Media & Politics   Term Paper ID:27139 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Describes the influence of the media on politics, & vice versa. Focuses on Chomsky's MANUFACTURING CONSENT & PRIMARY COLORS by Anonymous.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Describes the influence of the media on politics, & vice versa. Focuses on Chomsky's MANUFACTURING CONSENT & PRIMARY COLORS by Anonymous. Paper Introduction: INTRODUCTION Democracy is prized in America, and a number of institutions assert that they are dedicated to preserving democracy by practicing and protecting certain specific freedoms. One of the institutions that promotes itself as a protector of democracy is the media (once known as the press because it was almost entirely oriented toward print, and now called the media with the addition of radio and television). The media delivers the news to the American people; it works through, and jealously protects, the First Amendment values of a Free Press and Freedom of Speech. The special role accorded the media derives from the view that the media serves as a stand-in for the public at large. Reporters go where the majority of people cannot and find information the average person cannot. The media sees to it that Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Critics, however, ask whether the citizen is any betterinformed in spite of (or because of) all this choice. "The Political Economy of the Mass Media: An Interview with Edward S. The press corps is calledthe "scorps," a word that makes the press into a leech-like body followingeveryone around in search of scandal: "They're pigs and we should neverforget that. In this campaign and in that of 1996, media images was more importantthan substance for both campaigns, and images were created and challengedalike through massive expenditures on television advertising. In this view, the media undermines democracy by preventing the averageperson from participating fully or from being informed of alternativechoices, different ideas, and different candidates. In terms of the effecton newsgathering and reporting by advertisers, officials, and businessleaders, as well as by the corporate ownership of the media, the questionof what constitutes "respectable discourse" should be noted. In 1992, the Republicancampaign centered on several images and symbols, including the amorphous"family-values" promulgated in particular by Vice President Quayle. and Noam Chomsky. Another view is that the media ispart of the establishment and not really interested in challenging any ofthe accepted institutions or ideas of the ruling elite, whether that eliteis considered liberal or conservative by others. The control of the parties over elections today is in effectat both the national and state levels. The mediasees to it that the government and other public institutions fulfill theirduties and live up to the ideals of this society, then informing the publicof that fact or of lapses. The fact that the author wantedto remain anonymous was as titillating as the book itself, and for monthsthere was speculation as to who the author might be. The fourth filter is the development of right-wing corporate antagonists to the media to put pressure upon them to followthe corporate agenda, a filter developed extensively in the 197 s whenmajor corporations and wealthy right-wingers became increasinglydissatisfied with political developments in the West and with mediacoverage. . CONCLUSION The media becomes a tool in the election rather than merely anobserver. His admission created as muchcontroversy as the novel. At the same time, he was seen asbetter able to cope with foreign affairs than was his opponent, BillClinton, but in a time of recession when there was no war in which Americawas directly involved, the domestic agenda held more sway than did foreignconcerns. Many journalists wereconsidered for the role and denied that they were Anonymous. Blumenthal points out that Bush had usedthe nativist approach before in 1988 by citing images such as the Pledge ofAllegiance, the flag, and so on. INTRODUCTION Democracy is prized in America, and a number of institutions assertthat they are dedicated to preserving democracy by practicing andprotecting certain specific freedoms. After that, television has been a key part of every campaign,and the nurturing of an image that comes over well on television has been akey strategy (Jamieson 158). New York: Oxford University, 198 .Larson, C.U. This imagery played into thefears of the public regarding crime, and the image of a black criminal mayhave been intended to play into specific fears among white Americans aboutblack criminals invading their neighborhoods. COARSENING THE DEBATE The 1992 Republican presidential campaign was unsuccessful, andclearly its persuasive techniques were inadequate to overcome theperception that President Bush was not able to cope with the domesticproblems that most concerned Americans. Television helpedKennedy win the election, while it gave Richard Nixon a bad image he couldnot overcome. Thisreliance on the media has subjected campaigns more and more to the rulesand mores of television advertising, and this is one of the elementsinvolved in charges that television has contributed to the trivializationof the American political scene. Readers were convinced that the book had beenwritten by someone with an intimate knowledge of the campaign, meaningeither someone working on it or an observant journalist. For George Bush, some of theusual goals were not necessary. One of the institutions thatpromotes itself as a protector of democracy is the media (once known as thepress because it was almost entirely oriented toward print, and now calledthe media with the addition of radio and television). The third filter is the need for souring, whereby"the