How Partisan Media Polarize America

How Partisan Media Polarize America PDF Author: Matthew Levendusky
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022606915X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
Forty years ago, viewers who wanted to watch the news could only choose from among the major broadcast networks, all of which presented the same news without any particular point of view. Today we have a much broader array of choices, including cable channels offering a partisan take. With partisan programs gaining in popularity, some argue that they are polarizing American politics, while others counter that only a tiny portion of the population watches such programs and that their viewers tend to already hold similar beliefs. In How Partisan Media Polarize America, Matthew Levendusky confirms—but also qualifies—both of these claims. Drawing on experiments and survey data, he shows that Americans who watch partisan programming do become more certain of their beliefs and less willing to weigh the merits of opposing views or to compromise. And while only a small segment of the American population watches partisan media programs, those who do tend to be more politically engaged, and their effects on national politics are therefore far-reaching. In a time when politics seem doomed to partisan discord, How Partisan Media Polarize America offers a much-needed clarification of the role partisan media might play.

How Partisan Media Polarize America

How Partisan Media Polarize America PDF Author: Matthew Levendusky
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022606915X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 223

Get Book Here

Book Description
Forty years ago, viewers who wanted to watch the news could only choose from among the major broadcast networks, all of which presented the same news without any particular point of view. Today we have a much broader array of choices, including cable channels offering a partisan take. With partisan programs gaining in popularity, some argue that they are polarizing American politics, while others counter that only a tiny portion of the population watches such programs and that their viewers tend to already hold similar beliefs. In How Partisan Media Polarize America, Matthew Levendusky confirms—but also qualifies—both of these claims. Drawing on experiments and survey data, he shows that Americans who watch partisan programming do become more certain of their beliefs and less willing to weigh the merits of opposing views or to compromise. And while only a small segment of the American population watches partisan media programs, those who do tend to be more politically engaged, and their effects on national politics are therefore far-reaching. In a time when politics seem doomed to partisan discord, How Partisan Media Polarize America offers a much-needed clarification of the role partisan media might play.

Partisan Journalism

Partisan Journalism PDF Author: Jim A. Kuypers
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442225947
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
In Partisan Journalism: A History of Media Bias in the United States,Jim A. Kuypers guides readers on a journey through American journalistic history, focusing on the warring notions of objectivity and partisanship. Kuypers shows how the American journalistic tradition grew from partisan roots and, with only a brief period of objectivity in between, has returned to those roots today. The book begins with an overview of newspapers during Colonial times, explaining how those papers openly operated in an expressly partisan way; he then moves through the Jacksonian era’s expansion of both the press and its partisan nature. After detailing the role of the press during the War Between the States, Kuypers demonstrates that it was the telegraph, not professional sentiment, that kicked off the movement toward objective news reporting. The conflict between partisanship and professionalization/objectivity continued through the muckraking years and through World War II, with newspapers in the 1950s often being objective in their reporting even as their editorials leaned to the right. This changed rapidly in the 1960s when newspaper editorials shifted from right to left, and progressive advocacy began to slowly erode objective content. Kuypers follows this trend through the early 1980s, and then turns his attention to demonstrating how new communication technologies have changed the very nature of news writing and delivery. In the final chapters covering the Bush and Obama presidencies, he traces the growth of the progressive and partisan nature of the mainstream news, while at the same time explores the rapid rise of alternative news sources, some partisan, some objective, that are challenging the dominance of the mainstream press. This book steps beyond a simple charge-counter-charge of political bias in the news in that it offers an argument that the press in America, except for a brief period, was essentially partisan from its inception and has returned with a vengeance to its original roots. The final argument presented in the book is that this new development may actually be healthy for American Democracy.

Changing Minds or Changing Channels?

