Review: Changing Media, Changing Politics Author(s): Samuel L.

Popkin Reviewed work(s): All the News That's Fit to Sell by James Hamilton Soft News Goes to War: Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy in the New Media Age by Matthew Baum Source: Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Jun., 2006), pp. 327-341 Published by: American Political Science Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3688271 Accessed: 13/01/2010 15:16
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Review Essay

Changing
Samuel L. Popkin

Media,

Changing

Politics

2004. 264 pages.$37.95 cloth. Princeton Fit to Sell.ByJamesHamilton.Princeton: All theNewsThat's Press, University $18.95 paper. in theNewMediaAge.By MatthewBaum.Princeton: andAmerican to War: PublicOpinion Policy Foreign SoftNewsGoes PrincetonUniversity Press,2003. 291 pages.$39.95 cloth. $19.95 paper.

Introduction
he way we think about news should be changed by two recent books: James Hamilton'sAll the News Thats Fit to Sell: How the Market Transforms Information into News and Matthew Baum'sSoftNews Goesto War.Both presentsurprisingfindings that challengeconventional wisdom. And, readtogether,they presagea new line of researchinto how entrepreneurial politicians, all overthe world,arechangingpoliticsthroughtheirresponses to changing media. we Since the publicationin 1987 of News ThatMatters, have developed a rich understandingof the psychological effects of news stories. In that classic study, which overturned decades of claims that news stories had "minimal ShantoIyengar and Donald Kinderbroughtmedia effects," researchinto the laboratoryand demonstratedthe influence of news stories on issue concerns,presidentialevaluations, and voting. Their book generatedfollow-up studies that have shown how various characteristics of these stories-point of view (framing), connection to political offices (priming), emotional content, or causal implications-shape our individual political reactionsto them.'

SamuelL Popkinis Professor of PoliticalScienceat UniverSan This sity of California, Diego (spopkin@ucsd.edu). was Eisensteins Elizabeth essay inspiredby pioneering research on the efects of theprintingpressand Ithiel Pools betweenthe expected and of the discrepancies analyses actual effectof new communications from the technologies revolution. It was written the printingpressthrough digital at the Advanced Centerfor Studyin duringafellowship I am indebtedto GeraldGamm, the Behavioral Sciences. ArthurLupia, Samuel Jacobson, Delynn Kaufman,Gary and Bob Kaiser Kernell,MichaelSchudson for their comments.

But there is another important media effect that has been less well studied: the ways in which new communications technologieschange both the content of news and the organizationof politics. When the media changes so do the mediators-the personswho choose and interpret the news. When new mediators communicate different inforstoriesand differentinterpretations, they redistribute mation among citizens, providing more information to some and less to others,and more informationabout some issues and less about others. Entrepreneurial politicians, and publishers takeadvantage of thesechanges broadcasters, and challengepolitical and culturalelites by letting "daylight in upon the magic"in WalterBagehot'sphrase. In All theNews ThatsFit to Sell,JamesHamilton develops a theory that explainsnews content as a joint product of decisions by advertisers,media, and the audience. He devisesingenious measuresof the supply and demand for differingkinds of news and uses them to predictchanging television,and the Interpatternsof content in newspapers, net. He relates the rise in national advertising revenue between 1870 and 1900 to the growth of independent newspapersfree of party control. He shows how differences between cities in the demand for news are reflected in local newspaperand television news content, and how locally-ownedtelevisionstationsdifferfrom group-owned stations. He uses content analysis to see whether local newspapers coveringthe 2000 election were biasedtoward the candidates they eventuallyendorsed.He tracks35 years of networkTV coverageof legislation,courts,health, education, and entertainment to see how deregulationand cable competition have changed the stories covered. He shows how increasedcompetition among news outlets has encouraged them to invest less in costly reporting and more in news anchorswith "brandnames."He connects perceptionsof bias to the growth of niche programming, and shows how Internet usersuse national media to supplement local news. June 2006 1Vol. 4/No. 2 327

Review Essay I ChangingMedia,ChangingPolitics

In Soft News Goes to War,Matthew Baum takes the "hardest" of all newscategories, foreignpolicy,and examines how programs offering "infotainment"and "new news" affectpublic interestand attitudes.He comparesattentiveness to wars in Korea,Vietnam, and the Middle East as well as the 1978 Camp David Accordsbetween Israeland Egypt,the 1993 Oslo AccordsbetweenIsraeland the PLO, and the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords between Bosnian Serbs, Muslims, and Croatians.He also analyzessmaller crises and uses of force, such as the attempted missile strikes on Osama bin Laden under Bill Clinton and the bombing of Libyaunder PresidentReagan.Afterapplying all the controls for education and interest, he shows that more people than ever before are engaged in issues like these. He shows not only that political engagement is relatedto viewing the new genresof programs-including tabloid shows like Hard Copyor InsideEdition and entertainment shows like Entertainment Tonight-but also that these shows provide important political information for viewers. These books are solely about the United States, and, with the exception of a single chapterin Hamilton about newspapersfrom 1870-1900, they focus on changes in recent decades. These insights generalizeto other countries, other time periods and other media. We can better understandthe political effects of the commercialization of television, cable TV, satellites, and the Internet when we considerthem in the contextof pastinnovations,including the rise of the printing press, the newspaper,the telegraph, and radio. We can also push beyond these two books to understand how politicians adapt to new ways of communicatand changingmedia ing. Sincepoliticiansarecrowd-seekers createnew audiences,they adapt their strategiesas media elders change.When Newt Gingrichchallengedhis party's on C-SPAN, when Bill Clinton played the saxophone on the ArsenioHall Show,and when PresidentBush discussed steroidabusein his 2004 Stateof the Union Address,they were adapting to new media opportunitiesjust as opportunistic politiciansbeforethem introducedpolitical manifestos, newspaper interviews, fireside chats, convention acceptancespeeches, and State of the Union addressesin responseto earlierchanges in media. When new media raisenew issues, engage new groups, and give voice to different speakers, they provoke attempts at cultural and political protectionism by established political gatekeepers.When al-Jazeerabroadcast actualpolitical debate throughout the Middle East, when Tom Paine attackedthe divine right of kings in language common people could understand, and when Martin Lutherprinted his 95 theses instead of just nailing them to one door, they were all breachingboundariesand inviting a wider public to join in a debate. In the process of coping with the breaches,existing political organizations were reshaped. 328 Perspectives on Politics

