Mediacracy

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Mediacracy is a situation in government where the mass media effectively has control over the voting public. Mediacracy is closely related to a theory on the role of media in the United States political system, that argues that media and news outlets have a large level of influence over voting citizens' evaluations of candidates and political issues, thereby possessing effective control over politics in the United States.

Contents

Background

The term "mediacracy" was first coined in 1974 by writer and political commentator Kevin Phillips, who used the term in the title of his book Mediacracy: American Parties and Politics in the Communications Age. [1] Since then, the concept has gained popularity and is used by political scientists and researchers alike to discuss the impact of media on both voting behavior and cultural trends. Most recently, the term has seen a resurgence due to the works of economist and author Fabian Tassano. In his book Mediocracy: Inversions and Deceptions in an Egalitarian Culture Tassano argues that the 'dumbing down' of popular media when coupled with increasing obscurity in scholarly discourse leads to a society which has the appearance of egalitarianism, but ultimately is a society ruled by elites. [2] As a reflection of this, the term mediacracy is usually accompanied by negative assumptions about the true nature of media in the United States, along with the aims and desires of mass media as a whole.

Potential causes

There are three main potential causes for the rise in the media's influence on elections, being a combination of different theories on the cultural influence of mass media and recent populist democratic reforms in the American political system. Supporters of the mediacracy theory argue that when taken together, these causes greatly show that the media have a large level of influence over politics in the United States, drawing a link between media's leverage on public opinion, and the increased power that public opinion has on who is elected to office. These potential causes include, but are not limited to:

Agenda setting

Agenda-setting refers to the ability of the media to affect the salience of issues on the public agenda. In short, the amount of attention paid to a certain issue will lead to audiences viewing that issue as more important. The theory of agenda-setting was formally developed by Dr. Max McCombs and Dr. Donald Shaw in their study on the 1968 presidential election conducted at Chapel Hill, North Carolina. [3] McCombs and Shaw polled 100 residents of the Chapel Hill community and found a strong correlation between what those residents believed to be the most important election issue, and what local and national media outlets reported as the most important election issue. [3] This was a landmark study that displayed a link between an issue's salience in media content and the corresponding salience of that issue in voter's minds. [3]

As of 2005, over 400 studies have discussed the presence of agenda-setting, and the issue remains relevant to the study of the American political system. [4]

Priming

Priming, in a political context is a theory stating that the media draws attention to some issues as opposed to others, thereby altering the standards by which we judge candidates in elections. Priming is often used in concert with agenda setting in the media, and the two concepts taken together contribute to a full understanding of the level of influence that the mass media holds over the voting public. This theory on media originated from researchers Iyengar, Peters, and Kinder in their work Experimental Demonstrations of the "Not-So-Minimal" Consequences of Television News Programs published in the 1982 edition of The American Political Science Review. [5] Iyengar, Peters, and Kinder argue that due to media making certain issues more salient than others, they set the parameters of the political decisions made by the voting public. [5]

While priming is often unintentional, Iyengar, Peters, and Kinder's 1982 study examines how intentional priming can shape the public's evaluations of candidates and elected officials. [5] The researchers looked at how the salience of certain topics affected voters' evaluations of President Jimmy Carter, and found evidence to support the presence of both agenda setting and priming. Iyengar et al. first proved the effects of agenda setting by finding a correlation between the attention paid to certain political topics and those topics' importance with the voting public when evaluating the President. [5] The researchers then found evidence of priming by finding a link between those established standards, and voters' resulting evaluations of President Carter. [5]

Supporters of the mediacracy theory largely point to this joint phenomenon as evidence that the mass media holds a large amount of control over the voting population.

Populist reforms in American democracy

Over the course of the last half century, there have been a number of reforms that have led to a shift in control over candidate selection from party elites to the voting public. Thomas Patterson examines this shift, and its resulting correlation with rising political influence of the mass media, in his book Out of Order. [6] From 1960 to 1980, the number of bound or committed delegates in both parties more than doubled, going from 20% on the Democratic side and 35% on the Republican side to 71% and 69% for each respectively in 1980. [6] Also, from 1960 to 2004, the number of states holding primary contests (which favor party elites [7] ) instead of caucuses (which favor populism) has more than doubled. [6] Patterson argues that this shift has indirectly strengthened the power of media outlets that have been shown to have much influence over citizens' evaluations of candidates, and as such the media holds much sway in the American political system, despite relatively low levels of political accountability. [6]

Potential effects

Most researchers who discuss the theory of mediacracy agree that media control of the American political system would lead to a decline in objective, rational information sharing in politics at best, and a society that is controlled by the owners of large media conglomerates at worst. However, it is important to remember that the theory of mediacracy as it is popularly discussed is accompanied by very negative assumptions about the true nature of media in the United States, which affects the predilections that researchers make about the future.