Changing Minds or Changing Channels? PDF Author: Kevin Arceneaux
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022604744X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
We live in an age of media saturation, where with a few clicks of the remote—or mouse—we can tune in to programming where the facts fit our ideological predispositions. But what are the political consequences of this vast landscape of media choice? Partisan news has been roundly castigated for reinforcing prior beliefs and contributing to the highly polarized political environment we have today, but there is little evidence to support this claim, and much of what we know about the impact of news media come from studies that were conducted at a time when viewers chose from among six channels rather than scores. Through a series of innovative experiments, Kevin Arceneaux and Martin Johnson show that such criticism is unfounded. Americans who watch cable news are already polarized, and their exposure to partisan programming of their choice has little influence on their political positions. In fact, the opposite is true: viewers become more polarized when forced to watch programming that opposes their beliefs. A much more troubling consequence of the ever-expanding media environment, the authors show, is that it has allowed people to tune out the news: the four top-rated partisan news programs draw a mere three percent of the total number of people watching television. Overturning much of the conventional wisdom, Changing Minds or Changing Channels? demonstrate that the strong effects of media exposure found in past research are simply not applicable in today’s more saturated media landscape.

The Partisan Press

The Partisan Press PDF Author: Si Sheppard
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786432829
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
This book is the first to place the contemporary debate over media bias in historical context, illustrating how partisan bias in the American media has built political parties, set the stage for several wars, and even contributed to the rise and fall of U.S. presidents. The author discusses the rise of the unprecedented post-World War II model of objective journalism and explains why this model is breaking down under the challenge of a new generation of technology-driven partisan media alternatives.

Network Propaganda

Network Propaganda PDF Author: Yochai Benkler
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190923644
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 473

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Book Description
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Is social media destroying democracy? Are Russian propaganda or "Fake news" entrepreneurs on Facebook undermining our sense of a shared reality? A conventional wisdom has emerged since the election of Donald Trump in 2016 that new technologies and their manipulation by foreign actors played a decisive role in his victory and are responsible for the sense of a "post-truth" moment in which disinformation and propaganda thrives. Network Propaganda challenges that received wisdom through the most comprehensive study yet published on media coverage of American presidential politics from the start of the election cycle in April 2015 to the one year anniversary of the Trump presidency. Analysing millions of news stories together with Twitter and Facebook shares, broadcast television and YouTube, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the architecture of contemporary American political communications. Through data analysis and detailed qualitative case studies of coverage of immigration, Clinton scandals, and the Trump Russia investigation, the book finds that the right-wing media ecosystem operates fundamentally differently than the rest of the media environment. The authors argue that longstanding institutional, political, and cultural patterns in American politics interacted with technological change since the 1970s to create a propaganda feedback loop in American conservative media. This dynamic has marginalized centre-right media and politicians, radicalized the right wing ecosystem, and rendered it susceptible to propaganda efforts, foreign and domestic. For readers outside the United States, the book offers a new perspective and methods for diagnosing the sources of, and potential solutions for, the perceived global crisis of democratic politics.

American Gridlock

American Gridlock PDF Author: James A. Thurber
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107114160
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 435

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Book Description
American Gridlock is a comprehensive analysis of polarization encompassing national and state politics, voters, elites, activists, the media, and the three branches of government.