From Informationto News

News is information about public life that sells, and Hamilton's theory explains how advertisers,media, and viewersjointly determineits content. In his analysis,information that sells takes one of two basic forms: information that can be sold directlyto individuals,or information that sells indirectly by being bundled with advertising. Since Hamilton is focusing on America,he ignoresa third form of information which is important in many countries: information the government wants to "sell you." Amending Hamilton to include government supported media, it then follows that if you won't pay for information and the governmentwon't pay to give it to you, then you will get only news that can be bundled with ads-or propaganda-that someone wants you to see. This is a theory about the determinantsof media content, not yet another evaluationof news content according to whetherit is too biased,negative,politicallycorrect, or scandal-driven. Insteadof the five Ws taught reporters in journalismclass (who, what, when, where, and why), Hamilton focuses on the five Ws that publishersand producers use to determinewhat stories to include: * Who caresabout this particular piece of information? * What are they willing to pay to find it? * Where can media outlets or advertisersreach these people? * When is it profitableto provide this information? * Why is it profitable? Citizens are willing to pay for some types of news themselves.Bloombergand Dow Jones both sell marketdata to millions of investors;bettorsand sportsfans pay for access to Web sites with up-to-date information about horses and teams;and more than two million people subscribeto the online Consumer Reportsto get up-to-date information beforepurchasinga new appliance.Of course, information so timely and valuablethat citizens will pay for it While tens is a tiny subset of all the informationavailable. of millions gladlypay $15 a month to watch movieswithout commercialinterruptions,few careenough about the content. news to pay for commercial-free Before 1984, station license renewaldepended in part upon a showing of "publicservice"programming,which meant coverageof domestic legislationand foreignaffairs. The aim of network news divisions was to earn license renewals;in the 1960s and 1970s, making no profit on news-just breakingeven-could be offered as proof of public service.In that era,pleasingthe FCC and Congress was as important as pleasingviewers.Today,the production and delivery of news stories depends on answersto value. questions about advertiser Not all viewers are interestingto sponsors, and not all stories are interesting to all viewers. The more sponsors want to reach a particulargroup the more content they

will offer to attract it. How much will sponsors pay for eight minutes of commercialsspliced into 22 minutes of news? What kind of news stories will keep an audience watching those eight minutes?And do expensivestoriesforeign reportingor investigativereporting-bring better returns than money spent on higher-pricedanchors or stories about celebritiesor scandals? Very little news is so clear and precise that familiarity, credibility, and reputation do not affect our decision whetherto takeit seriously. We find it easyto judgewhether a news story was entertaining,or readilycomprehensible, but in many caseswe may not discoverits realvalue for a long time. Was that alarming story "cryingwolf"? Was that reassuring Were the facts even relistory Panglossian? able? How many of us, for example, watch a different network news program, or read a different paper, every day? Hamilton shows that news providerstry to encourage regularconsumption of their product by creatinga comfort level, a familiaritywith the source that tells people what to expect and how to "read" it. The type of expectations they create and the viewers they targetwill depend on the number of competitors, the specific type of news involved, and the availablesponsor revenue.

Patronage, Partisanship and Advertising

Hamilton begins with an analysis of the changes that occurredin Americannewspapers between 1870 and 1900 that dovetailsnicely with the pioneeringwork of Michael Schudson on the development of the newspaper.In the early nineteenth century, most papers were partisan mouthpiecesthat dependedon politicalpatronagefor survival. Papersthat spoke for a politician or clique had no independent viewpoint of their own and were thus of value only to personswho needed to know what the politician wanted them to know, as Soviet elites once read Pravdato learnwhat they were supposed to know, whether it was true or not. Beyond partisanreports and strident editorials,these six-pennypapersreportedlittle more than shipping news and legal notices.2 Whereaseditors in the partypresswere little more than shills for politicians, the editors of the new penny press that developed after 1830 createdindependent identities. These independent papers, some nonpartisanand some partisan,began to swamp the older party press.The partisan editors, like Horace Greeleyof the New York Herald, sought to distinguish themselves from the "servilepartisanship"of the older papersand strove to maintain their own credibilityas independent spokesmen for the interests of their readers.3 The "pennypress,"Schudson has shown, invented the modern concept of "news,"bringing reportsfrom courtrooms, police departments, and political debates to the

middleclass.Thesepennypapers the viewpoint targeted of "an andinterests andmiddleurban, varied, increasingly classsocietyof trade, andmanufacturing" transportation, whilethe oldersix-penny to targetthe continued papers elites.This wasa dramatic politicalandbusiness change: "Until the 1830s,a newspaper a service to politprovided icalparties andmenof commerce; with the pennypress a sold a to a and sold newspaper product general readership the readership to advertisers."4 In the erawhen manypapers wereintensely partisan, theAssociated Press from nonprofited beingferociously The bedrock of the AP was partisan. principle "rigorously so thatpapers enforced" of everypolitical neutrality, persuasion couldsafely usenewsfromothercitiesandstates. couldwrite:"Sowell understood is By 1884, a historian thisruleby thepublic,andso carefully is it observed, that the worldhaslearned to regard the intelligence conveyed as uniformly thisagency trustworthy."5 through Inthenineteenth astoday, theolder century, party papers withthe newerpapers, co-existed whether or nonpartisan that wereindependent of partycontrol.Using partisan, dataon advertising revenues and circulation for the fifty Hamilton shows that between and1900, 1870 cities, largest in and the ad revenue virtuchange technological growth eliminated the older form of Amerally partynewspaper. icanscameto preferan objective basedon partisanship the credibility of the publisher rather thanon the party line delivered the largeincrease Moreover, by politicians. in totalcirculation forall papers between1870 and 1900 showsthat manynew readers who had neversubscribed to the partisan wereattracted less press by moreobjective, partisan papers.

Personalities
The messenger is partof the message. The harder it is to determine the qualityof a newsstory,the morethe mesThe moreinterpretation is involved,the sengermatters. morelikelyit will be thata printstorywill havea byline, andthemorelikelythataTV newsstorywillbe presented or anchor.Familiarity breeds by a well-known reporter but when news identities predictability, providers develop foranchors andreporters, to theygivemoreof the profits themandlessto thecorporation. and bylines Accordingly, are developed when they are economically personalities in orholdanaudience. to draw needed Hamilton is pointto the same tension as exists between individuals and ing teamsin politics; whatis bestforthe network or theparty will not be bestforeveryreporter or politician. Although the reporter habitual making partof the newsencourages thegainforthenetwork viewing, maycomeattheexpense of alternatives, such as investingmore money in news
programming.

Hamilton findsthatthe spread of cableTV subscribers

June 2006 Vol. 4/No. 2 329

and the increasein the numberof channelsset offa bidding

Review Essay I ChangingMedia,ChangingPolitics

war for news anchors. It was easier for a new channel to with a create instant familiarityby hiring a "personality" trackrecordand a known bias than to delivera particular type of news and hope viewerswould test it long enough to accept its credibility and viewpoint. As a result, the salaries of news anchorsrosenearlyeightfoldbetween 1975 in the 1990s, when the numand 2000, and particularly ber of cable householdsand cable channelsroserapidly.In 1976, the three network anchorswere paid an averageof 13 cents per year per viewing household (currentvalue). In 1999, Peter Jennings was earning $1.07 per viewing household and Tom Brokawand Dan Ratherwere earning 86 cents.6 do in a newspaper, and storiescoveringmore issuescan be presented. The Internet, in turn, is even cheaperthan cable, and bloggerscan be narrowlyfocused and even more partisan than cable channel pundits. The smaller the break-even audience and the lower the cost, the more distinct the viewpoint-and hence the more vehement the chargesof bias. Like pamphleteers,printers,and radio broadcasters before them, it is likely that some of the most successful bloggers will establish wider reputations and become "publishers."

Competition Determines Content

Today,Americanhouseholds receive,on average,over 60 television channels, comparedto seven in the late 1960s. More channelsprovidemore ways to obtain news, as well as more ways to avoid it. More ways to obtain news means to give people the news morecompetitionamong providers they want instead of the news political and culturalelites think they should have. More competition also means lower profit marginsand fewer incentivesto cover expensive stories. Cable and satellite channels also mean niche targeting, because a smaller audience now can sustain a show. How do marketforcesaffectthe content of news?What the numberof channews do peoplewant?Does increasing nels increasethe supply of news?The economic logic of news means that networksfollow the pack, pour money into personalities, aim storiesat audiencesthatattractadvertisers, and produce only stories that appeal to the chosen targetaudience.It is not self-evident,therefore,that offering more choices will create better news. Increasingthe number of channels may simply increasethe number of anchors reading the same stories, and may also spread news budgets so thin that no one can afford to cover expensivestories or do investigativereporting. Before 1984, therewere governmentconstraintson just how low or cheap networknews could go. This was largely becausethe FCC requirednetworksto demonstratepublic service programming in order to get their licenses renewed. As Hamilton notes, the three networks spent lavishly on overseasbureaus, reporters,and Washington coveragein order to justify their licenses.They also went out of their way not to profit from the news shows. After FCC chief,dropped 1984, MarkFowler,President Reagan's the public servicerequirementfor license renewal,leaving the networksfreeto concentrateon news that sold instead of news that pleasedthe FCC-and freerto compete with the growing number of cable networks. How much differencedid this revisionmake?How did deregulationand increasedcompetition affect the supply of news?Did it bring more or less coverageof Congress, legislation, and the courts? In theory, if viewers wanted the news they were alreadyreceiving, there would be no

