

• Red Lion v. FCC: “because of the scarcity of frequencies, the Government is permitted to put restraints on licensees in favor of others whose views should be expressed…”

• Miami Herald v. Tornillo: “the choice of material to go into a newspaper, and treatment of issues and public officials—whether fair or unfair—constitute the exercise of editorial control. It has yet to be demonstrated how government regulation of this crucial process can be exercised consistent with First Amendment guarantees of a free press…”

Important Court Cases Regarding Regulation

First Phase of US Regulatory Policy

• Early regulations aimed at promoting competition and programming diversity; “one to a market” rule and ban on “cross-ownership;” no cable operator could control more than 30% of a market

• “Fairness doctrine” required stations to air balanced treatment of controversial issues; extended to “right of reply” (Red Lion case); no longer in force

Toward Deregulation

• In 1987, the FCC repealed the “fairness doctrine” on the grounds that access to the airwaves was no longer a scarce resource; cable and satellite TV, VHS tapes, etc, are all seen as “substitutes” for basic TV. Market approach and “regulatory forbearance.”

• Time Warner challenged the cap on cable ownership; court ruled that the cap violated TW’s 1st Amendment right to reach new audiences

The Demise of “Equal Time”

• The equal-time rule was designed to ensure that the public would have equal exposure to opposing candidates. The FCC rendered the rule meaningless by requiring that broadcasters only make available time to candidates on equal terms

• Candidates who cannot afford to buy the same amount of ad time as their opponent are denied access to the public

Limits on Ownership

• Limits on cross-ownership eased (in cities with >4 TV stations a single owner can control a daily newspaper and two TV stations)

• In 1976, stations were required to air at least 5% community programming and 5% informational programming (defined as news and public affairs) for a total of 10% non-entertainment programming.

• In 1984, the FCC abandoned these requirements; it was now sufficient for stations to “air some programming that meets the community’s needs.”

• Local news as “public affairs” programming

• In 1946, the Dual TV Network Rule prohibited one major network from buying another

• In 1964, the Local TV Multiple Ownership Rule limited a broadcaster to one local station per market and prohibited cross-ownership of TV stations, radio stations, and newspapers in the same market

• In 1985, FCC raised the maximum number of TV stations that could be owned by one entity from 7 to 12

• In 2003, the FCC eliminated all restrictions on cross-ownership within a single market, so long as that market had 9 or more TV stations

Easing Restrictions on Concentration

Impact of Deregulation

• “In radio, the top twenty companies operate more than 20% of all the radio stations in the country; in local television, the ten biggest companies own 30% of all television stations reaching 85% of all television households in the United States. In network television, the owners are all giant corporations…”

• The result: homogeneity of program content

Print Monopolies

• Between 1910 and 2000, the number of dailies fell from 2,202 to 1,483. The number of cities with competing dailies dropped from 552 in 1920 to just 25 in 1987

• The percent of total circulation attributable to the ten largest newspaper chains in the United States now stands at 51% for weekday and 56% for Sunday newspapers

Delivery of “Public Sphere”

• Absence of “serious” programming in the US is attributable to a weak regulatory framework and strong economic incentives

• Weekly supply (in hours) of non-entertainment programming in the Philadelphia market fell from 58 in 1976 to 24 in 1997

Diversity in News Content: European Media

• Despite significant deregulation in Europe, ownership rules remain stringent. In Germany, individual ownership of television stations is capped at a combined 30% of the national audience; in France no one owner can exercise more than 49% control of a national television network.

• European countries impose strict programming requirements that apply even to commercial broadcasters. In Germany, any broadcaster with at least a 10% market share must allocate a minimum of 260 minutes of air time per week to minor political parties.

• Again, the European approach is to treat broadcasting “not simply as a private commercial enterprise but as a social institution for which the state has an important responsibility”

• BBC1, the flagship public station in the UK, devoted 22.1% of its 2002 peak hour broadcasts to current affairs, compared to only 9% by the commercial channels

• BBC1 airs an average of 2.2 hours of news and public affairs programming during primetime on weekdays; NBC, CBS, and ABC average only one hour each

BBC Versus American Networks

BBC Versus CNN: Africa Coverage

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Party-Press Parallelism

• European tradition of “polemics;” newspapers affiliated with political parties

• In Italy parallelism extends to broadcasting; emerging trend in US with Fox News

• Measures of parallelism based on media preferences of party supporters; when partisans read the same sources, the measure takes on a higher value

• Parallelism in the US blogosphere

A Typology of Media Systems: Liberal Model (US, UK, Aus)

