The power and the role of the media in American politics.

The purpose of this essay is to shed light on the power of the media in affecting American politics and to provide information about the different roles it has within this context. When we refer to media, we mean newspapers, television, radio, books, magazines, internet, cinema, and other electronic means of communication. Television is the most important and trusted mass media, and is therefore, the medium that Americans use the most to get the bulk of their information. The average American watches 4.3 hours of television a day, and the average adult spend three fourth of his spare time in internet, watching television, or reading the newspapers.
There is no equivalence to the BBC in the United States. What exists though is the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). The PBS is only hired by 1 % of the nation’s viewers and does not have any kind of subsidies. Its financial resources come from grants and subscriptions. All national air televisions are private enterprises: the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), the American Broadcasting company (ABC), the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and Fox Broadcasting System (FBS) are the major ones.
The cable and satellites channels are winning part in the share of the market (by 2006, 53 % of all TV viewing). The cable TV experienced an increase of 300 % between 1970 and 2000. Other means of communication such as the radio grew by 60 % in the same period.
If there is one medium that lost in the share of the market is the one of the written press, and more especially the newspaper business. In thirty years time, we account 16 % of less daily newspapers and a drop in the number of readers from 62.1 millions in 1970 to 55.6 in 2000. The loss is significant if we consider that in 1970 the population was about 200 million people. Today, America accounts almost 1500 daily newspapers and about 920 Sunday newspapers. The number is still very impressive in comparison to European countries’ figures. This is due to the immensity of the American territory and to the fact that people in the US tend to be more interested in local and state affairs than in foreign or other-states issues. This restriction of area of distribution means less competition between papers than in the European countries. The circulation of important newspapers like the New York Times, the LA times and the Washington Post are limited to the city or region of origin. In 2000,
98 % of American cities only had one newspaper[1], but big cities like New York or Chicago have more than one.
Americans are relative uninterested in politics. As interest of the American society has changed in the last decades concerning domestic and foreign politics, the media has had to evolve. The so-called fourth branch of government has experienced a substantial growth in US and had invaded people’s life by means of new technological devices such mobile phones and computers. This is sometimes called the ‘CNNization’ of the world[2], and it refers to the rapid expansion of breaking news events through all the nationwide and world wide cable stations that compete with each other.

To better analyze the roles and the power of the media in American politics, we shall in a first step describe the different roles the media develops in the US. In a second part we shall treat the power that mass mediums of communication have in American politics by shedding light in the effects and impacts they have in the society as a whole. And thirdly, we shall focus in how these powers are counterbalanced by the American legislation, that is to say what are the different constraints that the media faces in the race to freedom of speech and independence.




When focusing on the roles the media has in American politics, we realize that they develop as a response of America’s requirements, wishes and needs. Most of the roles media plays in the society are similar to other democratic countries. But, what American want expect from the mass media? What are the different functions the media fulfills? Are there different categories of Medias? How is the media distributed in the United States?

‘The mass media are powerful guardians of proper political behavior, because Americans believe that the press should inform them about government wrongdoings’ [3]

