Governing through the media (Media Politics, Ch. 9)

Vocabulary-style flashcards covering the shift from the bargaining model to media-centric politics, presidential communication strategies, and media management by Congress and interest groups.

Bargaining model

The pre-media era strategy of policy making involving direct face-to-face communication and negotiations among congressional leaders and elites.

Going public

A key strategy of leadership in media-centric politics where policies are promoted by appealing directly to the public for support.

Conditions for effective 'going public'

Proposals addressing issues that are salient to the public but concern subject matter about which the public possesses little information.

White House media operation

An expanded administration resource that makes media management more important than cultivating good relations with Congress in the contemporary presidency.

Three principal forms of presidential communication

1) News coverage (attracting attention and shaping messages), 2) Making speeches, and 3) Holding press conferences.

Honeymoon period

The first hundred days in office; a period of typically positive coverage that the notes state has not existed since the Clinton administration.

Alternative media strategies

Methods such as speaking trips to attract local news outlets used to bypass the increasingly negative coverage of national media.

Golden age of television

The period during the 1960s and 1970s when the prime-time presidential speech could reach as many as $60\%$ of all American households.

Impact of Cable TV on speechmaking

The proliferation of channels and programming choices that resulted in the president no longer being a major draw on national television.

Jeffrey Cohen

A researcher who studied the relationship between presidential rhetoric and the public agenda.

Press conference risks

The potential for making mistakes, misspeaking, or being put on the defensive by a tough line of questioning.

Press conference management

Strategies to minimize risk including staging, rehearsing, planting questions, making opening statements, or holding joint press conferences with foreign leaders.

Media logic

The criteria by which the media determines newsworthiness; the president is considered more appropriate to this than Congress because Congress is not a unified, personalized institution.

Committee hearings

The best opportunity for members of Congress to achieve media coverage.

Congressional news coverage disparity

The observation that Senators generate more news coverage than House representatives.

Large media markets

Areas such as LA or NY where representatives have significant difficulty attracting media attention.

Issue advertising

An interest group strategy of 'going public' to influence policy via the media.

Lobbying

An interest group strategy aimed exclusively at public officials.