• Mass circulation and dominance of privately owned media

• Minimal regulation of media • Professional journalists autonomous from

political parties, but subject to subtle government influence

• Weak political parties, no connections between social groups and media

• Coexistence of strong public and commercial media, the latter subject to regulation

• Some traces of party parallelism (Scandinavia, Benelux, Germany)

Democratic Corporatist Model

• Press as an extension of political movements (Aftonbladet: #1 circulation daily paper partly owned by the Swedish Trade Union Confederation)

• Active state intervention: dominant public broadcaster, subsidies for newspapers

• Lack of professional norms or codes of journalistic conduct

• Strong political parties

Polarized-Pluralist Model (Italy, Spain)

Convergence of Media Systems

• Since 1985, media systems worldwide are moving in the direction of expanded commercial broadcasting (increased audience share of private networks) and progressive weakening of government regulations over news programming

Summary

• News media in democratic societies are more likely to make good on their civic responsibilities when:

• Society adopts a relatively stringent regulatory framework that requires minimal levels of public affairs programming

• Broadcasters are given some protection from the market. Publicly-funded television networks have the necessary cushion to deliver a steady flow of substantive, “hard” news

• Among modern democracies, the US media system ranks as the most commercialized and unregulated; news organizations are free to “shirk” their civic responsibilities

• Consequences include uninformed and misinformed citizens

Strength of Political Parties

• American parties weak; European parties strong• Mass membership versus party identifiers• Party organizations control recruitment of

elected officials in Europe; in US, “free agent” candidates contest elections on their own with party organizations playing a minor role

• Party-based campaigns; no messages on behalf of individual candidates (changing nature of PEBs)

Why are Political Parties Necessary?• Aggregate political interests into electoral

coalitions• Nominate candidates for elective office,

mobilize citizens to vote• Reduce information costs of voters• Deliver policy benefits following election

(control votes of elected representatives)

What Do These Presidential Candidates Have in Common?

• Pat Buchanan• Wesley Clark • Al Sharpton• Alan Keyes• Herman Cain

• Steve Forbes• Jesse Jackson• Al Haig• Pat Robertson

Years of National Experience: Presidents versus PMs

LBJ (63-68) 27 Macmillan (57-63)31Nixon (68-74) 16 Wilson (64-70) 20Carter (76-80) 0 Thatcher (79-90) 20 Reagan (80-88) 0 Major(90-96) 11Bush Sr (88-92) 15 Blair (97-06) 14Clinton (92-00) 0 Brown (07-10) 24Bush Jr (00-08) 0 Cameron 9Obama (09- ) 2

Average:7.5 18.4

Overview: From Party- to Media-Based US Political Campaigns

• Adoption of primaries, onset of public financing of presidential campaigns, and universal access to television combined to create a new system of campaigns in which free agent candidates relied on media strategies to appeal to voters

• Corresponding decline in importance of party elites in the nomination process

Road to Reform

• Opposition to Vietnam War among Democrats; emergence of McCarthy as the “anti-war” candidate

• McCarthy’s strong showing in 1968 NH primary brings RFK into the race

• Humphrey stays out of the primaries; counts on “insider” support to win the nomination

• Democratic convention (”sea of blood”) and Nixon’s defeat of Humphrey sends Dems down the path of reform (McGovern-Frazier Commission)

Summary: Impact of Reform

• Weakened position of party elites• Increased candidate autonomy, reduced entry costs

(public financing) • Increased importance of media coverage and

“momentum” • Mobilizing factions rather than broad-based

coalitions became the dominant strategy (additional problem of unrepresentativeness of primary electorate)

• Professionalization of campaigns

New Rules, Changing Appearance of Candidates

Delegates and Primaries

• Party caucus and delegate primary banned as methods of selecting delegates to the nominating convention

• “Affirmative action” in the selection of delegates

• Candidate primaries emerged as the dominant method of nomination (initially “winner take all,” now proportional)

Varieties of Primary Elections

• Closed Primary – limited to party registrants only; favors “ideologically pure” candidates

• Modified closed primary (party registrants + independents)

• Open primary – any registered voter eligible; may encourage centrist candidates able to attract cross-over votes. Possibility of strategic voting

• “Blanket” primary – both party candidates on same ballot (Proposition 198 and ensuing US Supreme Court Decision)

Proposition 198

• "Proposition 198 forces political parties to associate with—to have their nominees, and hence their positions, determined by—those who, at best, have refused to affiliate with the party, and, at worst, have expressly affiliated with a rival." (Justice Scalia)

Primary Calendar 1960, 2004 and 20081960 2004 2008Jan 20 IA Jan 3 IAJan 27 NH Jan 8 NHFeb 3 AZ, DE, Jan 19 NVFeb 7 MI, WA, Jan 26 SCFeb. 10 TN, VA Feb 5 21 states (2149)Feb 17 WI Feb 24 UT, IDMar 2 Super Tuesday*Mar 8 NH, TX,FL,LA** Feb 9-Mar4

(1042)

TOTAL: 1 29 40No. delegates 12 >2000 >3200

*CA,CT, GA, MD, MA, NY, OH, RI, VT=1152 delegates** 338 delegates

Percentage of Delegates Selected

1968 2008

Week 1-3 2 4

Week 4-6 8 74

Week 7-9 43 90

Week 10-12 58 96

Week 13-15 100 100

TV News (CBS) Coverage Of 1980 Primaries

# of Seconds % of total Seconds per Delegate

IA 2940 14 34NH 2815 14 69IL 2000 10 7PA 1950 9 7NY 1515 7 4CA 1205 6 3

Trends in Candidate Support Nationwide: 2004 Democratic Primaries

(Princeton Survey Research Telephone Interviews with Registered Democrats and Independents)

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“Big Mo”

• Morris Udall on Carter’s 1976 victory:“Carter won NH by 29% to my 24%, came in fourth in Massachusetts, and then beat Wallace by three points in Florida. In the next two weeks he shot up 25 points in the Gallup Poll… It’s like a football game in which you say to the first team that makes a first down: ‘hereafter your team has a special rule – your first downs are five yards and we’re going to let your first touchdown count 21 points. Now the rest of you bastards play catch-up under regular rules … .”

“Free Agency”

• Minimal eligibility requirements (1K signatures in Vermont; 1% of the party’s registered voters in CA)

• Minimal experience requirements – Arnold in CA, Corzine in NJ; contrast with stringent membership requirements and party leader influence in Europe

• PR systems typically with strong party control over nominations; “closed party list” version of proportional representation -- candidates appearing at the top of the list are assured election, while those at the bottom have little chance

“Celebrity” Candidates

• Former pro athletes – Bill Bradley, Jim Bunning, Heath Shuler, Jack Kemp, Kevin Johnson, Steve Largent

• Former actors – Reagan, Arnold, Sonny Bono, Fred Grandy, Fred Thompson

• Eisenhower, John Glenn et al.

Distinctiveness of US Parties

• They exert no control over behavior of elected officials; European parties enforce “party line”

• No “membership,” just party identifiers• Party organizations have tight control recruitment of

candidates in Europe; in US, “free agent” candidates run on their own with party organizations playing a secondary role

• Party-based campaigns; no campaigning on behalf of individual candidates (Changing nature of PEBs)

The “Invisible Primary”

• Zaller et al. – party elites still play key role in nomination process by endorsing candidates

• Endorsements based on “electability”• Endorsements as a form of “peer review,”

preferable to “beauty contests”

Endorsements

• "Howard Dean really is the only candidate who has been able to inspire at the grassroots level all over this country the kind of passion and enthusiasm for democracy and change and transformation of America that we need in this country. We need to remake the Democratic Party; we need to remake America; we need to take it back on behalf of the people of this country. So I'm very proud and honored to endorse Howard Dean to be the next president of the United States of America." 

- Al Gore

Endorsements (cont.)

• "The Dean campaign is one of the best things to happen to American democracy in decades...His campaign offers America new hope. His supporters are breathing fresh air into the lungs of our democracy. They're revitalizing politics, showing a way to escape the grip of big money and to confront the shame of forgetting those in need." 

- Bill Bradley

Bringing the Parties Back In

• Soft money contributions in 2000 and 2004• Party lists and GOTV• Endorsements• “Super delegates” - in 2004, the super-

delegates cast 798 votes at the Dem. convention, in 08 there were 850 (798 excluding MI and FL)

Increased Party Polarization on Issues• Elite polarization as a result of realignment of the

south and increased power granted party leaders• Mass polarization as a result of conflict “extension”

rather than displacement (cultural divide added to the social welfare divide)

• Activists as non-representative of rank and file partisans

• Is the mass public polarized?

Changes in Party Support

• Short-term changes associated with popularity of leaders

• Long-term changes associated with issues – “realignments” as changes in the composition of the party coalitions

• “New Deal” realignment (1928-1934) and creation of current party system