A truly democratic society must have a free and independent media to be considered as such. Americans expect the media to be the eyes and ears of the people. For them, the media must scrutinize government performance and reports what it finds. They want for the media to report quickly, objectively, and without any attempt to undermine or encourage any viewpoint. That is why they believe that the greater diversification of information provided by different Medias, the better picture of reality they obtain. Thus, the role of the media is to become an objective ‘translator’ which should inform aiming to serve the public interests.
But what are the public interests? Libertarians believe that the role of the media is not to teach but to inform. Others claim that media should take part of the political process, that is to say that it should not be merely a reporter but it should have an active role by reflecting the social concerns.
The media accomplishes different tasks in the evolution and shaping of politics in America. The political scientist Harold Lasswell points out three of them in ‘Mass Communication: The Structure and Function of Communication in Society’.
The first function is the media and its duty to survey the world events. He differentiates between public and private surveillance. The public surveillance, he argues, is the role of selection by which the media determines what is to be ‘hidden’ or unknown (without any kind of manipulation by the media) and what comes to the surface. It is called public because it serves the public concerns and by this reason it determines what is going to be ignored and what is going to be developed.
The private surveillance, on the other hand, serves the private needs and interests. That is when the media acts as a provider of entertainment, companionship, tension relief and reassurance. As a matter of fact, people feel reassured when they know what is going on in the society. Even though they will probably forget what they have seen or read in the different Medias, just because of the fact that they received information, on political issues or events, they feel confident.
The second media function that Harold Lasswell describes is the role as interpreter of world events. He says that since journalists are human beings, their interpretation of the events they report are subjective. The reporters are in some way subordinated to the values, different experiences and backgrounds they have. This affects the political process, because the news will be framed by the inclinations of the journalist. To back his argument he raises the example of the change in the interpretation in matters of abortion by the media in the 1970s.
The third and last function of the media that Lasswell advanced is the social role. The media in the US prepares individuals to fit into the society and into their political and social milieu. In a country that is constantly receiving immigration this role is fundamental. The media provides the young people with behavior models, and then they develop their own opinions. The political scientist claims that the media deserves credit for the ‘resociabilization’ in issues like sexual morality, racial attitudes, and concerning foreign affairs with the shift on relations with Russia and China.
The media has also got an economic role in the US since all Medias are private enterprises. Because the aim of a company is always a financial one, the media seeks to maximize their audience as more viewers or reader mean greater financial benefits. The more audience a TV program has, the greater it can charge the advertisers who wish to reach the audience.
As a consequence of this race to profits, news items should not antagonize with a section of the audience. Distortion of reality can then appear because of the constraints to talk about complex issues as foreign affairs, health insurance problems, civil rights, budget deficits or immigration. Therefore media tends to be not a complete mirror of the society in some particular cases.



‘Media do more than depict the political environment, they are the political environment.’[4]

‘Large segments of the US population have limited reading skills and find it far easier to capture meanings from pictures and from spoken language.’[5]

Secondly, when treating the power that Mass Medias have in American politics, we shall underline the primary power TV has. Electronic Medias such as TV provide a higher sense of reality as ‘one image says more than a thousand words’.
Television is the main source from which Americans take knowledge for presidential elections. Candidates, who are aware that 70 % of the voters rely on this source to get political information, adapted themselves through the years. Elections are now characterized by sound-bites and photo opportunities because TV wants so in some way, and because there is a need for simplification given that most Americans are uninterested in politics. Two well-known examples are President Bush’s sound-bite ‘read my lips, no new taxes’ (which cost him reelection), and Clinton’s ‘I still believe in a town called Hope’.
Contemporary American politics without television would be unthinkable. The consciousness of politicians about the impact that their image has in the citizens started to develop after the first televised presidential debate in 1960. The political combat between Richard Nixon (conservative) and John F. Kennedy (Democrat) had two winners. For the people who listened the radio Nixon was the clear winner, for the ones who watched the debate on television there was no doubt that the young, tanned, catholic and democrat candidate won. Nixon learned from this negative experience and in 1968 he hired TV advertising specialists to change the image Americans had from him, the result was obviously positive since he became president.
The TV media shapes the perception of the people to an extent that politicians choose to spend the biggest part of their campaign funds in paid advertisements. For example, in the last 1996 mid-term elections, candidates spent almost 2 billion dollars in TV ads for campaigns. In these ads usually the image and the character of the candidates are projected; they seek an emotional rather than a rational response of the audience (that is why certain policy issues and positions come second).
Because publicity is crucial for political success, actors in the political scene deliberately create situations likely to receive media coverage[6]. The consciousness about the impact and power of television is very well understood by candidates, they know that they need to be seen on TV as often as possible. This fact constitutes an important difficulty for some primary candidates, and in a lower degree of magnitude to front-runners. As a result, politicians are keenly aware of the media’s agenda setting power[7].
The power of negative advertising in American campaigns becomes a reality in contemporary politics. It is increasingly common since it seems more profitable to focus in the negative features of your political adversary than to focus in your own positive ones. Politicians sometimes use the power that media has in reaching people to broadcast fear instead of hope in individuals. The first negative advertisement was the ‘Daisy Commercial’ screened of behalf of President Johnson in the 1964 presidential campaign. The aim was to scare the voters arguing that Barry Goldwater, even though his name was not pronounced, was going to use nuclear weapons against the S.U. and so put America in danger if he became a president.

