Lecture Notes: Media, Government, and Press Freedom

Last lecture by the current instructor (week 7 onwards will be taught by Constanza).
Content will become more complex, emphasizing the importance of keeping up with readings and utilizing tutors as resources.
Crucial: Do not fall behind; seek help from tutors or instructors (including Constanza after week 7) if struggling.
Mid-semester issues: Email the current instructor. After week 7, contact Constanza first.
Tutorial absences: Inform your tutor.
Final exam: Expect a challenging exam.

Electoral systems can be set up to achieve specific outcomes.
Example: Australia's two-party system is driven by the electoral system, not inherent divisions.
Implicit accountability: Shorter electoral cycles (2-3 years) are favored to ensure leaders remain responsive.
Media coverage of events like the budget relies on an agreement of civility and mutual benefit.
US Example: The US system demonstrates how much depends on civility; the system struggles when individuals act disruptively.

England's Absolute Monarchs: Publishing was controlled by the Worshipful Company of Stationers, a closed shop of printers.
Required royal approval, incentivizing pro-crown content.
Licensing journalists: The idea of licensing journalists isn't new, with arguments for it including protecting the public from lies.
Censorship Justifications:
- Protecting people from misinformation.
- Preventing uprisings by controlling the distribution of unauthorized pamphlets.
Harry the eighth described these unauthorized pamphlets as sundry, contentious, and sinister opinions have by wrong which have by wrong teaching and naughty books increased and grown within this realm of England.

The agreement with the crown wasn't renewed. Parliament withdrew the license of the Worshipful Company of Stationers by inaction.
Copyright Act: Ownership of written work established 15 years later.
Impact: Created the idea of press freedom (ability to publish without state approval) and sedition/defamation laws.
Responsibility for policing bad speech shifted from the crown to the courts.

Ability to produce and disseminate news in the public interest.
Key aspects:
- Political freedom: Absence of state veto.
- Legal freedom: Protection from suits by politicians.
- Economic and social freedom: Ability to earn a living and not face social ostracization.
De Jure vs. De Facto Press Freedoms:
- De jure freedom: Absence of legislation restricting speech.
  - Example: Funding the ABC with relative independence.
- De facto freedom: Ability to do the job without harm and government cooperation.
  - Example: Government officials engaging with journalists.

Government control over broadband spectrum impacts media diversity.
Limited access maintains a small group of powerful media companies.
Australia is often criticized for the concentration of media ownership.
Heavy regulation creates dependence on the government, which can then reduce access and de facto press freedoms.

Close ties between political leaders and media owners (John Howard and Rupert Murdoch as an example).
Media relies on government more than government relies on media at the moment.
Media is the fourth estate in the political system.
Tension in competing ambitions for the media to do their job.

Shifted power to censor speech from the crown to the courts.
Defamation: Undue harm to reputation; truth as a defense varies by jurisdiction (stronger in The US).
Sedition: Speech agitating against the head of state.
Courts: Courts have the power to police speech, but they are not showing any great willingness to do it.

Public opinion and sort of a legal opinion are moving in this direction towards satire and news as entertainment.
Media's profitability: Still profitable at a large scale, but with tight margins.
Power: Media access to political leaders makes it a powerful industry.

Theories of media effects: Assumed that people are idiots and can be easily manipulated.
The hypodermic needle model of media effects suggests that we can be shot in the brain with a message and believe it.
The indirect media effects are far more agreed on at this time.

Media as an ecosystem: Inescapable and influential.
Effects are indirect:
- Agenda setting: Deciding what to cover and in what order.
- Framing: Presenting political ideas in certain ways, using shortcuts and lenses.
- Priming: Brain receptive to certain ideas, making associations.

Journalists exert power by deciding what to cover.
Media logics: Decisions based audience demand, ideological views and the belief in holding politicians to account.
Case study: Trump's age of Biden's age. A series of editors and journalists who have decided that right now what we need to talk about is Biden's age.

Understanding framing involves recognizing how media lens their stories.
News doesn't write itself: Whoever is writing the news and deciding what news goes where is placing their own frame over those decisions.

Political slogans attempts to prime.
- Example: coining a name for a figure/politician so that it is stuck in the head of the public

Gatekeeping power has moved from traditional media outlets to algorithms.
A lot of this agenda setting power, this gatekeeping power has moved from traditional media outlets to algorithms.
Knowing that we are using our individual frames is really powerful. Right?
The government can't tell you not to.

Tension between government and media: Essential for survival, but often uneasy.
Politicians tend not to flat out lie to us.
Media = The Fourth Branch: the Church, Crown, and Legislature.
There's a lot of different factors impacting the way one might understand the news and media.
Studying misinformation is difficult.