mass media are drawn into a symbiotic relationship with powerfulsources of information by economic necessity and reciprocity of interest"(Herman and Chomsky 14). The second filter isadvertising, which is responsible for most of the media's income and whichshapes what is discussed by proscribing certain issues on threat ofwithdrawal of support. The campaign in 1988 had been successful in painting MichaelDukakis as incompetent in the face of rising crime, and the infamous WillieHorton ad (though not produced by the campaign) had been one of thepersuasive techniques used to accomplish this and to make George Bush seemthe candidate able to address this concern. Adsfor George Bush used a negative fantasy to create an image for hisopponent, Michael Dukakis. Packaging the Presidency. Nixon. They worry less aboutsubstance and more about appearance, as might be expected when catering toa media largely interested in the pithy and the immediate: "We wererolling. Such rules are accepted when they refer to what"everyone" disagrees with, but what people fail to realize is that suchdecisions on respectable discourse are made all the time to limit debate.For all the complaining about left-wing bias on television by right-winggroups, for instance, there are no real left-wingers on television. New York: Longman, 1988.Blumenthal, S. One much-criticized image was based on thevisage of Willie Horton, a black criminal who had killed while on furlough,and a revolving door placed in a prison. Thespecial role accorded the media derives from the view that the media servesas a stand-in for the public at large. This manipulation generally goes unexaminedand unchallenged because the news media is complicitous in the process.The making of an image, a practice which every candidate undertakes, fitsthe shape of the news in America today, especially television news.Bennett notes, however, that this sort of practice is open not only toabuse but to long-term damage to the political process: The lessons of history tell us that it is precisely through the repeated use of normalized political images that the greatest political deception and distortion occurs. PRIMARY COLORS The 1996 campaign was chronicled by a number of reporters andpolitical observers who analyzed the way the candidates approached theircampaigns and the way the media covered them, but one of the most startlingand popular of these accounts was the fictionalized account published asPrimary Colors and written by Anonymous. The model they offer is a model of limits,pressures, and overall emphasis rather than of a conspiracy. This isalso an ideological stance to a great degree. At the same time, the press is demonizedby the candidate and his followers in private. This reality operates often without being spoken while stillbeing very powerful. A different view noted belowis that the media is driven more by money and ratings and has noideological bias, only a sensationalistic bias which is also damaging todemocracy. Works CitedAnonymous. It is less clear if the publicunderstands how the parties and candidates make use of television news.Americans today have a wide variety of news outlets from which they cangather their news, including newspapers, publications, books, broadcasttelevision stations, radio stations, the Internet, and cable. Sandy Maisel (ed.). Klein's earlier lie and the lies told by his editors created agood deal of anger in the press corps once Klein admitted authorship. However, the media has been blamed more andmore in recent years as an institution that damages democracy in a varietyof ways ranging from increasing the costs of democracy to focusing oninconsequentials and failing to cover issues completely, fairly, or at all. What is new is that such campaigning is associatedmore and more with television, blamed for contributing to the degree ofnegativity. The news media is part of the ruling establishment, and as such it hasa certain stake in maintaining the status quo just as do political leadersand business leaders. Reporters have a stake in getting a "good" story, andofficials have a stake in seeing that the story is "good" for them. "Going native: Bush's not-so-secret strategy." The New Republic (September 28, 1992), 1 -11.Brady, David W. Thus, a hidden problem with reporting "official positions" as the main news of the day is the resulting likelihood of communicating a considerable amount of deception, lying, and political fabrication disguised as fact (Bennett 72).The images projected in the media have considerable strength even thoughthere is usually a weak relationship between image and reality: "The thingthat makes an image compelling is not sound logic based in objective fact,but its appeal to hopes and fears based on self-fulfilling logic and self-serving fact" (Bennett 97). As an incumbent, Bush was running more onhis record than his name, personality, or even ideology. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1987.McChesney, Robert W. ("These other people are not America," the Republican Party chairman, Richard Bond, said in Houston about Democrats--by far the most defining statement of the entire convention) (Blumenthal 11). Blumenthal describes thisstrategy as an appeal to nativism, or a desperately defensive nationalism.This was the ideological core of the Republic strategy, whereas the taxissue was a pocketbook matter. Reporters go where the majority ofpeople cannot and find information the average person cannot. Herman." Monthly Review (January 1989), 35- 45.Reiter, Howard L. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. The effect of havingany rules at all about what constitutes "respectable discourse," however,is to set up a conflict between heterodoxy and orthodoxy, between the vastpossibilities of what could be debated and the reality of what will bedebated. Kennedy and Richard M. Bennett findsfirst of all that the mass media always retreat from any opportunity toexplain the power structures and political process behind issues on thepublic agenda. . The media is involved in a process of "engineeringconsent," or what Noam Chomsky has called "manufacturing consent." Themodel of the mass media embodied in the idea of the engineering of consentis opposed to the accepted conception of the media as serving a role in ademocracy that largely follows rather than creates public opinion. Bennett rightly finds thatconcerns about bias depend very heavily on the ideological biases of theobserver, and he offers a different way of assessing news bias by lookingfor universal information problems that hinder the efforts of citizens ofwhatever ideological bent to take part in political life. Much of the advertising that takesplace in a campaign is shaped by the parties, each of which uses the mediain a number of ways to get a candidate's message out to the public. Only stories with a strong orientation to elite interests can pass through the five filters unobstructed and receive ample media attention. Lance. AsHerman and Chomsky show in their book, Manufacturing Consent, the press ismore often a follower of the entrenched leadership than of public opinionand serves a role as shaper of public opinion by giving the "officialversion" of reality. Buckley. They may seethe press as an obstacle, but it is an obstacle that can be maneuvered intodelivering the message the candidate wants. It is insidious because it begins with proscribingissues "everyone" agrees should not be featured, as Martin Mayer indicateswhen he writes with reference to libel laws and laws for equal time ontelevision: "These rules are by no means absolute--nobody gives whiteracists, anti-Semites or Shiite terrorists a right of reply (thoughsodomites, black racists and IRA terrorists will probably get a turn at thewheel)" (Mayer 117). A trueliberal like Noam Chomsky is almost invisible in the American media. Itchanges over time--there are issues talked about on television today thatwere hardly discussed anywhere in public in the past. Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 1992.Mayer, Martin. The model also explains how the media can conscientiously function when even a superficial analysis of the evidence would indicate the preposterous nature of many of the stories that receive ample publicity in the press and on the network news broadcasts (McChesney 671).The first filter is the fact that ownership of the media is highlyconcentrated among a few dozen of the largest for-profit corporations inthe world, and many of these have extensive holdings in other industriesand nations. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1994.Herman, Edward S. Congress." In The Parties Respond, L. This provedaccurate. The media today is much criticized for its failings and purporteddamaging of democracy by political leaders, candidates, pundits, and inmovies and books like the recent Primary Colors. New York: Time Warner: 1996.Bennett, W. Leaders of the political parties in and out of government know thevalue of the news and have developed many ways of manipulating the way theyare covered, an issue that surfaces from time to time when the news mediabegins to resent being manipulated or somehow has a particular reason foropposing that manipulation. New York: Longman, 1993. THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA There are varying views of the role the media has in a democracy boththeoretically and with reference to actual events. Some of the criticismsare fair and accurate, and some may be less so. One of thesedenials was made by Joe Klein, who covered the campaign for CBS and forNewsweek magazine. News: The Politics of Illusion. DEMOCRACY AND THE MEDIA The United States is shaped by its federal form of government, and theparty system operates in effect to make it not one national two-partysystem but fifty state party systems (Brady and Buckley 322). and Kara M. It was not necessary to enhance thecandidate's name recognition--he was President of the United States andwell known to the electorate. The other playedoff certain core American values and tried to create an image of GeorgeBush as representing these values as a bulwark against the rising tide ofcrime, secularism, and lack of patriotism. Primary Colors. Their desire for profit severely influences the newsoperations and overall content of the media. Advertising methodsdeveloped to sell cars and soap have been adapted to sell candidates andideas. Weeks after his denial, he held a press conference andstated that he was indeed Anonymous. Larson emphasizes the need for a campaign todevelop goals, strategies, and tactics: Every campaign establishes persuasive goals or objectives for a product, person, or idea; articulates strategies for getting to the goals; and then develops and executes tactics to implement the strategy for marketing the product, supporting the candidate, or promoting the idea or ideology (Larson 263).Larson states that such goals should be explicit and measurable, and theyare then supplemented by campaign strategies. Most often the charge of bias is offered by some conservativegroup seeing a liberal bias in the news media, though liberal groups havepurported to find a conservative bias as well. Althoughpropaganda is not the sole function of the media, the authors note, it is"a very important aspect of their overall service" (Herman and Chomskyxi). Another group sees the media as having the aforementioned left-wingbias to such a degree that the news is distorted in one direction, with thepress being antagonistic to the establishment, to conservatives andconservative values, and so damaging to the values of democracy. The crowds were good in New Hampshire; the