‘No major act of the US Congress, no foreign adventure, no act of diplomacy, no great social reform can succeed in the US unless the press prepares the public’s mind.’[8]

The Framers created a system of checks and balances to protect democracy and to avoid tyranny. In order to protect the freedom of speech, they developed the Bill of Rights which protects individual freedoms. They believed that another way to check government and to avoid a tyrant was a free and independence press. The first Amendment says: ‘Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.’ This excerpt of the first
Amendment endows the press with the very significant power since it is very present in the mind of the public and the judges. As a consequence, the US press is less subject to censorship than in other developed countries. Originally, the first Amendment only concerned the federal legislation, but in 1931 the Supreme Court has applied this right to state legislature (Near v; Minnesota).
In 1964, the Supreme Court also failed in favour of the press in the New York Times v. Sullivan case, arguing that the newspaper could not be convicted of libel because it published a false story. Another remarkable example that shows the power of the press in America is the New York Times v. United States case. In 1971, even when national security was involved, the Supreme Court permitted the newspaper to go ahead with the publication of the so-called ‘Pentagon Papers’(leading to the loss of consensus about the Vietnam war).
Another example of the freedom of the press is the Flynt v. Falwell case. In 1988, the Supreme Court showed strong protection to political satire by arguing that the magazine Hustler is not a serious reliable political source but an entertainment one.

If private media is powerful, this power is not always positive. Crossmedia ownership is dispersed over various markets. In 2004, the Garnett Company owned 101 daily newspapers, 22 television stations and more than 130 websites. Another case is the one of the written press, although there are almost 1500 daily newspapers in the US, ‘in 2002, the ten largest newspapers groups controlled 51 % of the country’s newspaper circulation[9].
The CBS, ABC, NBC and FBS sell their programs to the hundred of local television stations around the country. Through their many network-owned and their independent affiliates, they reach more than 90 % of the nation’s audience. AOL Time Warner, Viacom and the News Corporation now dominate TV and other media outlets.
Concerning legislation to control this growing power, Robert McKeever argues that: ‘the telecommunication act of 1996 and subsequent revisions of regulations by the Federal Communication Commission have allowed for a much greater concentration of corporate ownership[10].

‘The press is significantly more than a purveyor of information and opinion. It may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling the readers what to think about.’[11]

The paper has already analyzed the major impacts and effects that the media has concerning domestic matters. Now we will focus in the power the press has in shaping Americans views about foreign policy. When analyzing the power of the press in foreign policy matters, Doris Graber estates that there three different categories of media: the press as separate actor trying to advance its own views; the media that keeps the government line, less critic and more supportive; and finally the press and government and the ‘mutual exploitative’ relationship. (The last two categories will be analyzed in a latter section which concerns the restrains, controls, limitations and weaknesses that characterize the press).
The media as a direct actor in shaping the foreign agenda is advanced by many political scientist. Public opinion depends on the media in order to knowledge what is happening in foreign affairs. The most common example in how press can condition foreign policy is the Vietnam War. It was the first televised war and the vivid pictures and the magnitude of killings and destruction deeply affected American awareness of what occurred. The Tet offensive remains a clear example because the TV showed the image of American forces losing the war, of high destruction and of several losses of lives.
Another example is the Iran Hostage Crisis. ABC TV showed a report every day with the name ‘American Held Hostage, Day X’. As days where increasing, the greater numbers portrayed the Carter Administration to be incompetent in solving matters of foreign affairs. By this mean, media created a foreign policy image that discredited Carter and affected the President’s reelection since the hostages were freed in ‘Day 444’ when Reagan was the new president.
The Somalia 1992-humanitarian crisis was shown by the media for months. Death, starvation and suffering shocked the American public opinion and Bush finally sent troops as a response. But Time and Newsweek turn afterward dovish because they claimed that without a long-time solution it was the same to act than to stay at home (the killing of 18 soldiers precipitated the return of the soldiers under the Clinton administration).
The power of the media to influence the foreign agenda can also be observed in the 1994 invasion of Haiti. Even though 81 % of congressional speeches opposed a military intervention, magazines attacked Clinton for not making public that invasion was necessary in order to protect democracy, life and to avoid refugees in Florida (Aristide was finally set into power).
The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Egypt- Israeli solution of the conflict, are two conflicts in which to journalists, John Scali for the 1962 crisis and Walter Conkrite for the middle east war, are considered to have credit in the peaceful development of events. The power of the ‘media diplomacy’[12]turned to be decisive for the solution of this two major international crisis.