Herding
Timothy Crouse'sclassic The Boyson the Bus coined the for the tendency of news editors phrase"packjournalism" to send reportersout on the campaign trail to report on the same stories as the AP or the networks.7Building on Hamilton's analysis of experience and expectations, we can see that pack journalism is a forerunnerof "watercooler" stories, ongoing narrativeseasy to chat about at work. News providerswant subscribersand viewers to know that they will not miss important stories, and that they can expect to understandthe news-that it will be digestible. This means covering the same story as other news sources,so that people will get updatedon the storiesthey are hearing about elsewhere,and continuing a story with which people are alreadyfamiliar.This is one aspect of creatingexpectations:going along with the herd, so people know that whateverstory they hear from one trusted sourcewill be coveredby the others. Like a situation comedy or soap opera, where people know the characters well enough to follow new episodes easily, an ongoing story that people are alreadyfamiliarwith is easierto provide than a new story with unfamiliarissues, people, or places. Herding takesdifferentforms in the newspaperand the television business. A newspaper can keep more stories views of the same story. going and also presentalternative can attract many small groups of Newspaper publishers with storiesabout subjectsof no interestto the subscribers They can appealto numerousintense minorities majority. by offering liberalor conservativecolumnists, or running storiesabout issuesof specialinterestonly to small groups. Newspaperaudiences,then, resemblea coalition of minorities. Televisionshows on the other hand, must give everyone the same storiesat the same time, so they do not cover stories of intense interest only to particulargroups. the ability to make television Cable gives broadcasters An cable channel costs a additional more like newspaper. network. On cable, to an over-the-air little very compared the intenselypartisanand nonpartisancan co-exist as they
330 Perspectives on Politics

change in the type of news offered.If, on the other hand, they were being offered only the news that Congressand the FCC wanted them to have, the news would change. Hamilton devised a series of indices to measure the supply of news offeredby the networks.These indices are so clever-and in retrospect so obvious-that they are likely to become benchmarksfor future research.Using the Vanderbilt television archives, which contain every network news show since 1968, Hamilton calculatedthe number of storiesand the time devoted everyyear to coverageof four areas: recordof key votes Legislation: Congressional Quarterlys Supreme Court: HarvardLaw Reviewsroundup of the most important SupremeCourt cases Ideology: The list of issues included in the legislative scorecardsof the ACLU (AmericanCivil Liberties Union) and ACU (AmericanConservativeUnion). list of the year's25 Popular Culture: Peoplemagazine's Most IntriguingPeople Both the regulatoryenvironment and cable competition affectedthe mix of stories on the nightly news. When the Reagan FCC dropped the public service requirementfor license renewal, there were indeed changes in coverage, but cable competition led to bigger changes. In the 1990s, networknews coveredless legislationthan in the 1970s. Whereastwo-thirdsof the criticalCongressional Quarterlyvotes were coveredin the seventies,only abouthalfwerecoveredin the nineties.Whereasthe nightly news once coveredhalf of the votes on interest-group scorein the nineties covered one-third. Covercards, they only age of the SupremeCourt, however,held steady,at about 40 percent of the important cases. Celebrity coverage has also increased. Network news has doubled the time devoted to Peoplesmost intriguing people of the year.This is not entirely a move away from politics, though. Peopleslist includes political personalities, and political celebritieslike John McCain or Colin Powell get some of the attention no longer given to legislative insiders. The big shifts in coverage, however, have been away from legislation and foreign reporting and into what is derisively known as "soft news." While there has been some increasein the coverageof celebrities,both political and non-political, most of the shift has been to the "soft" of "news categories you can use"-consumer-orientedinformation on health, business, and technology.8 The sexistconnotationsof"hard"and "soft" news reflect the Washington perspectiveof politicians and regulators (beltway oriented, mostly male) whose political interests were catered to before deregulation.Advertisersparticularlyvalue viewersaged 18-49, especiallywomen. People in this categoryhave a bigger impact on ad ratesbecause they are making new consumer decisions and spending more money. To the extent possible, then, the issues they

care about are the ones that will be coveredwhen shows are assembled.If there is more about health, gun control, education,and the environmentin the news,and lessabout foreign affairsand legislativebattles, that fact reflectsthe interestsof the viewers consideredmost desirableby the sponsors.

Is There an Unmet Demand for More Hard News?

