Question

What is the role and influence of the news media in American politics? What is "setting the agenda"? What are the differences between print and broadcast news? Give an example of the effect of the news media on American politics.

Answer 1

This question has four parts to it, let us discuss each part in detail :

1.What is the role and influence of the news media in American politics?

The press has always been playing a crucial role in the American politics right from the founding of the republic.

News media has increasingly become quiet independent, and also compels politicians and the elected officials to develop new strategies to ensure favorable and positive publicity, public image and support.

And in order to win elections, the individual candidates tend to seek news medias attention to gain the attention from voters.

Hence,the media has a great deal of power in determining the American politics as they occur today.

From one point, news media tends to abuse its power.Especially since they tend to be driven by the profit motive to give people what they want, but not necessarily what they need.

But, On the other hand,the media functions as a major player in a modern "checks and balances" system.

The media news reporters also function as the "WATCHDOGS". Just to be sure that Presidents, Representatives, and Justices are not abusing their powers.

ROLE of News Media in American politics:

The role news media plays in the politics is that, it speaks to the need for every citizen to learn about their government. It also facilitates the participation of the citizens in the political process. Hence, it acts as a key to ensure a healthy democracy.

The free and balanced, traditional media (print and broadcast) foster transparency and the determination of important electoral information. The maximum number of people must trust the media inorder to provide them with the required information.

Democracy requires that the citizens must be informed. As they must be able to make educated voting choices prior to election.

The media also plays a common-carrier role. It provides a line of communication between the government and the people.

And by choosing which stories to expose and present to the public, the news media helps determine and classify the most important issues.

The journalists ‘set the agenda’. Agenda-setting is crucial and very important because it tends to shape which of the issues will be debated in public.

The media sometimes, acts as a public representative. It functions this way by holding the government officials accountable on behalf of the people.

The news media does the following roles:

reports the news, tends to serve as an intermediary between the government and the people, helps to determine which of the issues should be discussed, and keeps also helps people to actively get involved in society and politics.

INFLUENCE:

The news media can shape the government and politics in many ways. It can be summarized as follows:

1.News media , influences the political opinions of voters:

The media can SWAY the people who are uncommitted , unsure or have no strong opinion in the first place towards the candidates during elections.

And Since these voters tend to often decide the elections results, the power of media in elections can be substantial.

2.News media, determines the behavior of candidates and officials:

The Government officials and candidates for office during or prior to elections tend to carefully stage the various media events and also the photo oppurtunities.

The Critics tend to believe that much attention is focused on how politicians look and come across on camera, rather than on how good a job they are doing in public service.

For example: President Ronald Reagan's skills as a film and television actor helped and enabled him to communicate very effectively with the American voters.

3.News media influences by setting the public agenda.

News Media sources have many number of times been accused of emphasizing the scandal and high-interest issues at the expense of duller but more important political problems.

The government's priorities can be rearranged as a result of agenda setting.

2.What is "setting the agenda"?

Setting the Agenda - THE CREATION or ARRANGEMENT OF WHAT THE PUBLIC THINKS IS IMPORTANT

The journalists cant report on an infinite or many number of stories and incidents at once.

They must select the most newsworthy ones.

And by choosing which stories and news to present to the public, the news media hence helps to determine the most important issues.

And so, the journalists set the agenda. Agenda-setting is very crucial. As it shapes which of the issues will be debated and highlighted in public view.

Agenda setting tends to describe quiet a powerful influence of the media, the ability to tell the public what issues are important.

And so, Agenda-setting is the creation of the public awareness and also the concern of salient issues by the news media.

The news media tends to concentrate on a few issues and the subjects leads the public to perceive those issues as more important than other issues.

The critical aspects in the concept of an agenda-setting are as follows:

a) The role of mass communication is the over time frame for this phenomenon and different news media have different kinds of agenda-setting potential.

3. What are the differences between print and broadcast news?

The Major differences between print media(news) and broadcast media(news) can be summarized on the basis of seven basis for comparision as follows:

7 BASIS FOR COMPARISON

1.Meaning

2.Literacy

3.Deadline

4.Live discussion

5.Coverage

6.Language

7.Updation

a)MEANING:

*Print Media/news

Print media is the means of mass communication. It takes place in a form through which the information is disseminated in the printed form.

It can be daily , Weekly, Fortnightly, newspapers and Weekly , Fortnightly, Monthly magazines.

The Print journalism Involves the following functions: reporting, Collecting , local News, Events, etc to newspaper to its readers.

The main work amd aim of the print journalism is to give the news to the readers.

Print Media journalism also tends to cover the arts and entertainment, Education etc.

*Broadcast media (news)

Broadcast media(news) is a type of news that is presented to the public by Television or Through Digital Media (Internet , Websites etc

The information is In the form of Image, Videos, Text .

Broadcast media(news) tends to easily reach the targeted audience in a very quick amount of time and it is cheap. All of The news is published immediately.

The electronic media is one example in which electronic or electromechanical energy is employed to transmit and disseminate the information to the audience.

b)LITERACY:

*Print media

One should be literate to read the information provided. In the print media, the readers should be literate, inorder to understand the written content.

*Broadcast media

Literacy, is not the primary requirement, as anyone can watch and hear information provided( in t.v etc.)

c) DEADLINE

* Print media/news

Deadline exist in relation to the collection of news.There is always a time limit for the collection of news and any other information and its publication remains due until that time.

*Broadcast media/news

No such deadline, as the news can be updated anytime . In this type, there is no such deadline for the collection of news and information and it can be updated anytime.

d)LIVE DISCUSSION

* print media/news

Live discussion is Not possible as its printed already.

*Broadcast media/news

live discussion is Possible

e) COVERAGE

*Print media/news

The coverage is Comparatively less. The coverage of print media is limited to a particular region, city, state or country respectively.

*Broadcast media/news

The coverage is More. There is a worldwide reach of electronic media.

f) LANGUAGE

*Print media

Language is Reader-friendly- The language which is used in various forms of print-media, is reader-friendly, that is the information that is provided in such manner, that it is easily understandable to the reader

*Broadcast media/news

Language is Viewer-friendly : The language is used to convey the message. The language is known and understandable to a large group of people.

g) UPDATION

*Print media/news

updation is Periodical- The print media is updated periodically. The newspapers are published daily, while journals and magazines are published weekly or monthly, etc.

*Broadcast media/news

Updation is Frequent- the news and information can be updated anytime.

4. an example of the effect of the news media on American politics.

Acting as the Public Representative

Example: The classic example of watchdog journalism, or the activist reporting that attempts to hold government officials and institutions accountable and responsible for their actions.

The Watergate investigations of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The Washington Post reporters pursued allegations of the campaign misdeeds and the presidential crimes, despite the fact that many Americans did not care.

The Journalists have hence exposed many other government scandals and misdeeds, which also includes the Iran-Contra affair and the Lewinsky scandal.

Another Example:

During the year 2015, the major news outlets tend to cover Donald Trump in a way that was unusual given his low initial polling numbers. A high volume of media coverage preceded Trump’s rise in the polls.

Hence, Trump’s coverage was positive in tone. And he received far more “good press” than “bad press.”

This volume and tone of the coverage helped propel Trump to the top of Republican polls.

on the other hand, Hillary Clinton had by far the most negative coverage of any candidate.

In 11 of the months, her “bad news” overtook her “good news,” by a wide margin. Which contributed to the increase in her unfavorable poll ratings in the 2015.