Here’s an article from the Washington Post on how news consumers perceive bias in stories the view or read. There’s also a link to a chat session that covered, in part, that article:
What are candidates trying to accomplish with the wealth of political ads that are appearing on television and the web these days?
They may be trying to directly persuade voters with the content of the messages, but more likely they are trying to shape the campaign in more subtle ways than just a direct effect. These are interactional models that say that the interaction among voters, the media and the campaigns triggered by the ads are more important than any direct persuasion of voters. Here are a couple of examples:
The resonance model says that the candidate’s success depends in part on how well his or her basic message resonates with voters’ preexisting political feelings. Thus, the candidate who does the best job of sending out messages that connect with target voters is the one most likely to win. The communication goal for the campaign is not so much to get people to change their minds as it is to get voters to believe that they share viewpoints with the candidate.
The competitive model looks at the campaign not in isolation but as a competition between two or more candidates for the hearts and minds of voters. Hence, the success of a campaign message, such as an ad that criticizes the candidate’s opponent, depends as much on the opponent’s reaction as it does on the message itself. Voter response can also depend on how the media react to the ad. If the ad attracts media attention, it may be played repeatedly on news broadcasts, as well as on political talk shows.
Here are two ads from the 2012 presidential campaign – one from the Obama campaign, one from the Romney campaign. What do you think the campaigns were trying to accomplish with these ads?
Finally, here are two classic ads from the 2008 presidential campaign (that I think reach all-time great status) – one from the Obama campaign, one from the McCain campaign. What do you think the campaigns were trying to accomplish with these ads?
Verdict for the “Scooter” Libby trial
Libby was an aide to Vice President Dick Chaney who was charged with leaking information to the press about CIA agent Valerie Plame.
There is a scene in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back where Luke Skywalker is nervous about entering a cave beneath a tree in the Dagobah jungle. He asks Master Yoda, “What’s in there?” To which Yoda replies, “Only what you take with you.” And so it is with mass communication. What we find with mass communication research depends in large part on the theory base we take with us and the questions the theories suggest we pose. It’s not so much that different approaches to research give us different answers, as it is that they take us to different questions. In this section we look at several of the theoretical approaches to mass communication and the types of questions they raise.
If you haven’t seen the scene I’m talking about, here it is. If you’re impatient, the significant part starts about a minute-and-a-half into the video:
Although this is talked about in-depth in Chapter 3, we do discuss the effects of media owners in Chapter 2. Here’s a quick collection of links to tell you more about several of the dominant media companies:
Several stories dealing with the Missing Pretty White Girls or Missing White Woman Syndrome. You know how it works. When a pretty white girl/woman disappears, the media, especially cable TV, goes nuts. A girl/woman of color, pretty or not, disappears, and it might merit a single mention. Here’s several stories on the topic:
