Chapter 7 Keyterms

High-Tech Politics

A politics in which the behavior of citizens and policymakers and the political agenda itself are increasingly shaped by technology.

Mass Media

Television, radio, newspapers, maga-zines, the Internet, and other means of popular communication.

Media Events

Events that are purposely staged for the media and that are significant just because the media are there.

Press Conferences

Meetings of public officials with reporters.

Investigative Journalism

The use of in-depth reporting to unearth scandals, scams, and schemes, at times putting reporters in adversarial relationships with political leaders.

Print Media

Newspapers and magazines, as compared with electronic media.

Electronic Media

Television, radio, and the Internet, as compared with print media.

Net Neutrality

A former federal regulatory policy holding that Internet service providers must provide equal access to broadband for all websites to their customers. Democrats on the Federal Communication Commission favored this policy whereas Republicans engineered a repeal of this policy at the federal level, arguing that it represented unnecessary government regulation of the Internet.

Narrowcasting

Media programming on cable TV (e.g., on MTV, ESPN, or Fox News) or the Internet that is focused on a particular interest and aimed at a particular audi-ence, in contrast to broadcasting.

Selective Exposure

The process through which people consciously choose to get the news from information sources that have viewpoints compatible with their own.

Chains

Groups of newspapers published by media conglomerates and today accounting for over four-fifths of the nation's daily newspaper circulation.

Beats

Specific locations from which news frequently emanates, such as Congress or the White House. Most top reporters work a particular beat, thereby becoming specialists in what goes on at that location.

Trial Balloons

Policy ideas floated to the media for the purpose of assessing the likely political reaction.

Sound Bites

Short video clips of approximately 10 seconds. Typically, they are all that is shown from a politician's speech on the nightly television news.

Talking Head

A shot of a person's face talking directly to the camera. Because such shots are visually unstimulating, the major networks rarely show politicians talking for very long.

Policy Agenda

The issues that attract the serious attention of public officials and other people actively involved in politics at a point in time.

Policy Entrepreneurs

People who invest their political "capital" in an issue. According to John Kingdon, a policy entrepreneur "could be in or out of government, in elected or appointed positions, in interest groups or research organizations."