CHAPTER 11The Media and Politics

‘The pictures in our heads’

The ideas and images that we have about politics, particularly people we do not personally know and events that do not happen close to home, are based on information and interpretations that are provided by others.

The process by which decisions are made about what to cover and how to cover it have important consequences for the interpreters of political news.

Constructing Political News Coverage

Walter Lippmann wrote: ‘The only feeling that anyone can have about an event that he does not experience is the feeling aroused by his mental image of that event.’

‘The facts of modern life do not spontaneously take a shape in which they can be known. They must be given a shape by somebody.’

Questions: Are the media objective in their coverage? Are some media reliable and others not? What possible sources of bias exist in political

news coverage?

What do the media produce and what do citizens consume?

Only a small portion of television and radio time is devoted to public affairs.

American programming has always dominated the English-Canadian market (see Figure 11.1).

A 2007 survey conducted for the Information Technology Association of Canada found that television continues to be seen as the most important and trustworthy medium.

What do the media produce and what do citizens consume?, cont’d

Newspapers are relied on for local news, although there are exceptions in both the English- and French-language market.

Magazine and film markets are dominated by American products in the English-Canadian market (French Canadians in Quebec have a preference for French-language magazines).

Media products that are not explicitly political may nonetheless include images, ideas, and messages that have social and political significance. What examples can you think of?

What Determines the Mass Media Product?

Several factors influence how reality is processed and how news is reported by the media.

These factors may be understood as a series of filters that are more likely to let through certain information and images than others.

Can you think of recent examples related to the uprisings across North Africa?

The Economic Filter

Most media organs are privately owned, and as such they are subject to the law of the marketplace.

Must be able to sell a product that will attract enough subscribers, advertisers, buyers, or patrons—the exact source of revenue depends on the media product—to cover production costs and earn a competitive return on invested capital.

Economic filter, cont’d

This filter operates mainly through the influence that advertising and industry structure have on the media product.

Dependence on advertising may reduce the likelihood that powerful economic interests will be portrayed in a negative light.

There is an economic pressure on “ad-dependent” broadcasters to maximize the amount of high audience-appeal programming during prime-time hours.

Economic Filter and Industry Structrue

Concentrated ownership in some segments of the media industry (notably newspapers).

Cross-media ownership by some conglomerates such as Time Warner, Sony, IBM, Philips NV, and Disney.

Does ownership matter? What are the implications for democracy

of concentration of ownership of media?

The Legal and Regulatory Filter

Regulation is comparatively light in the case of print media: Law of defamation, human rights commissions, ‘hate speech’ (the case of the B.C. human rights

commission and Maclean’s publication of excerpts from Mark Steyn’s America Alone).

Canadian editions in the case of popular American magazines (the ‘split-run edition’ policy)

Regulation and Broadcasting

Canadian content guidelines for television and radio (see Box 11.2)

The economics of broadcasting and the temptation toward ‘clone programming’

To compensate for the unfavourable economics of domestic production, Ottawa offers subsidies and direct intervention: Telefilm Canada, CBC, National Film Board.

Regulation of ‘New Media’

Regulation of the Internet remains relatively slight in Canada and other democracies.

Websites and those who communicate via cyberspace in Canada fall under the jurisdiction of Canadian governments and are subject to the provisions of the Criminal Code and federal and provincial human rights laws, as are those who communicate through traditional media.

The Technological Filter

The visual character of television lends itself to the personalization of reality—an emphasis on individuals and personalities at the expense of broad social forces that are not captured by the eye of a camera .

The media, and in particular the technology of television, are disposed towards the personal, the immediate, and the concrete.

What are the democratic implications of this tendency?

The Technological Filter, cont’d.

The first Law of Commercial Television: ‘Thou shalt give them enough jolts per minute (JPMs) or thou shalt lose them.’ Morris Wolfe What are the democratic implications of a JPM

culture? How do youth, if at all, manifest this JPM orientation? Lack of focus? Lack of depth?

Politicians and others who regularly come under the eye of the camera have long understood the biases of the visual medium.

The Technological Filter, cont’d.

Photo opportunities and highly structured, controllable events are among their ways of using television’s need for the immediate, the personal, and the visual to their own advantage.

Television has had an enormous impact on how elections are fought, how special interests attempt to influence public policy, and how public officials communicate with the people.

The Biases of Television

An exaggerated emphasis on action, and particularly on two-sided conflict.

Dependence on a repertory of stereotypes

‘The Philosophy behind the 30-Second TV News Story’ (see Box 11.3)

The Organizational Filter

The needs and routine procedures of these organizations influence the content of the news: both what is reported and how it is covered.

Making the News: Those who have a reputation for being influential

or who occupy an official position of some power are more likely to make the news than those whose public profile is lower or whose position does not, in the eyes of news-gatherers, automatically confer on them a mantle of credibility.

The Organizational Filter, cont’d.

News management & ‘pseudo-events’ (Boorstin) Use of ‘experts’

With respect to reportage about the uprisings in North Africa, whose expertise in this week’s newscast to do you find reliable? Which experts are you wary of?

Importance of predictability: ‘The more predictable the event, the more likely it will be covered.’ How does this statement jive with attention to protests across North

Africa?

Visual appeal: ‘[P]riority is naturally given to the story in a given category that promises to yield the most dramatic or visual film footage, other things being equal.’

The Ideological Filter

Which media sources have right-of-center or left-of-centre biases?

The challenge: News and public affairs reporting focuses on

conflict and controversy, often involving government officials and powerful private interests, so this naturally gives the impression that those in the media are anti-establishment critics.

Ideological Extremes are the Exception

Studies suggest that the mass media are ‘more important in confirming or reinforcing existing opinions than they are in changing opinions’. What are the implications for democracy of a multi-channel media

universe where one seeks news information that reinforces one’s views and avoide those that challenge them?

This is partly due to the ideological orthodoxy of most writers, producers, editors, and others who have an influence on the media product.

They cluster mainly in the uncontroversial centre of the political spectrum. Who wins? Who loses?