Paul Kurtz argues that current media trends emphasizing sensationalization tend to appeal to the lowest common denominator, which would contribute to a decline in the level of education and reflective cognitive thought of media consumers. [8] Kurtz also argues that growing media consolidation harms diversity of opinion in society, and that the focus of media conglomerates on maximizing profits will lead to advertiser control over information obtained through media outlets. [8] This sentiment is greatly echoed by Fabian Tassano, who goes on to speculate that eventually a privileged elite of informed citizens will have control over society. [2]

Controversies

The primary complaint against the theory of mediacracy is that researchers who support the theory are vastly overstating the effects of media influence. Sharon Meraz argues in her study The fight for 'how to think': Traditional media, social networks, and issue interpretation that due to rising fragmentation in information control during the age of the internet, there is "weakening influence of elite, traditional media as a singular power in influencing issue interpretation within networked political environments.". [9] In her study Meraz effectively shows that emerging technologies have reduced the power of media elites, leading to a decline in the hegemonic level of control central to the theories of most supporters of the mediacracy theory. [9] Whether this is a permanent change, or a temporary result of new technology that will be eventually co-opted by media elites, is yet to be determined.

See also

Related Research Articles

Public opinion is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them. The term originates from France, and first appeared in the 17th century, though writers had identified the importance of the opinion of the people long before this. Prior to the advent of mass media, public fora such as coffee houses and gentlemen's clubs were used as exchanges of opinion and some reputable locations had great influence.

Agenda setting describes the "ability to influence the importance placed on the topics of the public agenda". The theory suggests that the media has the ability to shape public opinion by determining what issues are given the most attention, and has been widely studied and applied to various forms of media. The study of agenda-setting describes the way media attempts to influence viewers, and establish a hierarchy of news prevalence. Nations judged to be endowed with more political power receive higher media exposure. The agenda-setting by media is driven by the media's bias on things such as politics, economy and culture, etc. The evolution of agenda-setting and laissez-faire components of communication research encouraged a fast pace growth and expansion of these perspectives. Agenda-setting has phases that need to be in a specific order in order for it to succeed.

The spiral of silence theory is a political science and mass communication theory proposed by the German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. It states that an individual's perception of the distribution of public opinion influences that individual's willingness to express their own opinions, which in turn affects the perceptions and, ultimately, willingness of others to express their opinions. The main idea is that people influence each other's willingness to express opinions through social interaction. According to the spiral of silence theory, individuals will be more confident and outward with their opinion when they notice that their personal opinion is shared throughout a group. But if the individual notices that their opinion is unpopular with the group they will be more inclined to be reserved and remain silent. In other words, from the individual's perspective, "not isolating himself is more important than his own judgement", meaning his perception of how others in the group perceive him is more important to himself than the need for his opinion to be heard.

Political polarization is the divergence of political attitudes away from the center, towards ideological extremes.

In media studies, mass communication, media psychology, communication theory, and sociology, media influence and themedia effect are topics relating to mass media and media culture's effects on individuals' or audiences' thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors. Through written, televised, or spoken channels, mass media reach large audiences. Mass media's role in shaping modern culture is a central issue for the study of culture.

Salience is the state or condition of being prominent. The Oxford English Dictionary defines salience as "most noticeable or important." The concept is discussed in communication, semiotics, linguistics, sociology, psychology, and political science. It has been studied with respect to interpersonal communication, persuasion, politics, and its influence on mass media.

In politics, a political agenda is a list of subjects or problems (issues) to which government officials as well as individuals outside the government are paying serious attention to at any given time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maxwell McCombs</span> American journalism studies scholar

Maxwell E. McCombs is an American journalism scholar known for his work on political communication. He is the Jesse H. Jones Centennial Chair in Communication Emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin. He is particularly known for developing the agenda setting theory of mass media with Donald Lewis Shaw. In a 1972 paper, McCombs and Shaw described the results of a study they conducted testing the hypothesis that the news media have a large influence on the issues that the American public considers important. They conducted the study while they were both working at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The resulting paper, "The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media", has since been described as "a classic and perhaps the most cited article in the field of mass communication research in the past 35 years." McCombs has been described as, along with Shaw, "one of the two founding fathers of empirical research on the agenda-setting function of the press."

The priming theory states that media images stimulate related thoughts in the minds of audience members.

In the social sciences, framing comprises a set of concepts and theoretical perspectives on how individuals, groups, and societies organize, perceive, and communicate about reality.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to communication:

Voter turnout in Canada is lowest for young voters. A general decline in electoral participation among the under-35 population has been observed in many democratic countries around the world, especially in Canada. "The youngest age cohort did experience a bump upwards in estimated voter turnout from 37% in the 2004 federal general election to 43.8% for the election that followed, before descending to 37.4% for the 2008 federal general election." Participation in provincial elections for youth aged 18 to 24 was 28% in 2001. However, in the 2005 provincial election, the turnout in this age group increased to 35%. In 2015 youth participation reached a record high at 57.1%. Evidently, low voter turnout of young Canadians has generated a great deal of concern.

