Unit 3 -26I. Analyze the influence of media coverage, campaign advertising, and public opinion polls on election results

Matt Silva and Logan Garletts

1st

• “mirrors or molders” of public opinion.

• medium- is a means of communication; it transmits some kind of information

• Media is the plural of medium

•T.V., newspaper, radio, and magazine are the most impactful media sources• mass media is not a part of government• media does not primarily exist to influence the government• media presents people with political information

• the media provides a large amount of political information less directly by things such as articles about issues likes health care, crime, etc.

• media helps shape public agenda

•public agenda- the societal problems that government officials need to address

• private contributors and public treasury two main sources of funding

• small contributors- only 10% of people voting age make contributions

• Wealthy individuals and family make many contributions

• Candidates themselves make contributions

• Various non-party groups such as political action committes(PACs) PACs- political arms of special- interest and other organizations with a stake in electoral politics

• Temporary organizations- groups formed for the immediate purposes of a campaign

• Public Funds- subsidies from the federal and some state treasuries

• subsidy- grant of money

• campaign donations are a form of political participation

• Congress began to regulate campaign funding in 1907

• The federal election commission(FEC) administers all federal law dealing with campaign finance

• Today no person can gave more than $2100 to a federal candidate a primary election, no more than $5000 in any year to apolitical action committee, or $26,700 to a national party committee

• Limits on expenditures began in 1925 due to Buckley v. Valeo

• Congress first began to provide for the public funding of presidential campaigns in the Revenue Act of 1971

• hard money- money raised and spent to elect candidates for Congress and the White House

• Soft Money- funds given to party organizations

• public opinion polls- devices that attempt to collect information by asking people questions

• straw vote-used in the early 1930s polls that read the same question to a large group

• Scientific polling began in the mid 1930s with the efforts of George Gallup and Elmo Roper

• more than 1,000 regional polling organizations in the U.S.

• The polling process is 5 steps

1)Define the universe whole population) to be surveyed

2) construct a sample

3) prepare valid questions

4) select and control how the poll will be taken

5) analyze and report their finding to the public

• sample- a representative slice of the total universe

• random sample are more effective

• quota sample- a sample deliberately constructed to reflect several characteristics of a given universe

• quota sample- a sample deliberately constructed to reflect several characteristics of a given universe