Have the networksgone too lowbrow for the public and disprovedH. L. Mencken'sfamous contention that "No one ever went broke underestimatingthe intelligence of the American people?"Thomas Patterson, for example, arguesthat televisionis ignoring a demand for hardnews. Noting the success of National Public Radio and citing surveydata that many Americanssay the news is "no longer worthwhile,"he arguesthat "softnews may be diminishing the overall level of interest in news."9 Hamilton's researchskewerssuch claims. Although people might say that they want more (and newsthantheyaregetting,Hamiltonoffersstrong different) evidence that broadcastersare accuratelyresponding to their audience when they decide which stories to cover. One of his most importantachievements has been to devise workable measuresof the supply and demand for hard news, measuresthat can be used to compare media markets. For the 50 largestmarketsin the U.S., he used subscriptionsto four magazinesas proxiesfor the demand for differentkindsof news: Timefor hardnews,Modern Matufor news about the elderly,Peoplefor entertainment rity and celebritynews, and Playboy for news with sexualcontent of interest to young men. He then examined the completesupplyof local news for an entiremonth, November 1999. For each TV station he counted how many storiesfrom the Lehrer News Hourwere covered,and how stories were on the many topics coveredon Entertainment Access Tonight, Hollywood, and Inside Edition. He also counted how many stories referredto the governor,senators, or mayorsfor the particularmarket. Cities vary greatly in what kinds of information their inhabitantsbuy in magazines,and that variationis clearin local news content. Subscriptionsto Time are positively correlatedwith hard news content and negativelycorrelated with soft news content. Subscriptionsto Peopleare correlatedwith higher soft news content. This finding trackswith the data Hamilton collected on the political interest and voting habits of the subscribers: people who read newsweekliesare twice as likely as Peoplesubscribers to say they alwaysvote or follow politics closely. Television stations cover officials in proportion to the local interest in politics and hard news. Across markets, the more people who subscribeto Time, the more local TV carriesstories about elected officials.Conversely,the more subscriptionsto People,the fewerof thoseTV stories
June 2006 i Vol, 4/No. 2 331

Review Essay I Changing Media, Changing Politics

interestas therewill be-unless the officialhas "crossover" a personality,as in the case of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Where there were more older viewers, as measured by subscriptionsto ModernMaturity,therewere fewerstories about computers,AIDS, and HIV.10 Local news interests, not local conditions, determine the news. LocalTV news includesheavycoverageof crime becausethat is what viewersof localTV want. Peoplewho watch showswith a lot of coverageof crime-like America's Most Wanted,COPS, or JudgeJudy-are more likely than others to watch local news. Indeed, people who watch local news are twice as likely to be interested in news about crime as people who listen to NPR or who read The AtlanticMonthlyor TheNew Yorker (where they can read crime on localnews). about the essayscomplaining coverage crime rates do not local shows that Hamilton Indeed, as of the well the interests as the news content predict interattract national to viewers.(Casescompellingenough valuableto local network affiliatestaest are particularly tions because their producerscan use material from the network at lower cost than original local stories.) to 29-year-olds, a demographic group that was antiwar and proudly disrespectfulof political authority.Among reportersfor mainstreampublications, Thompson drew loathing from older ones and jealousyfrom younger ones becausehe could be more colorful and vitriolic about the candidates. During the primaries,for example, he wrote that Hubert Humphrey campaigned like a "ratin heat" like a farmerwith and that Edmund Muskie "campaigned terminalcancertrying to borrowon next year'scrop."

Hard Facts about Soft News

Has Americabeen dumbed down by soft news that "dis12 We should note that tortsthe public'sperceptions"? every time the style, format, or varietyof news changes, public intellectualsand scholarshave blamed lower journalistic for the decline in politicalcoverage,the decayof standards civil society, and the coarsening of political campaigns. Their criticismsamount to a kind of culturalprotectionaction of outmoded gatekeepersproism, the rearguard testing the rise of new mediators. Although the blurring of the line between news and entertainment has upset the mandarins of high culture and serious politics, in Soft News Goesto WarMatthew Baum shows just how much soft news actually contributes to public engagement. There is no straightforward index with which to track foreign coverageover time, as Hamilton tracked Supreme Court decisions or People's personalities,so Baum trackspublic attention to the use of militaryforce since 1952. Warsaregettingsmaller, yet the attentivepublic is growa case that more people makes Baum persuasive ing larger. than ever before are paying attention to a particularset of issues-small warsand foreignpolicy crises-which means that many people who were neverengagedby news in the "goldenage"are engaged now. He measuresengagement by being able to formulateopinions about questions like whether the U.S. "did the right thing getting into the war"or how the presidentwas handling the war.A higher proportionof citizens today say they are paying attention to internationalincidents, and a higher proportion have opinions when askedpolicy questions about the handling or rightnessof foreign crisesand wars. Believing a war is important is clearly different from being engagedenough to makejudgmentsabout it. Many Americanswho knewthat KoreaandVietnamwere important nationalissuescould not formulatepersonalopinions about how the presidentwas handling the war or whether the US "did the right thing getting into the war." More Americanssaid they were paying attention to the Gulf War in 1991 than to the previouswars in Koreaor Vietnam. More Americanswere also engaged enough to have personalopinions about handlingof the Gulf Waror its rightness than with Korea or Vietnam. This is stunning.Therewas no time between1965 and 1973-a period

Competition Is Perceived as "Bias"

