Political Science Final

How has the Media Changed and How Does it Shape Politics? 

I. Introduction

A. Government and Media: two-way relationship:

• Government dependent on media to get its message out

• Media dependent on government for stories, information, source

B. There has never been a “free market” in our media

• Government policies shape every aspect of our media

II. Brief History

A. Early History: Thousands of newspapers in U.S., papers are owned by private individuals.families

• Newspapers are partisan: openly favor one political party or group

B. Middle 19th Century: newspapers begin to lose partisan labels 

C. Early 20th Century

• Consolidation of newspaper ownership begins 

• Total number of newspapers declining 

• Professionalism of jouralism: “objectivity” 

• Radio: Initially dominated by entertainment programming 

• WWII: radio becomes major news source; FDR

D. Middle 20th Century

• Television: Initially also documented by entertainment 

• 1960: TV becomes major news source (Nixon-Kennedy debates)

E. Late 20th Century

• Internet: Late 1980s

*Origins: 1960s research by U.S. Defense Department 

F. Social Media: Early 21st Century - Facebook, Twitter

**Major news sources: Not legally treated like media companies

III. Effects of the Internet and Social Media

A. Easy Access to all kinds of information

B. Much easier for strange, false, etc: ideas to become mainstream

**Fake news: Intentionally false stories made by anyone (not news organizations) for profit, political purpose 

**Also: Ads that deliberately contain false information 

C. Effects on Us: 

• Broadening our horizons or narrowing?

• People’s attention spans?

D. Effects on politics

• No longer one headline per day

• Public attention is fragmented

**Not a common set of facts 

III. Influence of the Media

A. Objectivity: This becomes the standard when journalism becomes a professon (early 20th century)

• What is objective reporting?

B. Research: Most people consume media that they already agree with (talk radio, Internet, cable news, etc.)

• Thus, much of the media tends to reinforce ideological beliefs rather than change them.

C. Major News Outlets Today

• The relationship between much of the media and White House has traditionally adversarial

• Trump: The media is the “enemy of the people”

• This further erodes trust in the media

• 1st amendment: “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom…of the press…”

• Framers understood free media as a key check on government in a democracy

• World history: freedom of the press is the first thing to go under authoritarian regimes

IV. Government Regulation of Media

A. Before 1934

• 1st amendment: freedom of the press—to prevent government licensing of newspapers

• Radio: no system of licensing exists

• Stations often broadcast on the same frequency in the same city

B. Introduction of licensing

• 1934 Communications Act: created the FCC (Federal Communications Commission)  

• The licensing of radio is introduced 

**Rationale for licensing: frequencies are a scarce resource. Broadcasters need to meet public interest requirements in exchange for a license (broadcasters can make large profits) 

• Licensing expanded to television broadcasters 

**Radio and television broadcasters pay no fee for licenses

• Cell phone companies do pay fees for the use of frequencies 

C. 1996 Telecommunications Act: 

• Deregulates many aspects of media ownership 

• Continues the consolidation of media ownership that began many years ago

D. Net Neutrality

• Default rule for the Internet since the beginning: all websites travel at the same speed regardless of the ISP 

• FCC adopted this policy under Obama

• BUT: Cable and Phone companies are pushing to undo the policy

V. Conclusion: Policy Issues

A. Corporate Ownership: Small # of huge corporations own nearly all our major media

• Fewer voices and viewpoints

• Less diversity in ownership and programming

• Less coverage of local issues that matter to communities

• Less independent and critical journalism is necessary in a democracy

• Pundits pontificating instead of actual news

• More celebrity news (cheap, non-controversial)

• Less investigative journalism (expensive, can be controversial)

Political Participation

I. Introduction

A. Voting Foundation of democracy

• We elect representatives at every level of government

• Elected officials appoint other officials to run the government

B. Expansion of Voting Rights

1. Removing barriers allowing previously excluded groups to vote

2. Increasing the number of elections (School Boards, etc.) and the introduction of direct primaries

C. Non-voting

• Recent Pres. Elections Turnout: 50-65% of eligible voters

• Other years, the percentage is less, sometimes much less

**Is this a problem?

D. Voting Regulation is decentralized

• Federal law is minimal, involving only discrimination 

• State laws: registration rules, appearance of ballot, etc. 