money was good; thepress was good" (Anonymous 99). Klein shows that the consultants surrounding the candidate areobsessed by news coverage and with getting images and sound-bites on theair that will serve their candidate's interests. In the process,democracy is demeaned--the people are not fully informed, they are alsomanipulated by the candidates and the media, and in the end the winnerspends more money, performs the best sound-bites, and gets by withoutcommitting too great an error. Herman and Chomsky do not claim that this is in any way a consciousconspiracy. It has been reported that voters who heard the debate on theradio had a different impression and saw Nixon as the winner of the debate,while those watching television were attracted to the charismatic youngercandidate. This is the information bias ofpersonalization, encouraging people to take an egocentric rather than asocially concerned point of view. Making News. Critics seethe huge amounts of money being spent on campaigns as necessary because oftelevision and as destructive of democracy because only the rich cancompete, because raising such huge amounts of money makes candidatesbeholden to special interests, and because elections become a contest as towho can spend more. Treat them like the pigs they are. The media deliversthe news to the American people; it works through, and jealously protects,the First Amendment values of a Free Press and Freedom of Speech. Persuasion: reception and responsibility. In the 1992 campaign, family values and the issue of taxes becamecentral to the Bush campaign. However, by fictionalizing the story, Klein wasperhaps able to be more critical and more revealing. Critics furthercharge that "many citizens--perhaps the majority--live in a state ofconfusion and ignorance about government and political issues" (Bennett 1). The fifth filter is the ideology of anticommunism, which waslong integral to Western political culture. Klein is hardly the first to point out the nature of the press corpsfollowing the campaign or the way the media is manipulated by those incharge of a campaign. This is accomplished withimages, sound-bites, and money spent on advertising. They're the enemy--they're what's standing between us and victory" (Anonymous 124). The media instead concentrate on the people engaged inpolitical combat over issues. In addition to the use of television for debates, the parties makefull use of television's power as an advertising medium to feature acandidate or an idea. New York: Pantheon, 1988.Jamieson, Kathleen Hall. Hermanand Chomsky refer to "choices for publicity and suppression" that they sayare "comprehensible in terms of system advantage," and they cite "modes ofhandling favored and inconvenient materials (placement, tone, context,fullness of treatment) [that] differ in ways that serve political ends"(Herman and Chomsky 3). Some seethis system as chaotic, while others consider it too highly structured.There are many suggestions as to how to reform the system decide the make-up of the leadership (Reiter 84-85). Candidates manipulate the press in order to win. In 1992, though, the Republican campaignused this approach in an even more desperate way: Bush's besieged party makes an appeal to those who believe themselves to be the real Americans as opposed to those "others," whose differences are inherently corrupting and lowering the country. Television campaigning was used in the 195 s, but the real drivetoward increased use of television came with the presidential debates of196 between John F. Herman and Chomsky provide a framework of five filters which theystate shape the news and decide what is discussed and what is not. The public may be influenced by these efforts, butat the same time the public understands that it is being manipulated andappealed to through advertising. "Coalitions and Policy in the U.S. Such criticisms have mounted over the past two decades since the Watergateera. The Republicanscould be seen as running two campaigns, the first one attempting toposition the candidate as trustworthy and as being the best person todefend the public from the rampaging democratic Congress. In other words, how does the media becomesomething that serves the interests of the corporate and governing eliterather than of the people who believe it serves their interests? Parties and Elections in Corporate America. It has rather developed because of the prominence of thepress, the realities of newsgathering and the degree to which it relies onsources, and long term efforts on both sides to manipulate events for theirnewsworthiness. The American public is fed a diet of disinformationput out by official sources. Theseaccount for why the media acts in the interests of the corporate andgoverning elite. The people expect the media in its newsgathering andwatchdog roles to cut through the advertising language and show the truth,but the media is more likely to settle for the images and sound-bites thatnow pass for political discourse. Political parties are not mentionedin the Constitution but developed soon after the formation of the Americangovernment. Respectablediscourse is what the media deems proper to be discussed in public. Since the government and the press seem to beat odds, or at least to be on opposite sides of a process, the questionarises as to how this operates. Campaign battles are nothing new, and forall the charges about the growing use of negative campaigning in theelections of 1992 through 1996, there is nothing new about that sort ofcampaigning, either. On cable andthe Internet there are 24-hour news outlets such as CNN, Fox News, MSNBC,CNBC, and C-Span. One view is that themedia is a gadfly, standing outside the corridors of power and observingand reporting with some objectivity. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.