Hamilton shows that competition increasesthe perception that news is biased, becausebias is inherent in prodthe more preciselya news programcan uct differentiation: a target demographicgroup, the more likely it is that other groups will call it biased. Cleverly using Nielsen data on viewing by age and gender, as well as data on advertising ratesand productsadvertised,Hamilton is able to categorize news shows accordingto the viewers they are targetthe more a groupdiffersideologically ing. Not surprisingly, from the ideology of a show's target audience, the more bias it perceives.Liberalssay that shows aimed at conservatives are biased, and older viewers say the same about shows aimed at younger viewers. Cable, by lowering the break-evensize of a viewing audience, increasesproduct differentiationand perceptionsof bias. Cable competition with existing networksis a particularly important development because inexpensive cable transmissioncreatesopportunitiesfor new niche markets. Like a newspaper,cable offers a portfolio of channels to suit different tastes. Smaller audiences can be profitable for channelsdedicatedsolely to business,gardening,cooking, comedy,news, music, and sports.And the news shows on the channels targeted at narrow demographic niches suchas Comedy Central's areamongthe most controversial, TheDaily Showand the Fox News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor. In retrospect,with this insight we can see niche targetgoing hand in hand in TheBoyson the Bus. ing and "bias" In 1972, at the height of controversyover the Vietnam War,Hunter S. Thompson coveredthe Nixon-McGovern campaignfor RollingStone,a new magazineaimed at 18332 Perspectives on Politics

which saw the buildup to 567,000 troops, the Tet Offensive, the My Lai massacre,the invasion of Cambodia, and the anti-war movement-when more Americans had opinions about handling of the Vietnam War-or its rightness-than about the Gulf War. Even more dramatic is Baum'scomparison of public attentivenessto the 1978 Camp David Accords between Israeland the PLO, the 1993 Oslo Accordsbetween Israel and the PLO, and the 1995 Dayton PeaceAccordsbetween Bosnian Serbs,Muslims, and Croatians.Not surprisingly, given their historic significance,more network news stories appearedabout Camp David (100) than about Oslo (86) or Dayton (73); still, Baum found that Americans were more engaged with Oslo and Dayton. When General Norman Schwarzkopf discussed Oslo with Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee Gifford, or when Chevy Chase presentedAl Frankendoing a monologue skeweringthe Dayton Accord,or when E!NewsDaily did a featureshowing an Arab-American celebrity,Casey Kasem (a legendary disc jockey) attending the meetings in Oslo, people became more emotionally engagedwith these storiesthan they had been in the past. Baum shows that the new genres of programsincluding tabloid shows like Hard Copyor InsideEdition and entertainment shows like EntertainmentTonightprovideimportantpolitical informationfor viewers.They often cover a different set of issues from hard news programs,and when they do coverthe same issues,they do so in other ways. Both differencesare important. Soft news emphasizeshuman impact and moralvalues, so the new audiencefor foreignaffairsis an audiencewith different concerns and different ways of thinking about foreign affairs.When soft news covers a war, it focuses more on the human dramathan on the geopoliticalstakes, foreign relations, and diplomacy. A rescued hostage, a downed pilot, bereavedfamilies,or a nationalguardsman resentfulof the better-armed regularforceswill get extensive coverage;congressionalhearings, budget fights, and meetings with allies may go unmentioned. Baum argues that the focus on the personal over the geopolitical, in I suspectthat this is a turn, feeds isolationistsentiments.13 it seems as prematureinference; just plausible that these media could feed interventionistsentiments in future situations like the Iran hostage crisis of 1979, when American hostageswereshown being humiliatedby theircaptors. In a nutshell, whether this kind of increasingengagement is good or bad depends upon how one feels about any particularwar and weighs Dominos against Bodybags. If traditional news begins with the policy consequencesof a war-Dominos-soft news emphasizesmore the personalcosts-Bodybags. And for readersof Baum'sbook it has doubtless come as no surprisethat PresidentBush invoked good and evil in framingthe choices in dealingwith Iraq.The two dominant themes on soft news shows are human impact and

morality.Human impact meanshow an issue, like the war in Iraq,affectsthe lives of specificAmericans.Morality,in turn, simply meansfocusingon distinctionsbetweenright and wrong, good and evil. As most people believe they have an intuitive sense of the differencebetweenright and wrong, they find it easy to deal with an issue in those terms.When a policy can be shown to havespecificeffects on specific people, even apolitical viewers perceive a connection. Soft news can draw people to other political forums when the worlds connect. Peoplewho never "gotit" from nightly news are now getting it from soft news, and this change means that politicians who make soft news will sometimes get bigger hard news audiences. In January 1998, the Monica Lewinsky scandal was seldom mentioned on network news before PresidentClinton's State of the Union speech, althoughit was discussedincessantly on the soft news programs.The ratings for that speech were over 30 percent higher than for the previousor succeeding years, and the good news people heard that night-a budget surplusfor the first time in years-gave Clinton a much bigger than usual boost in approvalratings. In the week before the speech, Baum notes, nightly network news ratingswere up 6 percent while soft news shows had rating increasesas high as 70 percent!14 Anyone who had read Baum would not have been surprised in 2003 when PresidentBush asked Oprah Winfreyto be partof a delegationof Americanwomen traveling to Afghanistanto see the educationalprogressbeing made was drivenfrompower. by Afghanwomen sincethe Taliban For many viewers,Oprahs name on the invitationwould be sufficientto draw them to a story about Afghanistan. Soft news doesn'tbring people to politics by enlightening them; it does so by connecting their world to the human interest and drama in politics. Soft news ignores primaries and off-year elections and covers more crime and education and war than was the norm on hard news shows. Nor does it cover all scandals:a personal scandal like the Monica Lewinskyaffairwas ideal for it, whereas Whitewater,a complex set of financial deals, was barely mentioned. Soft news also presentsdifferenttopics, not just different framesfor the same topics. Baumshows that soft news is importantfor informationabout foreign crisesbut not for domestic informationabout primaries,SocialSecurity, or legislation.It is particularly influentialamong the politically uninterested.As a result, people who are less politically engaged are comparativelymore concerned with national crises than they are with other problems facing the country. And because these people are more often Democrats than Republicans,Republican presidentsare more likely to gain increasedpopularsupport from crises. And althoughBaumdealsonly with foreignpolicy,there is good reasonto believe that other issues coveredmainly

