The nature of the American media
Communication is vital to all systems of government in the modern world, but nowhere more so than in the pluralistic politics of the United States, with its frequent elections, groups ceaselessly competing for influence over policy, and a complex institutional structure. The print media – newspapers, broad- sheets, journals and books – were important features of American colonial societies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and remained the only medium of communication, other than word of mouth, until well into the nineteenth century. The situation began to change with the development of the telegraph and the use of the Morse code, so that messages which would previously have taken days to carry by horse or train could be sent from one side of the continent to the other in minutes. The invention of the telephone made possible direct communication from one individual to another across the country. It was the invention of radio, however, that really inaugurated the era of ‘the mass media’ so that President Franklin D. Roosevelt, with his
‘fireside chats’, could potentially reach every citizen. After the Second World War television began to transform the role of the media in politics. In the late twentieth century the development of the internet brought a new dimension of person-to-person communication, the impact of which on the conduct of politics is only now becoming apparent.
The importance of the media in the modern state raises a number of ques- tions. What effect do the media have on the outcome of elections and how do they affect policy decisions? Do the media simply report the news or do they make it? Do the media reflect public opinion or do they shape it? Are the media manipulated by government or do they control it? We may not be able to give satisfactory answers to these difficult questions, but at least we may hope to throw some light on the impact of the media on the political system of the United States.
Newspapers
In a country the size of the United States, newspapers were inevitably lo- cal in origin, most of them founded before the development of the technol- ogy which now makes it possible to reach readers thousands of miles from the point of origin. Newspapers were centred on cities and towns across the country, founded as the growth of settlement opened up new areas. Even today, although there are over 1,400 daily newspapers, there are few national newspapers in the sense in which there are national newspapers in (much smaller) European countries, such as Britain. The New York Times and the Washington Post, with the status of national institutions, are still not available for sale in newsagents or supermarkets in many small towns, although they are now accessible daily on the internet, along with many other newspapers.
The only newspaper readily available almost everywhere is USA Today, useful but without the extensive coverage of the great traditional dailies. Although many newspapers were founded by individuals who ran them as personal fief- doms, today the majority of daily newspapers are owned by large corporate chains. Alongside the newspapers, weekly magazines such as Time and News- week have considerable influence, with large circulations, and for the political and business elite there are a number of specialist news magazines, such as U.S. News and World Report, National Review or New Republic.
The news media show the same pattern as the general characteristics of American society – initial high decentralisation, followed by increasing na- tionalisation and the increasing influence of ‘big business’. At their height newspapers had considerable influence on the course of American politics, and in some cases decisive influence. It was the investigatory journalism of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post that revealed the scandal of Watergate, and led eventually to the resignation of Richard Nixon.
However, with the rise of television and the internet the relative influence of the press declined.
Radio
The first commercial radio station in the United States was established in Pittsburgh in November 1920 and began broadcasting with a report of the election results of the presidential election of that year. The development of broadcasting was rapid, with hundreds of stations being established in the 1920s; in 2005 there were over 10,000 commercial radio stations. Congress passed the Radio Act of 1927 to introduce order into the system by allocat- ing wavelengths; the Federal Communications Commission was set up by the Communications Act of 1934 for that purpose. Although radio stations were established as independent businesses, and still are, networking soon became desirable so that news programmes, commentaries and some enter- tainment and sports programmes could be generated by the network and distributed to affiliated stations across the country. Four large networks were
created: the National Broadcasting Company, the Columbia Broadcasting System, the American Broadcasting System and the Mutual Broadcasting System; the last of these has now ceased to exist. The affiliated stations and the networks are all commercial operations dependent on income from ad- vertising; public service broadcasting did not begin to operate until well after the Second World War, and it was not until the passage of the Public Broad- casting Act of 1967 that government funding of public service broadcasting began. However, public service broadcasting has not been free from the need to attract funds from commercial sponsors by offering limited advertising opportunities.
The development of the radio networks made possible the ‘fireside chats’
which President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated in 1933 and delivered until 1944, shortly before his death. Radio became the main source of news for millions, but the rise of television after the Second World War reduced the appeal and influence of radio. However, radio experienced a revival with the development of ‘Talk Radio’. Most radio stations had come to broadcast con- tinuous popular music, occasionally interspersed with weather forecasts and networked news bulletins. In the 1990s, however, the talk radio movement burgeoned after a legal requirement that controversial issues should be pre- sented in an honest, equal and balanced manner was repealed. Radio talk show hosts could now make extreme statements of opinion without having to allow any response. Initially this opportunity was exploited by conservative presenters, such as Rush Limbaugh. Commenting on those taking part in the demonstrations on immigration that took place in April, 2006, Limbaugh stated on his radio show:
There are countless leftists, socialist, Marxist, communist, what have you, who are filled with their own self-loathing. They’re generally losers.
They don’t matter much to anybody, and they recoil at success, domi- nance, achievement, and power, and their objective is to tear it down.
They live under the illusion that capitalism has created by design a cer- tain set of winners and a certain set of losers and it’s the winners who determine who the other winners are and who the losers are going to be. They are in the losing side. So they have this false notion that that’s inherently unfair and we must all be equal, but the real objective is not equality.
The real objective is not quality lives for the people they claim to represent. The real objective is not happiness and the pursuit of happiness for the downtrodden of the world. It is simply a desire to destroy a country like the United States of America, however possible.
They fully well understand that destroying the distinct American culture is a classic way and perhaps an easy way of destroying this country. So they glom onto any subject that they think will advance that objective of theirs. This is a perfect opportunity for them. It’s a perfect opportunity to stand with their Democrat socialist brethren and to promote them, and it’s a great opportunity to once again condemn this country.
Liberal talk show hosts also emerged, but they have been less success- ful in drawing audiences. Prominent also are religious broadcasting stations numbering several hundreds, but more important perhaps are the television evangelists such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson; the latter stood as a candidate for the presidential nomination of the Republican Party in 1988.
Television
Although public television broadcasts began in Britain in 1936, the develop- ment of television was slower in the United States, where television broad- casting began in 1939. However, television was virtually suspended during the war years and it was not until 1946 that the television age really began.
Television stations followed the pattern of radio in that they were commer- cial, drawing their revenue from advertising; the three great radio networks moved into television adopting the same pattern of working with affiliated stations across America, joined later by the Fox network. Although televi- sion stations are required by federal law to ‘afford equal opportunities’ to all candidates for an elective office who wish to make political broadcasts, the candidates have to pay for the air time they use, adding to the costs of elec- tion campaigns. The heavy cost of using the networks resulted in the produc- tion of ‘soundbites’, statements in support of a candidate or a party lasting perhaps only a few seconds, during which time no coherent argument could be developed. The use of television for political campaigning was rather slow to evolve, but when it did it transformed elections and helped the decline in the power of party organisations that had been gathering pace since the introduction of primary elections.
Television has changed the way in which the public is influenced by the media in a number of ways. Doris Graber has pointed out in Mass Media and American Politics how the immediacy of television news broadcasts increases their importance over other media in crisis situations. In the immediate af- termath of the attack on the World Trade Center there was a considerable increase in public reliance on television news. The extent of news coverage on the major networks is limited, usually with little concern for foreign news, although naturally when American troops are involved in warfare, as in Iraq, the balance shifts considerably. However, the development of channels such as Fox News and CNN devoted almost exclusively to news and comment pro- vides the opportunity to view news stories as they break for those who are interested.
Negative campaigning, the use of television advertising and other media to convey negative information about an opponent’s character or record, has been a feature of American electioneering for many years, going back to the
‘mudslinging’ era of the 1884 election in which Democrat Grover Cleveland was accused of having fathered a child out of wedlock, and the Democrats were portrayed as the party of ‘Rum, Romanism and Rebellion’. The election of 2004 had a fair share of negative campaigning. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT) was formed during the election campaign in order to discredit
John Kerry’s claims about his Vietnam War service. Kerry served in the Navy during that war and was decorated with the Purple Heart and other med- als. He had operated in Swift Boats, or Fast Patrol Craft, small armed boats designed to operate in shallow waters. After his return from Vietnam he had played a part in the anti-war movement including joining the organisation Vietnam Veterans Against the War. In the period leading up to the 2004 elec- tion campaign Kerry had used his war record to give credibility to his claim to be able to lead the nation in its ‘war against terror’, and when arriving on the podium at the national convention to accept the Democratic nomination he gave a military salute and said ‘Reporting for duty’. The SBVT consisting of war veterans, including one who had served alongside Kerry, was regis- tered as an advocacy, or non-partisan 527 group, and during August 2004 placed four advertisements on television denigrating Kerry’s war record and his later anti-war activities, describing him as dishonest, unreliable and unfit to lead. Allegations were later made that the Bush campaign had links with SBVT, and that prominent Republicans had funded the group. The devel- opment of cable television has again changed the media landscape and its relevance to politics. To the three great networks of the immediate post-war period have been added not only further networks but also hundreds of ca- ble channels. The availability of so many channels makes it very much more complex for politicians to reach their target audience.
The internet
The increasing popularity of the internet since it became available for use by the public in the 1990s has inevitably led to its being used for political com- munication. Its use by candidates for political office was slow to develop, but the election campaign of 2004 was evidence, in the words of Matthew Kerbel,
‘that the Internet can help to shift the balance of political power in a long contest by organizing volunteers, boosting morale, influencing the spin in mainstream media, and of course raising money.’ Kerbel describes the Inter- net as the most democratic medium in American history and one which can genuinely engage the voters in the political process:
After decades of being sedated by television, many people have come to regard politics as a spectator sport. To blog about the accomplishments of political action, to feel inspired by a politician, or to occasionally do something to further a campaign is out of step with how politics is por- trayed on television, but it is a perfectly natural reaction on-line.
The politician who made the most use of the internet in 2004 was the Demo- crat, Howard Dean. He made extensive use of ‘weblogs’, posting his speeches on Blog for America. He was able to raise large sums of money by soliciting small contributions from supporters on the web. In the end he did not se- cure the Democratic nomination, but he set a precedent which few future
candidates are likely to ignore. Potential candidates for the nomination in 2008 are already devoting a great deal of time to blogs, discussing issues, answering questions put by bloggers.
The attraction of the internet to political campaigners is that it can have a more personal touch than radio and television advertising and it is a lot cheaper. The multiplication of television channels makes it more difficult to get a candidate’s message across, whereas email messages can be downloaded daily to the target audience and podcasts can deliver videos directly to vot- ers. In 2006 the Federal Election Commission ruled that almost all political activity on the internet would be exempt from the restrictions of campaign finance laws. The effect of the internet is likely to be an even greater decline in the coherence of the political organisations, in particular political parties, as it puts more power into the hands of individuals to exercise influence over the political process.
The influence of the media
Doris Graber concludes that ‘the mass media play a major role in political socialization and in learning and accepting the beliefs, norms and rules that govern political life’. Socialisation is a process which begins early in life and continues over a long period, as political attitudes become well-established.
But the media can also affect public opinion on particular issues as they arise, by the way in which they are presented, and the fact that individuals have evolved particular beliefs about politics and particular political leanings does not mean that public opinion is set in cement and cannot be changed. Thus President George W. Bush had an approval rating of 80 per cent in Janu- ary 2002, 58 per cent in January 2004, 50 per cent in January 2005, down to 33 per cent in March 2006. This slide in popularity had a number of causes, but among them have to be the television pictures of the continuing violence in Iraq, the press reports of the deaths of American military personnel, the press assessments of the success or failure of the establishment of democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, the television pictures of New Orleans in the after- math of Hurricane Katrina. Clearly the media have a great deal of influence, but how objective is their reporting?
There is no such thing as complete objectivity; every writer, every com- mentator is influenced to some degree by his or her own political views, by the circumstances of the time, by the perceived impact of their work on their employers, on the government, on the public, on interested groups. To present a news story or an analysis of events involves the selection of some facts rather than others, giving greater or lesser weight to differing aspects of these events, offering opinions about what is or is not important. It is almost inevitable, therefore, that a news presentation or current events programme will give a particular ‘slant’ to the situation; the real problem is to decide when selection, which is inevitable, tips over into deliberate distortion.
The media and elections
The role of the media, particularly television, in elections is enormously en- hanced by the nature of the American political system. The presidential elec- tion focuses attention on the single most important election in the world, so that it can become a drama, involving very high stakes. The weakness of the political parties means that the voting behaviour of the electorate is much more independent than in most countries of the world. Above all, the fact that the voters are so closely involved in the choice of party candidates through primary elections makes personality, or the voters’ perception of personality, a vitally important factor in the process. To win, a candidate has to project an image that will inspire confidence that he or she is suitable for the office, whether it be for city councilman or president of the United States. What better medium than television for this purpose? Television focuses on the personality of the candidate in a way that no other medium can: the gesture, body language, the facial expression. Thus television has concentrated more on personalities than on policies; the latter can better be dealt with in the print media, particularly the ‘quality press’, although this reaches a much smaller number of people.
Although President Eisenhower made use of television in the election of 1956, the first occasion on which television made a considerable impact on a presidential election was that of 1960, the contest between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Kennedy was virtually unknown nationally and not popu- lar with the Democratic Party leaders; his Catholicism was thought to be a disadvantage and his stance on civil rights policy not popular in the South.
But Kennedy’s personality came through to the ordinary voter on television in a way that would not have been possible otherwise. The campaign was notable also for the staging of the first television debate between rival can- didates, in which famously Nixon’s ‘five o’clock shadow’ compared unfavour- ably with the rugged, handsome appearance of Kennedy. Kennedy won the election by a hair’s breadth, and it is difficult not to attribute his victory in large part to the influence of television.
After 1960 no further television debates were held until 1976, in the contest between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, but since then they have become a regular feature of election campaigns, not only at the presidential level, but at congressional and state levels as well. The fairness of the way in which these debates have been staged is in some doubt. In 1996 the Re- publican candidate for the presidency, Robert Dole, was able to exclude Ross Perot, the candidate of the Reform Party, from the debates; in the election of 2000 two ‘third-party’ candidates, Ralph Nader and Patrick Buchanan, were excluded. In both cases it was the fear of the major party candidates of the effect that the minor party candidates might have on the vote if they were allowed to enter the debates that resulted in their exclusion.
It is difficult to generalise about the effect of television on the outcome of elections. Undoubtedly television has an influence, but the exact effect