Various aspects of communication have been the subject of study since ancient times, and the approach eventually developed into the academic discipline known today as communication studies.

The term issue voting describes when voters cast their vote in elections based on political issues. In the context of an election, issues include "any questions of public policy which have been or are a matter of controversy and are sources of disagreement between political parties.” According to the theory of issue voting, voters compare the candidates' respective principles against their own in order to decide for whom to vote.

Survey response effects are variations in survey responses that result from seemingly inconsequential aspects of survey design and administration. Susceptibility to these effects varies depending on the stability of one's beliefs. Those without a strong attitude on an issue, for instance, would more be more prone to survey response effects than those strongly for or against the issue. These effects can be broadly grouped as consistency or contrast effects. Consistency effects are effects that lead to survey responses that agree, not to be confused with the identically-named term used to refer to the phenomenon in which respondents intentionally try to get their survey responses to agree one another. Contrast effects on the other hand, lead to opposing responses.

Community structure theory provides a powerful framework for analyzing society's influence on media coverage. It has been identified by Funk and McCombs (2015) as the “conceptual inverse” of agenda-setting, focusing on demographic characteristics of communities shaping news instead of news as a driver of public perception. For example, community structure theory has found repeated links between indicators of vulnerability and favorable coverage of critical US national issues such as immigration reform or universal health care. Further, in cross-national studies comparing national characteristics and reporting on human trafficking, HIV/AIDS treatment access, water handling/contamination, and child labor, media coverage varied significantly with levels of "female empowerment"— female literacy rate, female child life expectancy, and female school life expectancy.

John Crothers Pollock is a US social scientist and communication scholar specializing in health communication, public health, human rights, and community structure theory. He is currently a professor in the Department of Communication Studies and Faculty Affiliate in Public Health at The College of New Jersey, where he has taught since 1992. He was educated at Swarthmore College, The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and Stanford University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald Lewis Shaw</span> American social scientist (1936–2021)

Donald Lewis Shaw, one of the two founding fathers of empirical research on the agenda-setting function of the press, was a social scientist and a Kenan professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was born to Luther and Lowell Shaw on October 27, 1936 in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Political cognition refers to the study of how individuals come to understand the political world, and how this understanding leads to political behavior. Some of the processes studied under the umbrella of political cognition include attention, interpretation, judgment, and memory. Most of the advancements in the area have been made by scholars in the fields of social psychology, political science, and communication studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Political polarization in the United States</span> Divisions among people with different political ideologies in the United States

Political polarization is a prominent component of politics in the United States. Scholars distinguish between ideological polarization and affective polarization, both of which are apparent in the United States. In the last few decades, the U.S. has experienced a greater surge in ideological polarization and affective polarization than comparable democracies.

References

  1. ↑ Phillips, Kevin (1974). Mediacracy: American Parties and Politics in the Communications Age. Doubleday. ISBN   0385049455.
  2. 1 2 Tassano, Fabian (2006). Mediocracy: Inversions and Deceptions in an Egalitarian Culture. Oxford. ISBN   0953677265.
  3. 1 2 3 McCombs, M; Shaw, D (1972). "The agenda-setting function of mass media". Public Opinion Quarterly. 36 (2): 176. doi:10.1086/267990.
  4. ↑ McCombs, M (2005). "A look at agenda-setting: Past, present and future". Journalism Studies. 6 (4): 543–557. doi:10.1080/14616700500250438. S2CID   16806434.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Iyengar, Peters, and Kinder (1982). "Experimental Demonstrations of the "Not-So-Minimal" Consequences of Television News Programs". The American Political Science Review. 76 (4): 848–858. doi:10.2307/1962976. JSTOR   1962976. S2CID   145723669.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  6. 1 2 3 4 Patterson, Thomas (1994). Out of Order: An incisive and boldly original critique of the news media's domination of America's political process. Vintage. ISBN   0679755101.
  7. ↑ "With 10 of 18 Caucus States Switching to Primaries in 2020, Which Candidate Would Benefit?".
  8. 1 2 Kurtz, Paul (1998). "Secular humanists vs. the global mediacracy". Free Inquiry. 18 (3): 5.
  9. 1 2 Meraz, Sharon (2011). "The fight for 'how to think': Traditional media, social networks, and issue interpretation". Journalism. 12 (1): 107–127. doi:10.1177/1464884910385193. S2CID   145628571.
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