or solelybysoftnewsprograms arealsopolitically relevant

June 2006 1Vol. 4/No. 2 333

Review Essay I ChangingMedia,ChangingPolitics

now for many citizens. Baum'sresearch dovetailswith that of Maxwell McCombs and Jian-Hua Zhu and supports the argument that these new shows are changing the issue agenda. Using more than 40 years of Gallup Polls, McCombs and Zhu identified the number of issues considered the "most important issue facing the country"at any one time. They found that there has been a slow but steady increase in the number of issues that at least 10 percent of the population considers important. In other words, the number of issues on the public agenda has increased.McCombs and Zhu found thatAmericais moving away from a single-issuemonopoly-where everyone is focused on the same issue-to a multiple-issueoligopoly, and the new issues include crime, morality,and social relationsas well as a greatervarietyof economic issues.15 These are the issues, Baum shows, that are more prominent in the new formats than on the traditionalnetwork programsand more important to the audiences viewing these shows.16 ing steroids to the State of the Union all illustrateways that politicians react to changes in media. The proposed Marsexplorationwas scratchedbecauseit had not aroused public interest. Health carewas droppedwhen the Democratic candidate Howard Dean, who had emphasized reform,finishedthirdin the Iowa caucuses.Steroids,however, did connect with an important audience. In their storiesaboutsteroids,over 100 Americannewssports-page mentioned the president's papers speech.The reactionwas so positive among sportswriters and fans, in fact, that the White House later announced there would be a summit on steroid abuse in sports (which was laterpre-emptedby congressmenwho wanted the publicity themselves).And the last-minute introduction of steroidsinto the planned speech explains the shifting of prominent guests in the audience. An acknowledged steroid user, and a former Mr. Universe, GovernorArnold Schwarzenegger of California was moved away from the president'swife so he would not be a (contradictory)part of the story. In 1978, when Pope PaulVI died, PresidentCartersent his wife. In 2005, the official United States delegation to the funeralof John Paul II was led by PresidentBush and his wife, Laura, and includedtwo formerpresidents, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, as well as Secretaryof State Condoleezza Rice. Never before has an American president attended a papal funeral.The increasedprestige of this delegationmatchesthe increased mediaattentiongiven this pope. Internationalcoverageof his visits had given him a worldwide personal following no other pope has enjoyed and enhanced the visibilityof the Church.When he died, Cardinals said it was important that the new pope also be able to play a public role like John Paul.18

Changing Communication Strategies

If voters won't come to the politician, the politician will come to the voters.Proceedingfrom Hamilton and Baum, it is easier to see the strategiclogic guiding politicians as they exploit new opportunitiesand protect old privileges. The political agenda has broadened because politicians have adapted to the new media. When PresidentBush deliveredhis 2004 State of the Union addressbefore Congress, he talked about the war on terrorism, the state of the economy, and traditional social values. He invited prominent Republicansand several ordinary people who have accomplished extraordinaryor heroic deeds, a traditionbegun by Ronald Reagan. The speech was precededby weeks of White House leaks about the content of the speech, a tradition begun by PresidentClinton.17 The State of the Union speech is traditionallygiven on the last Tuesdayof January,which would have been January 27. In 2004 the White House scheduled the speech forTuesday, 20, the night afterthe IowaprimaryJanuary the first election of the year for the Democrats. Clearly, the intent was to overshadowthe publicity given to the firstDemocraticwinner,and to give the presidenta chance to rebut some Democratic arguments.The seating plan minutes before the for the guests was hastily rearranged the speech, and severalpolicy proposals White House had previewedin leaks were dropped. For example, there was no mention of health care reform.And although six days earlierthe presidenthad given a majorspeech about putting a man on Mars, his 54-minute speech did not mention Mars;he did, though, find time to condemn steroid use by athletes. Reschedulingthe speech, shufflingthe seating, floating to the Marsproject,and linkand then droppingreference 334 Perspectives on Politics