‘Nowhere the media is totally free from formal or informal government and social controls, even in peace time’[13]

Thirdly and finally, let us analyze the ‘checks and balances’ that government set to control the power of the mass Medias in the United States. Then, is the media totally powerful? Is it somehow counterbalanced? What are the limitations of the media? To what extent is the media fully independent? The principal organization that regulates the power and the possible wrongdoings of the media is the Federal Communication Commission. The FCC, created by the communication act in 1934, is a governmental organization that regulates that no owner acquires too much power. The FCC is composed of a committee of five members (used to be seven but cut to five members because of financial reasons) who are appointed by the president but need senatorial approval. The commission is a bipartisan one who only controls over the air TV since cable and satellite TV are not considered to be a source of information but of entertainment. Although Graber claims that the commission’s independence is weaken by the fact that decisions can be appealed in the Courts, and are frequently overturned; there are more than sixty organizations concerned exclusively with the media reform. This citizen lobby control is constantly opposing great ownerships by claiming that it undermines and endangers democratic values.
Another features that political scientist advance that undermines the power of the so-called fourth government, is the fact that studies show that mass media has minimal effects in changing attitudes of voters. They argue that a selective mechanism called ‘selective attention’ acts as a filter of political news. It is claimed that human beings tend not to pay attention of political views they dislike. Of course, there is an awareness that this defensive mechanism varies from one individual to another for reasons of different political knowledge, or party identification.
What about the limitations the power of the media confronts when dealing with foreign matters? In the second part of the argumentation of this essay, it has been explained what Doris Graber says about the type of press who acts as separate actor of government trying to advance its own views. That first approach shows a potent press, but what about the other two categories Graber describe: the press that keeps the government line, less critic and more supportive; and the press and government in a ‘mutual exploitative’ relationship.
The media as accomplice theory shows the media dependency on government to have access to information. The interventions in Grenada in 1983, in Panama in 1989, the Persian Gulf War in 1991, and the first months of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, are mentioned as examples of the difficulties independent media faces today to report freely in foreign affairs crisis. The negative consequences of TV in the Vietnam War are very present in ‘the golden triangle’ (Pentagon, State Department and White House) and as a consequence in all the cited conflicts we saw the appearance of ‘imbedded’ reporters.
The third category Graber explains is the ‘mutual exploitative’ relationship. It is argued that government and press work very close to each other and that both depend on each other to have information. Politicians influence their policies by the leaking of information to journalist. This relation, which is based on trust, explains that the media is actually not so powerful since it sometimes depends on the government to obtain information. The collaboration involves an exchange since both have different sources, but undermines the independence of the media.

‘A pillar of political communications research…is the finding that foreign policy news coverage by the media depends heavily upon official government sources’[14]

This viewpoint is also shared by Lance Bennett who talks of ‘the indexing press’. In his theory, Bennett holds that reporters index the slant of their coverage to reflect the range of opinion it exists within the government.
McCormick claims that media influences the foreign policy agenda but to a lesser degree that it has been argued by several political scientists. Argumentations like why media not shaped foreign policy despites the horrible images that where shown in the cases of Cambodia, Bosnia (it took to long) and Rwanda are advanced.





