While browsing the inter-webs the other evening I stumbled upon the PEW Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism website containing an annual report rightfully entitled The State of News Media 2013. PEW has maintained a quality reputation as a surveyor, and their studies generally hold considerable weight. While I was not able to read the report in its entirety, there are selected issues that I would like to discuss.
The thesis of the report was simple; the media is fighting and uphill battle in their quest to act as the framers of elections, especially presidential ones. I realize that there are many who would contend that this is not an issue saying, "what difference does it make? The politicians don't need the media to tell their stories, they can do it themselves." Contrary to this line of thought, it is extremely important that the media be heavily involved in presidential elections. Most citizens have no interaction with their government outside of the main stream media. Without the media serving as an intermediary, the public is forced to accept the narratives put forth by a candidate's political campaign team. One of the media's critical roles is that of vetting a candidate's records and statements, and if the media suffers from a loss of power to frame campaign narratives then our democratic system will surely endure harm. Although they don't always choose to investigate all campaign statements, occasionally media presence alone is enough of a deterrent to help keep a politician from blatantly lying on the campaign trail.
One of the reasons for media's reduced influence is that of political parroting. The PEW study shows that"Campaign reporters were acting primarily as megaphones, rather than investigators, of the assertions put forward by the candidates and other political partisans." In the 2000 presidential race, the media formed roughly 50% of all personal assertions present in the race. Fast forwarding to 2012, we see that the media formed only 27% of all personal assertions or half the number of 2000. If the media is framing less and less of the narrative, then that means that the politicians are generating the rest with the news agencies simply repeating what they are given. Without unique and responsible investigative journalism to guide elections, politicians are able to construct abstract images of themselves with relative impunity.
Just as we have discussed many times through our online learning modules, technology has served as one of the driving factors for the change in elections. With the internet and TV present in millions of American homes, smartphones and iPads constantly updating us, and Twitter feeds tweeting in our ears, candidates are able to reach into our lives on a daily basis without the media's influence. President Obama's usage of social mediums stands as the most recent example of the persuasive power available to a well structured campaign. In his 2008 and 2012 races his team flooded the internet with constant pictures and updates of his purported mission and thoughts, leading to back-to-back victories for him and his team. The tens of millions of viewers that received his messages did so directly, without the media delivering the content or screening it as was custom in the past.
Further complicating things, the study finds that there are fewer journalists today than in the past. Massive corporate buyouts have led to the streamlining of workforces, and PEW estimates that there are fewer than 40,000 professional journalists working in the US. In the complicated and often twisted world of presidential campaigns, fewer journalists means less coverage and fact checking. These issues combine to set the stage for the steady decline of political influence present in today's major elections, and generally undermine the democratic system envisioned by our forefathers. How we combat these actions remains to be seen.
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