Everyday Politics Blog

Partisanship and Media

Michael Xenos

Recently there has been a fair amount of buzz surrounding White House comments about Fox News, including statements about whether it is a “real” news network and the extent to which administration officials would treat it as such.  The conflict has provided a veritable treasure trove of grist for pundits on the right and left, and it has also drawn a fair amount of interest from regular citizens interested in politics. An interesting sampling of the latter can be found in the comment feed associated with a recent New York Times article on the issue.

One of the benefits of a class such as the one you’re taking lies in its ability to put things like this in context.  Indeed, that’s one of the points of this blog as well.

If you were in a history class, you might be reminded of the various other presidents from earlier eras that have taken similarly aggressive stances toward the media, typically with poor results (e.g. Grant, McKinley, FDR, Nixon, see here for a discussion of this). In a political science course, however, perhaps the most important contextual information comes from research on the increasingly partisan nature of media consumption. In other words, comments from current administration officials may be similar to historical statements like Spiro Agnew’s famous quip about “nattering nabobs of negativism," but there is a new wrinkle in the sense that the current comments belong to a qualitatively different media environment with respect to news programming and political partisanship.

As Laura mentioned in a previous post, scholars have suggested that one of the byproducts of our new media environment is that people have much more control over what they watch, listen to, and read than they once did, and this has implications for how the media and politics are related.  Think about your parents or grandparents for example, and how they had to walk across the room to turn a heavy, clunky knob in order to change the channel on the television.  The walking was strenuous, but don’t feel too bad for them. They typically had only 3 or 4 channels to choose from. In contrast, today we have a practically unlimited variety of content to choose from at any hour of the day or night. The political implications of this are that many people now exercise a fair amount of filtering with respect to how and where they get political news – liberals can watch MSNBC and read the Daily Kos while conservatives can watch Fox and read Hot Air. (The two blogs mentioned here represent the most influential liberal and conservative blogs, respectively, as measured by political scientist David Karpf’s useful Blogosphere Authority Index.)  As far as cable television news goes, one is reminded of Stanford professor Shanto Iyengar’s research on partisan preferences for news content, which uses a clever experiment to demonstrate that there are clear differences in how liberals and conservatives react to identical headlines and news stories, based on which network they are attributed to.  (For the original paper, click here; for a more accessible write up in the Washington Post, click here.)  At the same time, researchers like Princeton’s Markus Prior suggest that an even bigger trend is for many people to exercise their newfound range of content choice to avoid political content altogether in favor of more entertaining programming.

So, it may be useful to think about some of these trends as you hear or perhaps even participate in more partisan discussions of these matters.  Do you see variation in the amount and kinds of political media consumed by you and your friends based on their levels of interest in politics and partisan leanings?  What implications does this have for how you think about the current flap between the White House and Fox News?

Jon Stewart: Friend or Foe of Democracy?

Michael Xenos

In an earlier post, Laura closed a rather depressing entry with an offer for you to cheer up by indulging in some of Jon Stewart’s comedy.  But last week’s “Jon Stewart vs. Jim Cramer” confrontation raises a number of issues that remind us that laugh-out-loud comedy and serious issues related to American Politics are not always at odds. Although a mound of statistics would suggest that very few of you reading this have not already seen some of what I am referring to, I’ll include the following link in case you just never quite got around to viewing those links and clips that people may have sent you.

In addition to being wildly entertaining in its own right, the week-long confrontation, culminating in Cramer’s appearance on The Daily Show last Friday brings to light some of the principal features of political comedy (including The Daily Show, but also shows like The Colbert Report, and occasionally Saturday Night Live) that are often cited as evidence that we should be either alarmed or pleased that more and more young people are claiming to learn something about politics from people like Jon Stewart and comedy programming in general.

On the positive side, this exchange (much like its counterpart, the famous Jon Stewart appearance on CNN’s Crossfire years ago) illustrates the unique perspective comics like Stewart are able to offer on matters of public interest. As Stewart frequently points out, he is not a regular journalist and claims no special expertise on matters political or economic. As such, he is unconstrained by journalistic norms such as objectivity, and can say things and ask questions that television journalists simply cannot. Thus he is able to in this case develop a strong critique of his guest, and an entire class of television news content. Simply put, Stewart is able to engage in a serious discussion about the proper role of journalism (in this case, financial journalism), even if it is in the context of jokes and humor.

In addition to providing a kind of critical commentary that other news sources cannot, good political comedy also makes politics fun. This is valuable because as your textbook illustrates, for most people, most of the time, taking the time to learn something about politics is an uphill battle. Except for those who have an inherent interest in politics and public affairs, most people find little reward in learning about the issues of the day, and as a result, we often have to be careful about how we interpret things like opinion poll results. By weaving humor into discussions of current affairs, and yes, as Joe Scarborough points out, making the occasional funny face, Stewart makes otherwise unattractive information enjoyable to think about. According to political scientist Matthew Baum, by combining the serious and the amusing, political entertainment programming or soft news can serve as a “gateway” to learning more about serious issues, especially for those who are generally less interested in politics. Although Baum’s research primarily focuses on soft news coverage of foreign policy matters, the basic principle is applicable to a variety of political issues. In the case of Stewart vs. Cramer, it is possible that the event led a considerable number of people to have conversations and consume media content related to the financial crisis that they otherwise may have easily passed up.

Detractors of political comedy and soft news often point out that the thrust of the content is usually negative. Whether in the form of the monologues at the start of late-night talk shows, skits on SNL, or more in-depth “correspondent coverage” on The Daily Show, political comedy usually involves highlighting embarrassing gaffes or personal foibles, which leads many to worry that a steady diet of such content might fuel cynicism and disaffection from public affairs the political process. The same principle might be invoked with respect to Stewart’s media criticism. By making fun of serious news (financial or otherwise), some people worry that such humor may end up turning even more people away from programs and content that, despite their problems, are often a reasonable source of information about political issues of the day.

Either way, the increasing popularity of such programming further illustrates a broader issue, which is that important elements of how individuals learn about politics and form opinions are changing in response to a shifting media landscape, which makes it a very interesting time to be learning about American Politics. So, cheer up, and learn something about politics, but please try not to let it make you too cynical.

 

 

 

Exceptions to the First Amendment

Last week, the Obama administration reversed an 18-year ban on news coverage of the return of war dead, allowing photographs of flag-covered caskets when families of the fallen troops agree.

The ban was put in place during the first Gulf War, because the administration felt that these images were too powerful. No Americans would agree to go to war, they argued, if they were forced to view those powerful images. Since national security requires that the public is willing to defend its nation, the press has not been able to publish these photographs for 18 years.

The First Amendment clearly states that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or the media. The United States takes its First Amendment very seriously and, as a result, we have one the freest presses in the world. Yet, the Supreme Court has ruled that there are certain important exceptions to these freedoms.

Freedom of speech and the press does not permit libel. If a newspaper publishes lies about you that damages your reputation, you have the right to sue them in court and seek monetary compensation. The Courts have clearly ruled that obscenity is not permitted free speech. However, the language regarding the definition of obscenity is so broad that, in effect, there are few regulations on pornography.

The other exception to the freedom of the press involves national security. The press can be prevented from publishing information that could result in harm for our troops or endanger the nation as a whole. No newspaper would be permitted to publish the  coordinates of our troops in Afghanistan or provide information about our defense systems. However, the courts have had stated that the government must be careful to not overstep this right to withhold sensitive information. (See the Pentagon papers and The New York Times v. United States (1971).)

The images of dead coming home from war in flag draped pine boxes is  a powerful image. There's no doubt that that there is a dead person inside, and it resonates much more with the public than abstract casualty numbers. Some say that had the public seen the images of dead soldiers coming back from Europe, we would have never fought WWII.

Other say that the public has a right to see these images in order to better understand all the facts of the war. If the press is prevented from publishing these pictures, then they may be prevented from publishing other relevant facts. They also say that the photographs have no direct impact on national security, and therefore these restrictions endangered the First Amendment.

Drawing lines between permissible speech and dangerous speech is a constant challenge for the Supreme Court. Do you believe that the Obama administration made the right decision in this case?

The New (Media) President

Michael Xenos

As the clocks struck exactly 12:00 noon on January 20th, most people were probably watching Itzhak Perlman, Yo Yo Ma, and others perform "Air and Simple Gifts." A few pointy-headed types may have been wondering or debating whether President Obama was already the President or not, given the provisions of the 20th Amendment. But hardcore nerds were tuning their browsers into www.whitehouse.gov, which at that time was completing its transition to its new, Obama Administration form. In this post, I offer a few comments on the new presidential web presence, and the 44th president's use of new media more broadly, within the context of presidential politics.

The new whitehouse.gov site offers a number of indications that President Obama's reputation as a "new media politician" will be further stoked by his administration's management of that piece of cyberspace that has been the presidential web portal since 1997. First off, the site now features a blog and offers weekly video addresses that will likely be popular among those who have become accustomed to viewing and sharing video snippets of all kinds on sites like YouTube.com. In one of the first entries to the blog, Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media for the White House announces a tripartite vision for the new president's new media strategy that centers on Communication, Transparency, and Participation. Under that last heading, a key feature of the site is a policy of publishing all non-emergency legislation to the site for five days, in a format that enables direct public comments. For example, at the time of this writing, one can now view the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009, better known as the State Children's Health Insurance Program or SCHIP, and fill out a form to submit up to 500 characters of comment. It's not like the comment threads you might imagine from reading popular blog sites, but it does directly solicit citizen input in a unique new format.