This essay has proved that the power and the roles of the media in the American society are significantly complex since they are constantly evolving. The mass mediums of communications are continuously developing as technological improvements influenced them. This paper has also shown that the media accomplishes very important roles that directly and indirectly protect democratic values in the US. It socialize and homogenize the society with common values, it protects democracy as the media is independent, and it ‘checks’ the government in the everyday political life.
When the Founding Fathers drafted the US constitution and the Bill of rights, they could not imagine the power mass media could develop in the future. No system of checks and balances was thought to protect the freedom and power of the press because it was not necessary. Through the years, the American government saw the necessity of implementing and creating an independent commission that could regulate excessive ownership of mass media. The FCC, who is in charged of the latter responsibility, does not regulate the cable TV. The reader gains the impression that this needs to be done given that an increasing number of Americans use this mean of communication to be informed. Furthermore, the essay demonstrated that some media groups are acquiring too much power throughout the country despite the efforts of citizen lobbies and the FCC.
Regardless of the protections of the first Amendment, journalists, who are powerful, are though imbued with political neutrality and factual reporting. Of course, subjectivity is inevitable since reporters are unconsciously influenced by they background and slants. As Aristotle said in the 5th century B.C, any human activity that attempts to explain or describe the events of reality can not be perfect, since perfection only exist in our imagination and can never be totally reached.
Today, the media in the United States provides a simplistic and distorted image of what politics are. The reason is that since most Americans prefer entertainment to real politics, the media oversimplifies the political information.
Finally, it can not be said to what level media influences American domestic policies since this is very difficult to measure. What it is certain, is that even though media is not always successful in telling people what to think, it is powerful in it telling people what to think about. Furthermore, the power media has in shaping foreign policy viewpoints tends to be greater than the power is has influencing domestic foreign policy.
The American society is very complex and constantly evolving, the media frames the political and social events that occurred. It is endowed with constitutional powers and the Supreme Courts often reminds us that. In the United States, the media accomplishes its more important role, the guardian of free speech, expression and democracy. And if to accomplish this role considerable power is needed, then this power can not be defined as considerable but as the exact one.




BIBLIOGRAPHY

McKeever, Philip Davies, Politics USA, 2nd edition, 2006. Chapter 9 ‘The Mass Media and Politics’.

John Zaller, Dennis Chiu, Decision Making in a Glass House. Chapter 5, ‘Government’s little Helper: US Press Coverage of Foreign Policy Crisis, 1946-1999.’

James M McCormick, American Foreign Policy and Process, 4th edition, 2005. Chapter 12: ‘The Media, Public Opinion, and Foreign Policy Process.’

Doris A. Graber, Mass Media and American Politics, 7th edition, 2001. Chapter 1:Media Power and Government Control’, and Chapter 2: ‘Ownership, Regulation and Guidance of the Media.’


Websites

Wikipedia and Larousse Encyclopaedias.

Us Department of State
http://usinfo.state.gov/

www.stateofthenewsmedia.org

University of Michigan Documents Centrehttp://www.lib.umich.edu/
[1] Alger, Megamedia, p130.
[2] James M McCormick, American Foreign Policy and Process, p. 498.
[3] Doris A. Graber, Mass Media and American Politics, p.2.
[4] Doris A. Graber, Mass Media and American Politics, p.238.
[5] Doris A. Graber, Mass Media and American Politics, p.4.
[6] Doris A. Graber, Mass Media and American Politics, p.8.

[7] Doris A. Graber, Mass Media and American Politics.
[8] Theodore White, The making of the president, 1972.
[9] www.stateofthenewsmedia.org
[10] McKeever, Philip Davies, Politics USA, ch .9.
[11] Bernard Cohen, the Press and Foreign Policy’, p.13
[12] Doris A. Graber, Mass Media and American Politics, p.349.

[13] Doris A. Graber, Mass Media and American Politics, p. 17.
[14] John Zaller, Dennis Chiu, Decision Making in a Glass House, p. 85.