• Local officials implement elections 

II. Expansion of Voting Rights in US History

A. Wealth and Property

• Early history: Large majority cannot vote

• All colonies/states property requirements for white males

**None allowed women, Native Americans, free blacks to vote

**By 1852, all states had abolished property requirements for white males (universal white male suffrage)

B. Gender

• Women’s Suffrage movement: Seneca Falls, NY in 1848

• Late 19th and early 20th Century: Other nations adopt women’s suffrage

• By 1910: women in five western states (WY, UT, ID, CO, WA)

**1920: 19th amendment: Women can vote in all states

C. African Americans

• 1858: Free blacks (males) could vote in only 4 northern states (NH, ME, MA, VT)

• 1870: 15th Amendment: prevents states from discriminating in voting on the basis of race (black males)

• 1890-1920: South adopts laws to prevent blacks from voting

**1965: Voting Rights Act: Makes discrimination in voting illegal

• Justice Department given power to enforce voting rights 

III. Other Major Changes in Voting Rights

A. Direct Primaries: Early 20th Century - Voters select the parties’ candidates

• Some states also adopt caucuses

**Eventually: All states have primaries and caucuses

B. Direct Election of Senators

• 1913: 17th amendment: direct election of Senators (Constitution: state legislatures chose the Senate)

C. 18 Year Old Voting Age

• 1971: 26th amendment: Voting age is 18 in all states (previously, states had different ages, ranging from 18-21)

**Vietnam War

IV. Demographic Influences on Voting Behavior

A. Income Wealth

• Income wealth goes up - more likely one is to vote

• Highest income wealth groups - more likely to vote Republican

B. Education

• More formal education - much more likely to vote

C. Gender

• Women slightly more likely to vote than men

**Gender Gap: Women more likely to vote Democratic than men (especially in Presidential elections)

D. Race

• Whites: more likely to vote than racial minorities

• Whites: also more likely to vote Republican than minorities

• African Americans: Overwhelmingly behind Democrats

• Latinos (Largest minority group today): favor Democrats

• Native Americans: favor Democrats

• Asian Americans: Diverse group: favor Democrats

E. Age:

• Likelihood one will vote increases with age

• Younger votes lean toward Democrats

• Older voters are somewhat more Republican

F. Religion: 

• 25% of electorate: Evangelical Christian - overwhelmingly Republican

• Catholic voters split

• Jewish voters (very small %) lean heavily toward Democrats

• Non-religious voters: split 

V. Other Influences on Voting Behavior

A. Ideology and Party Identification

• Conservatives - Republicans

• Liberals/progressives - Democrats

• Many voters do not have strong ideological beliefs

• One-third say they’re independents

B. Perceptions of Candidates

• Canditates still matter a lot

C. Salience of Issues

**Agenda setting and Framing are so important

• What issues do people think are important?

• How do people think about issues, eg. the economy?

• Some people - Consistently single-issue voters

D. Retrospective Voting

• Voters assess current conditions

• Reward or blame incumbent and incumbent’s party

• Economy, war and peace, etc.

• BUT: Big issues (economy) are not objective

• More common in Presidential elections

I. Introduction - Political Parties

A. Political Party: Political organization that attempts to shape public policy through electing indivdiuals into office

B. Some facts:

• Parties NOT mentioned in the Constitutionl NOT created by government

• Parties mostly regulate themselves, except in terms of elections

• Two major parties now

• BUT: many important third parties in U.S. history

II. Two Party System

A. Reasons for the Two Party System

1. Tradition and History

• Two major sides to major national issues: Constitution, Civil War, New Deal

2. American belief system

• Public tends to think that a 2 party system is the norm; 

• Americans not very ideological, therefore gravitate toward 2 major parties 

3. Electoral System

• Winner-take-all plurality system (Most votes = winner)

• No reward for coming in second

**This is very different from a Proportional Representation system

4. State laws

• Ballot access: difficult for third parties to even get on the ballot in many states

B. Republicans and Democrats: Differences Between and Within

• Major differences on social issues for decades

• Parties drifting apart: Enviornment, Immigration, Economy, Trade

• Other issues: Foreign policy?