However, by way of the Wayback Machine, one may find a number of strands of continuity between this new whitehouse.gov and previous incarnations, beneath the overarching sheen of "change" and Obama's image as a new media politician. For example, most text is rendered in very official tones, with the President appearing largely through images and re-posting of formal speeches and written documents, such as his first presidential proclamation. Additionally, the proposed system of soliciting public feedback on non-emergency legislation aside, the blog and other parts of the sites are noticeably comment-free. In that sense, although we have yet to see how they will materialize over time, many of the interactive parts of the site could end up functioning much the same as the "White House Interactive" section of the Bush administration's version of the site, where selected comments received answers from staffers, often on questions as simple as 'What number president is George W. Bush?'

To be fair, this is the official website of the President after all, and not an online journal or a MySpace profile. One would certainly be surprised to find a "Wall" on the front of whitehouse.gov, or a feature enabling fellow users to "poke" one another. Somewhat greater possibilities, closer to those just mentioned, may be envisioned in President Obama's recently announced organizing website, Organizing for America, which seems to be the main vehicle through which the administration will work with its vast network of supporters who provided information in some form during the primary and general election campaigns in order to help build support for its political objectives. As Scott mentioned in a recent post, even in a world where the President and a majority of both Houses of Congress favor a policy, there are many points at which the brakes can still be applied. Tools such as this recently announced site are part of the process by which Presidents try to work around such potentialities.

Although presidents have been "Going Public" (to use Kernell's phrase) for some time, if the Obama administration leverages this information to its fullest potential, it may be able to create a permanent campaign of the hypermedia variety. This would offer a new version of the presidential practice of bypassing traditional political bargaining and strategy by pressing their case directly to the public. This means sophisticated microtargeting of particular appeals for action to people who care deeply about a specific issue, perhaps only in districts or states connected to specifically chosen members of Congress. Far more efficient than the traditional notion of going public largely through broadcast television, this route offers unprecidented efficiency, potentially applying political pressure exactly where needed (and not elsewhere), without straining the patience of those in the database who may not care about the specific issue at hand (thus saving them a lot of email fatigue, and preserving their enthusiasm for other initiatives). Call it "Going Public 2.0" if you will.

Partisanship and the Internet

I would like to follow up on David's excellent post on partisanship and Obama's inauguration speech. It fits in well with some research that I did over the winter break.

One of the on-going debates about the role of the Internet and American politics is that the Internet is helping to make people increasing partisanship. Instead of just picking up the newspaper and getting exposed to both sides of an argument. We run to the Internet and find like-minded people. If we're liberal, we find liberal websites and blogs and get more liberal. If we're conservative, we go to conservative website and blogs and get more conservative. We cocoon ourselves with like minded folks and get more extreme in our belief systems. This is the argument of Cass Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago.

Over the break, I looked at hours and hours of YouTube videos related to the 2008 election. (Yes, I have a good job.) There was quite a variety of videos. Some were clips of political pundits from news shows. Some were snippets of the debates or speeches. Others were "montages" or a compilation of gaffs or grimaces by a candidates aimed at making fun of them. Still others were short films that combined politics with entertainment.

Which ones do you think were the most popular? Do you think these videos helped to drum up enthusiasm for the election? Do you think these videos increased partisanship?

Here's a sample of videos: 

Ron Howard's Call To Action from Ron Howard

The Collapse of Old Media

By Laura McKenna

The Times has a very touching obituary for a small town newspaper in Bristol, Conn. The Bristol Press is yet another local newspaper to bite the dust in the past few years. And with it goes information about births and deaths of people too ordinary to gain the notice of the New York Times, photos of the boy scouts in the Memorial Day Parade, and summaries of Town Council meetings.

Local papers aren't the only ones in trouble. The Tribune company filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this month. They may be as much as $13 billion in debt. The New York Times plans to borrow up to $225 million against its mid-Manhattan headquarters building. The Christian Science Monitor ceased producing a paper version of its news.

Both large and small newspapers have many of the same problems:

• A decline in readership, especially amongst young people.
• A decline in advertising. Newspapers typically gain most of their advertising from the real estate and automobile industries -- both of which have troubles of their own right now.
• The competition with online media and iphones and wiis and facebook.
• A busier world, where people don't have the time to open the paper or get home in time to watch the evening news.

The impact of the downfall of traditional media is obvious. We need informed citizens making decisions in the voting booth. We need someone to actually report the news; bloggers can't do that. We need someone keep an eye on elected officials. If newspapers continue to crumble, the foundations of our democracy will weaken.

What to do about it is far less obvious. We need new ideas for old media.

Some people have suggested revamping the text -- making it more punchy, funny, and light. Others want to rethink the advertising -- putting ads on the front page, putting more ads on the websites, charging the consumer more. The most desperate are suggesting government subsidies of the industry.