Media Audiences Exam 2

Public Opinion

group consensus about matters of public concern which has developed in the wake of informed discussion

Plato - Public

skeptical of people to make wise decisions

Doxa (public opinion) v Episteme (knowledge)

The government should be reserved for elite, forward thinkers

Aristotle - Public

the collective will of the people can be superior to opinions individuals shaping values, norms and tastes of civilization

Habermas - Public

“representative public sphere” - kings represent the public, commoners were spectators, thus public life was analogous to a theatre/stage performance

Lippman - Public

“Public Opinion” - individuals have neither the time nor the resources to develop complex reasoned responses, so they rely on elites and news media to gather intelligence in their place

Straw Polls

oral/pen and paper surveys that measure the popularity of a political candidate or policy

Systematic Surveys

Gallup poll used random sampling demonstrating weakness of straw polls

Measurement Errors

attitudes are stable over time

Response Effects

when one question impacts your response to another

Question Wording Effects

how something is asked

Non-Attitudes

expressions of opinions that don’t really exist

Non-Response Bias

Some groups won’t do/are biased against polls

News Agenda

shapes what voters think is important

News Framing

when journalists/producers select some aspects of perceived reality as more salient than others

Spiral of Silence

minority ideas are repressed and unexpressed

What two things combine to create the spiral of silence?

Agenda Setting and Public Opinion

Agenda Setting also creates

Bandwagon and Underdog effects

Does polling still matter?

Polling continues to shape public opinion

Political Economy

“the study of social relations, particularly power relations that mutually constitute the production, distribution and consumption of resources”

Political Economy is embedded in what?

Marxist philosophy

Political Economy Comes from

the rise of capitalism

Political Economy emphasizes

Inequality and Social Justice

Political Economy Explores:

• Communication technologies and their conections to profit seeking companies

• Media consolidation and monopolization

• Access to information and participatory democracy

• Internationalizing and the domination of US media

• Management and labor relationships in media industries

Media is apart of

capitalism itself

Why aren’t audiences real numbers?

they are specialized

Nielsen Company

a monopoly, the rating company

Sampling Unit

Individual (audio)/Household (TV)

Multistage Cluster Sample

list of US counties, broken down by street/neighborhood

Stratified Sampling

identifying strata groups like age, identity

Sampling Errors

one point can mean a million viewers

Non-response error

too intrusive, people don’t want to do it

Television Viewing

Counted as 15 minute blocks of exposure

Diaries

Used in early rating trackings, people error

Household Meters

Tracking one system per household

Portable People Meter

starts to include time shift viewing and viewing external to household

People Meters

individualized reporting based on people code

Button and Surveillance Fatigue

Made Nielsen move from five year tracking to two year tracking

Rating

The ratio of how many households are watching a particular program out of all the households in the US

Share

The ratio of how many households are watching a particular program out of all households at a particular time

What demographics does Nielsen rely on?

Young Viewers (over 50 not considered)

Male audience is more valuable than women

High income viewers - DINK (double income no kids)

Types of Personalization

Psychographics

Lifestyle

Minority Audiences

Psychographics

status seeking, compusiveness, sociability

Life Style

Media habits, products, populations

Minority Audiences

Narrowing on race, sexuality