• Trump’s Repulican Party is logical extension of Regan - Free Markets, hostility toward government and unions

• Divisons within Democrats also: liberals v. moderates

C. Other Parties

• Green, Libertarian - Both have elected officials at the local level in many state

• WI and MN: several influential third parties, including Reform party (Ventura)

III. Parties and Elections

A. Realigning Elections

• Rare

• Caused by major changes in society, which lead to new party coalitions

• New party becomes dominant after the election 

Eg.

• 1860: Civil War: Republicans win and become dominant 

• 1932: Great Depression, Democrats win and become dominant 

B: Theories of Party Control of government

1. Responsible Party Theory

• Parties take clear positions on all issues, voters decide, winning party enacts its policie

**This is how Parliamentary systems are supposed to work

2. Electoral Competition Theory

• Parties move toward the middle to try to get a majority 

• Therefore parties’ policy positions are more similar

**Recent U.S. elections are similar to the responsible party theory 

BUT: We don’t have a parliamentary system: We have a separation of powers, and branches of government elected separately 

**Our system was built on the assumption of some cooperation between parties because of the likelihood of divided government

IV. Conclusion

A. Negative Partisanship: Opposition to other party more than support of one’s own party

-Straight-Ticket Voting: becoming much more common recently

B. Future of Democracy

• Rule of Law, civil liberties, free press, free speech, equal rights

• What do Republicans and Democrats stand for?

**We don’t need democracy to have some version of capitalism

Introduction: Interest Groups and Lobbying in American Government

A. Interest Group: Any organized group that tries to influence government

• 1st Amendment: we have a right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Examples of Major groups: Chamber of Commerce, Sierra Club, National Rifle Association (NRA), American Association of Retired Persons (AARP)

B. James Madison warned about “factions”

**Madison - structure of the government, along with the large size of the country, would prevent any one faction from becoming too powerful

C. Some Numbers

• Today: Over 13,000 registered lobbyists representing thousands of groups

• 1980: about 7,000 lobbyists

**However: Thousands of other people lobby government without being registered lobbyists

D. Why so many?

1. Separation of Powers/Federalism: thousands of “points of access” (lots of government to lobby)

2. Increasing Diversity of the Population

3. Effectiveness of Groups

4. Decline of Political Parties

II. What Interest Groups Do

A. Lobbying

1. Insider Method (traditional lobbying) direct contact with government officials:

• Testifying at hearings, meetings, reports/data to government etc.

**This is highly regulated

2. Outsider Method (grassroots lobbying): trying to mobilize public opinion, mainly thorugh advertizing

• Get the public to contact their legislators on a specific issue

• Very expensive, but can be very effective

**Advertise on behalf/against candidates - Largely unregulated

B. Contributing to Campaigns

• Political Action Committees (PACs) to raise money and contribute to political campaigns

C. Lobbying Federal Agencies and Courts

• Groups lobby agencies extensively

• Less visible than lobbying Congress, but also regulated

• Lobbying courts, writing briefs, and filing litigation

D. Protest

• Groups organize protests and demonstrations

• Impact public opinion - policy

III. Types of Groups

A. Economic Groups

• Lobby on behalf of issues that are mainly economic

• Examples: business groups, labor unions, banks, etc. 

**This type of group is the most common

B. Single-Issue Groups

• Lobby for one main issue

• Example: NBA, National Organization for Women (NOW)

C. Public Interest Groups

• Lobby on behalf of issues that would benefit the entire public 

• Example: consumer groups

D. Professional Groups 

• Represent the professions

• Examples: groups working on behalf of those in poverty

IV. Interest Group Influence: Money is Power

A. Pluralism

• Theory that our political system is essentially made up of groups

• Origins in James Madison

• Many groups = no one group has too much power

• Balance in the system

• System is Open: Any of us is free to join or form groups

B. Is pluralism accurate?

• Yes and no

• Many of us can join groups, but how many of us can form groups/lobby?