The Bank War and the Partisan Press

The Bank War and the Partisan Press PDF Author: Stephen W. Campbell
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700634185
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
President Andrew Jackson’s conflict with the Second Bank of the United States was one of the most consequential political struggles in the early nineteenth century. A fight over the bank’s reauthorization, the Bank War provoked fundamental disagreements over the role of money in politics, competing constitutional interpretations, equal opportunity in the face of a state-sanctioned monopoly, and the importance of financial regulation—all of which cemented emerging differences between Jacksonian Democrats and Whigs. As Stephen W. Campbell argues here, both sides in the Bank War engaged interregional communications networks funded by public and private money. The first reappraisal of this political turning point in US history in almost fifty years, The Bank War and the Partisan Press advances a new interpretation by focusing on the funding and dissemination of the party press. Drawing on insights from the fields of political history, the history of journalism, and financial history, The Bank War and the Partisan Press brings to light a revolving cast of newspaper editors, financiers, and postal workers who appropriated the financial resources of preexisting political institutions and even created new ones to enrich themselves and further their careers. The bank propagated favorable media and tracked public opinion through its system of branch offices, while the Jacksonians did the same by harnessing the patronage networks of the Post Office. Campbell’s work contextualizes the Bank War within larger political and economic developments at the national and international levels. Its focus on the newspaper business documents the transition from a seemingly simple question of renewing the bank’s charter to a multisided, nationwide sensation that sorted the US public into ideologically polarized political parties. In doing so, The Bank War and the Partisan Press shows how the conflict played out on the ground level in various states—in riots, duels, raucous public meetings, politically orchestrated bank runs, arson, and assassination attempts. The resulting narrative moves beyond the traditional boxing match between Jackson and bank president Nicholas Biddle, balancing political institutions with individual actors, and business practices with party attitudes.

Journalism as Practice

Journalism as Practice PDF Author: Sandra Borden
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136609970
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
Technological innovation and conglomeration in communication industries has been accelerating the commodification of the news into just another product. The emphasis on the bottom line has resulted in newsroom budget cuts and other business strategies that seriously endanger good journalism. Meanwhile, the growing influence of the Internet and partisan commentary has led even journalists themselves to question their role. In Journalism as Practice, Sandra L. Borden shows that applying philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre's ideas of a 'practice' to journalism can help us to understand what is at stake for society and for those in the newsrooms who have made journalism their vocation. She argues that developing and promoting the kind of robust group identity implied by the idea of a practice can help journalism better withstand the moral challenges posed by commodification. Throughout, the book examines key U.S. journalism ethics cases since 2000. Some of these cases, such as Dan Rather’s "Memogate" scandal, are explored in detail in Practically Speaking sections that discuss relevant cases at length. This book is essential reading for students and practicing journalists interested in preserving the ethical role of journalism in promoting the public good.

The Idea of Public Journalism

The Idea of Public Journalism PDF Author: Theodore Lewis Glasser
Publisher: Guilford Press
ISBN: 9781572304604
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
This volume offers a critical and constructive examination of the claims of public journalism, the controversial movement aimed at getting the press to promote and indeed improve (not merely report on) the quality of public life. From leading contributors, original essays refine the terms of the debate by situating it within a broad cultural, historical and philosophical framework. Exploring the movement's promise as well as its problems, The Idea of Public Journalism sheds lights on issues of political power, freedom of expression, democratic participation and press responsibility.

News for the Rich, White, and Blue

News for the Rich, White, and Blue PDF Author: Nikki Usher
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231545606
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
As cash-strapped metropolitan newspapers struggle to maintain their traditional influence and quality reporting, large national and international outlets have pivoted to serving readers who can and will choose to pay for news, skewing coverage toward a wealthy, white, and liberal audience. Amid rampant inequality and distrust, media outlets have become more out of touch with the democracy they purport to serve. How did journalism end up in such a predicament, and what are the prospects for achieving a more equitable future? In News for the Rich, White, and Blue, Nikki Usher recasts the challenges facing journalism in terms of place, power, and inequality. Drawing on more than a decade of field research, she illuminates how journalists decide what becomes news and how news organizations strategize about the future. Usher shows how newsrooms remain places of power, largely white institutions growing more elite as journalists confront a shrinking job market. She details how Google, Facebook, and the digital-advertising ecosystem have wreaked havoc on the economic model for quality journalism, leaving local news to suffer. Usher also highlights how the handful of likely survivors—well-funded media outlets such as the New York Times—increasingly appeal to a global, “placeless” reader. News for the Rich, White, and Blue concludes with a series of provocative recommendations to reimagine journalism to ensure its resiliency and its ability to speak to a diverse set of issues and readers.