And, thanks to his preexisting fame and ability to generate controversy, those stories were often about Trump. Did all the free press make a difference? Research reveals that many major media outlets attract partisan audiences , which reflects political biases in their coverage.
And that gap is clearly related to the rise of more partisan media sources. The media also perpetuate character-based scripts. According to a recent Pew Research Center study , 62 percent of Americans get their news via social media platforms.
What they might not realize is that the news they see is heavily filtered. On the other hand, social media gives users more direct access to candidates than ever before. And candidates have unprecedented control over the images they present. The photos news organizations choose to publish and such factors as their size and layout can also influence voter perceptions — and reveal possible bias.
Some led with an image of her husband. And other newspapers led with an image of Donald Trump. Published images also become part of the permanent record preserved on the internet. Much of the data Silver crunches come from polls, one of the most common topics of election coverage. This provision required radio stations, television stations and cable systems, which originated their own programming, to treat legally qualified political candidates equally when it came to selling or giving away air time.
The Communications Act of amended the Radio Act, and the equal time provision is located in Section of the Communications Act. This act was another crucial moment in broadcasting law history, because it created the Federal Communications Commission FCC,. FCC Commissioners inspect the latest in television In , the FCC enacted the Fairness Doctrine for the purpose of ensuring balanced and fair coverage of all controversial issues by a broadcast station.
It was later established that stations should also actively seek out issues of importance to their community and air programming about those issues. During the s, the Reagan Administration pressured the FCC to eliminate the Fairness Doctrine, but was unsuccessful in its attempts. Media consolidation has resulted in fewer companies owning more media sources, thereby increasing the concentration of ownership.
Concentration of media ownership, also known as media consolidation or media convergence, is a process whereby progressively fewer individuals or organizations control increasing shares of the mass media.
Contemporary research demonstrates increasing levels of consolidation, with many media industries already highly concentrated and dominated by a very small number of firms. Over the years there have been many merger attempts, some successful, and others unsuccessful. Over time the amount of media merging has increased and the amount of media outlets have increased.
This means that there are fewer companies owning more media sources, thereby increasing the concentration of ownership. In the United States, media consolidation has been in effect since the early twentieth century with major studios dominating movie production.
Before that, there was a period in which Edison monopolized the industry. Walt Disney Studies : Walt Disney is a major media conglomerate. This buyout caused a lot of hype and many people were worried that this merge would decrease diversity and the quality of journalism because of the increased political influence. There are also some large-scale owners in an industry that are not the causes of monopoly or oligopoly. For example, Clear Channel Communications, especially since the Telecommunications Act of , acquired many radio stations across the United States, and came to own more than 1, stations.
However, the radio broadcasting industry in the United States and elsewhere can be regarded as oligopolistic regardless of the existence of such a player.
Because radio stations are local in reach, each station licenses a specific part of spectrum by the FCC in a certain local area, any local market is served by a limited number of stations. In most countries, this system of licensing makes many markets local oligopolies.
The similar market structure exists for television broadcasting, cable systems, and newspaper industries, all of which are characterized by the existence of large-scale owners. Concentration of ownership is often found in these industries.
While local news is still available, it is becoming increasingly nationalized and local outlets are being purchased larger, national networks. Nationalization of the news refers to the modern phenomenon of the decline of local news networks and the increase in power of national news networks. A few factors are contributing to this trend, including the pressure in generating new and fresh content and the increasing power of conglomerates.
The internet age, digital cable and satellite broadcast have prservices, comes on-demand news programming. News operations have begun to feel the burden of needing to generate news content on a hour news cycle, while keeping material fresh on their regularly scheduled newscasts. This means around-the-clock coverage. Rather than having a certain deadline for scheduled newscasts to meet, reporters have to file stories as fast as they can. In the early days, local newscasts were seen more as a public service.
The style was straightforward. For instance, a newscast was divided into three blocks: news, sports, and weather. The news block was divided into local, national and international stories. Modern day news is now seen as a competition, and the stations must compete for relevance in the local market. Agenda-setting is a psychological process whereby the media continuously covers an issue so viewers think its a top-priority issue.
In reality, mass media only shows the audience what it comprehends as an important issue. It captivated the country—and news outlets—for years. Agenda-setting theory was formally developed by Dr. Max McCombs and Dr. Donald Shaw in a study on the presidential election. This way, the public agenda can form an understanding of the salience issues. Two basic assumptions underlie most research on agenda-setting: 1 the press and the media do not reflect reality; they filter and shape it; 2 media concentration on a few issues and subjects leads the public to perceive those issues as more important than other issues.
Before they attain the presidency status, Presidents are nominees for their own party. Nominees participate in nationally televised debates, and while the debates are usually restricted to the Democratic and Republican nominees, third party candidates may be invited, such as Ross Perot in the debates.
Nominees campaign across the country to explain their views, convince voters and solicit contributions. A key question is whether the European state broadcasters influenced voter information and turnout positively, and if so, was it because they had better coverage of news and political events than in the US?
The Norwegian case is typical in this respect. When parliament discussed whether to introduce a public television service, opponents pointed in horror to 'American conditions'. It was crucial that a state television service avoided the stupefying effects of commercial television, and offered serious and educational programming.
Adopting the BBC as the template, Norway's public television service started in Getting TV signals to people's homes was an expensive exercise due to Norway's mountainous terrain and its many small and rather isolated communities. It took more than two decades, and given the topography of certain places, local access to TV signals could vary randomly within the larger regions.
The provision of access can therefore be analysed as a "natural experiment". The effects of television can be estimated by comparing political behaviour in smaller geographical areas before and after communities gained access to the signals. This analysis shows that television caused an increase in voter turnout in the national parliament elections.
The effects are not very large, but clearly visible in the data. Television did not give viewers much information about local politics, and it is therefore rather surprising that we see a comparable increase in turnout at local council elections.
This could indicate that political coverage of national politics spills over to the local level. Fortunately, the period during which TV signals were made available across the country has excellent survey data.
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