Political Communication & Journalism
Week 1: Mediatization
Bennett, W. L. (2016). News: The politics of illusion. University of
Chicago Press.
Daily Us (before 1990s)
- brought people in society together around pretty much the same reporting
of common problems, threats, and triumphs (and still does when
something really big happens)
Daily Me (after 1990s)
- Information system delivers what each of us wants to know about, when,
where, and how we like it.
"Digital Natives"
- People born after 1980s, who have or will come of age in a highly
personalized digital media environment. These digital generations are
more likely to experience The Daily Me, as they get information through
Facebook and Twitter and by surfing the web.
Causes of decline of traditional news
- The advertising dollars that once supported local news media are flowing
to digital platforms such as Google that target consumers in more refined
and personalized ways.
- Many critics worry that the quality of reporting is deteriorating,
contributing to the growing numbers of citizens who have stopped
following news produced by conventional journalism organizations.
- Social media sites are increasingly popular as news feeds, with some 30
percent of the public getting news from Facebook.
Why Traditional Journalism Matters?
- Yet many of the blogs, webzines, and online news organizations are
merely recycling the shrinking journalism content produced by
increasingly threatened news organizations.
- While remedies such as putting up paywalls for access to online
information may work for specialized publications such as the Wall Street
Journal, they do not seem destined to save journalism in general.
- The immediate problem is that as long as there are free news outlets,
those charging for the same information will not likely attract many paying
customers.
- Despite these perceived limitations, a strong case can still be made that
independent journalism is the only hope for regular and reliable
information about what those in power are doing.
Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism Results
- Although this information system seemed rich and diverse, with some 53
different outlets for news, tracking the origins of actual news items
showed that 95 percent of the stories containing original information
"came from traditional media—most of them from the newspaper." Even
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more distressing was a look back in time showing that the sole surviving
paper, the Baltimore Sun, reported 32 percent fewer stories between 1999
and 2009, and 73 percent fewer than in 1991.
How to fix the news?
- Before we decide that fixing the news is a simple matter of returning to
core values, we must address a serious problem that stands in the way: a
commercial media system that has been in a downward spiral of declining
audiences, revenues, and product quality for several decades.
- The current system has become bent on finding content that delivers
desired consumers to advertisers, often to little avail.
- When the Internet suddenly offered cheaper and more precise means of
targeting both ads and content to audiences, advertisers and audiences
began to drift away from conventional media formats, leaving the news
itself as an odd piece out in the media picture.
- In short, economic problems are not the only challenges to "saving" the
legacy press system. The public, particularly younger citizens, increasingly
prefer different forms of information than engaging with the lumpy
collections of content delivered in newspapers or television newscasts.
The Citizen Gap
- Other studies claim that younger citizens are meaningfully engaged with
politics online but simply do not go in depth in following stories the way
older citizens do.
- Younger people are more likely to absorb news about selected issues such
as gay and lesbian rights and immigration than about other issues such as
oil drilling or partisan debates about shrinking the government.
- It is hard to sort out which came first, the fragmentation of society into
warring political interests or the fragmentation of the media that produces
different information flows in so many different media outlets.
- It makes sense to think that both of these changes interact to produce
publics that are harder to reach, find less in common, and view politics
and participation in very different ways.
Governing with the News
- Political communication scholar Timothy Cook described the processes
through which politicians and journalists have become inseparable as
"governing with the news."
- Journalists in this system receive a fresh and economical daily supply of
news, along with insider status and professional respect when they land
the big interviews and inside scoops.
Press Politics
- There isn't a single major and sometimes minor decision reached at the
White House, reached up on the Hill, reached at the State Department or
the Pentagon, that does not have the press in mind. The way in which this
is going to be sold to the American people is a function of the way in which
the press first understands it, and then accepts it, and then is prepared to
propagate a certain vision to the American people.
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The abiding paradox of News-making
- News professes to be fresh, novel, and unexpected, but is actually
remarkably patterned across news outlets and over time. Rather than
providing an unpredictable and startling array of happenings, the content
of news is similar from day to day, not only in featuring familiar
personages and familiar locales, but also in the kinds of stories set forth
and the morals these stories are supposed to tell.
Infotainment
- mass media programming that is intended primarily to entertain, but also
provides political news
- The difference is that the characters in political programming often seem
less sympathetic and emotionally accessible than the young and
vulnerable characters starring in reality programs.
Getting Spun
- Like the reporting on the run-up to the Iraq War, many politically heated
stories raise troubling questions about what journalists should do when
officials say things that are inconsistent with available evidence.
- Despite the seemingly obvious role of the press to sort out facts and
evidence, journalists have a surprisingly difficult time when politicians
serve up distortions and outright lies.
- Rather, journalists must channel images of reality through external
sources, and the safest sources are those who are elected by the public
and who have the power to shape political outcomes.
- Sometimes those in power also have reasons to confuse or distort the
issues—reasons ranging from their own value biases to saying what they
must in order to attract the financial support they need to stay in power.
Indexing
- Refers to the tendency of mainstream news organizations to index or
adjust the range of viewpoints in a story to the dominant positions of
those whom journalists perceive to have enough power to affect the
outcome of a situation. Journalists pegging info to prominent powerful
sources
- Should both sides of the story be covered when one is clearly wrong?
How do people react?
- As people become bombarded with spin and are encouraged to choose
sides in a confusing information system in which the press offers little
perspective, it is not surprising that there are many different information
strategies that people pursue.
- Many have simply tuned out. Some turn to political comedy. Others
choose news with points of view that agree with their own political beliefs
and values. And social media recommendations become a convenient
filter for many.
Definition of News
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- News consists of (a) the reporting of actions and events (b) over a growing
variety of publicly accessible media (c) by journalism organizations and an
expanding spectrum of other content producers, including ordinary
citizens.
- As the news process expands beyond the legacy media, standards for
selecting, formatting, sourcing, and documenting reports become less
shared and more open to challenges about accuracy and relevance.
- At the height of the mass media era, journalists were often regarded as
"gatekeepers" who screened information (ideally) according to its truth
and importance.
- More recently, as the news habits change and the capacity for direct news
production and distribution by citizens grows, gatekeeping by the legacy
press is less effective and, in the view of some observers, less important.
News Freedom and Democracy
- The irony of this is that the First Amendment with its protections for press
freedom was intended to enable an independent press to stand up to
government power.
- While press freedom remains a crucial protection in democracy, it has also
become a shield for corporate media to avoid social responsibility.
- More than in any other advanced democracy, political information in the
United States is manufactured and sold with few of the quality controls
that even far less important household products have.
Nuances in relation to mediatization
- Mediatization yes, but no universal fourth phase:
o It is not a global or unidirectional trend
o Media do not, and will not take over political functions
o Moderation of mediatization, depending on political system, media
system, strength of parties etc.
- But: on social media, many politicians follow this commercial media logic
Key Points:
- The news environment has changed as a result of digital media
- People are consuming news differently
- The economy of news production has changed (advertising shifts)
- The repercussions are severe, in terms of media credibility
- The definition of news is changing too.
TUTORIAL NOTES
- News: The Politics of Illusion (Bennett, 2016)
o I. Key points
o I. The news environment has changed as a result of digital media
o II. People are consuming news differently
o III. The economy of news production has changed (advertising
shifts)
o IV. The repercussions are severe: This media credibility
o V. The definition of what is news is changing
- News in a changing information system