Rethinking Media Effects

Not all media effectsare"insidethe head"of the audience. Changes in communications media also bring changes in mediators,in political organizationand in older media as well. If we were living in the sixteenth century, we could study the impact of the printingpressby comparinghandwrittenand printedBibles.This could providethe answers to some fascinatingquestions:Was comprehensionbetter with calligraphyor with print? Which was more easily absorbed,the illustrationsor the text?Did recalland recognition differ for vellum and paper Bibles?And which text language promoted more religiosity-Latin or the This inquiry,of course, would tell us nothing vernacular? about how the printing press led to changes in the organization of religion, the content of religiousservices,and even the content of the Bible. In many ways, the effects of changing media technology are the same today as when Gutenbergdeveloped his printing press. Priestshad been nailing theses to church doors for centuries, listing their complaints with church

the more the governmentministerscareabout a story,the more coveragethey will fund. The British writer Steven Frears,who has written for both the BBC and Hollywood, describedthe differenceas writing for the elite versus writing for the audience:"When I was in television in the 70s, I was workingwith the best writersand actorsin England. I was learninghow to construct dramaand tell stories. What we never learned about was audiences. If your peers said, 'That was jolly good,' you got another job. In American cinema, it's quite simple: if you don't deal with the audience, you don't have a chance."22 When there are public channels and no privatechanwant them nels, people get the content that the advertisers to have, but the need to maintain expectationsand crednewsmust takeaccount ibilitymeansthatevenstate-funded of the competing sourcesof information.No matterhow determineda governmentis to controlcontent, it becomes harderto do so when new media become more accessible. During the Stalinistera, for example, when the Communist Partycould control access to all media, the party newspapergave only the official line. In countrieswhere some free media was also available,the party newspaper had to acknowledgeand discuss alternatelines, including evenTrotsky's.23 As millions of Russiancitizenswith shortwave radios began listening to internationalreportingon the BBC and the Voice of America,the Soviet leadership had to give its spin to the stories-and give it quickly. Backin 1956, when 700,000 RussiantroopsinvadedHungary,Pravdahad noted on the back page, "allwas quiet in Budapest."At that time only about one in ten Russian families had access to shortwaveradiosthat could receive Justfour yearslater,when half of foreignnews broadcasts. Russianfamilieshad them, the KremlininstructedTASS, the Soviet news agency, to transmit stories to radio stations without waiting for newspapersto print the party line.24 is unsettlingArab governmentsmuch Today al-Jazeera the Bible.21 as the BBC and the Voice Of America once provoked communist regimes. CNN's success during the first Gulf War prompted a number of Arab countries to start their Challenging State-Owned Media own satellitestations, most notably Orbit, a joint venture The research of Hamiltonand Baumcan be extended between Saudi Arabiaand the BBC. The Saudis quickly easily to countries like England and Japan, where shut down the station when it ran an offensivedocumenmedia liketheBBCnowfacecom- tary, and the newly installed Qatari ruler hired many of government-controlled mercial or to countries likeChinaandSaudi the employees to start al-Jazeera. competition; Independent of Saudi where semi-commercial mediaor satel- control and featuringpolitical debate, al-Jazeera Arabia, became emerging lite and Internetnews now challengestate control.As the dominant channel throughoutthe region. It has been mediaget cheaper, andharder to control,statereg- denouncedas a "Zionistconspiracy" for interviewing faster, Israeli ulation of contentbecomes lesseffective, andexisting state politicianson air;and Iraq(underSadaamHussein),Libya, mediaareeitheradapting to competition or losingtheir Kuwait,and SaudiArabiaall threatenedto withdrawtheir audience. ambassadors from Qatar if it were not shut down.25 of financing Instead theirprograms as private corporaAntagonistic governmentscan preventlocal businesses tionsdo, by renting audiences to advertisers, state-owned from advertisingon al-Jazeera, but as long as the Emir of
June 2006 1 Vol. 4/No. 2 335

or practice. doctrine nailed Indeed,whenMartinLuther his 95 thesesto his churchdoor,theycreated narya ripthem.Theyhiredpeddlers to ple.Thenhis friends printed sell them overa wide area,and broughtpreviously scatinto a single framework, a focal teredlocal complaints point for unifyingdissent.Between1517 and 1520, an estimated 300,000 peopleboughtcopiesof Luther's pamWhen he translated the Bible into German,he phlets. a demandfor literacy spurred amonglay peopleeagerto thento challenge read theBiblethemselves-and theinterof their pretations priests.19 to developa Bibleas attracWhen Catholicattempts tiveasLuther's some triedto seethatyoung failed, bishops would their Bible people only frompriests. get readings When effortsto monopolize controlof the Biblefailed, and Bible readingby priestswas no longerenough to draw to mass, theCatholic Church everyone de-emphasized the Bibleandsoughtto maintain attendance with rituals and music,eventually from speovercoming objections in Gregorian cialists chant anddeveloping multi-voice polyphonicmasses. Ambitious clerics of workingtheirway up the ladders ecclesiastical success-men like Erasmus and Rabelaisfound they could now move aheadfasteras freelancers, with entrepreneurial who needed collaborating printers booksto sell.20 When both the Protestant andthe Catholic clergy to banbooks,Protestant began printers happily books for Catholics and Catholicprinters printed reciprocated for Protestants. The printing the organization of religion press changed and government. It madebooksand Bibleswidelyavailable to personsof moderate incomewho did not read Latin.It gavewriters outsidemonasteries accessto new audiences. Whenwriters outsidethechurch couldpublish booksand pamphlets, neitherthe churchnor monarchs couldsuppress dissenteasilyor maintain a monopolyon ideas.Whenvernacular Bibleswerein the handsof hundredsof thousands of persons, hadto defendtheir priests and revise that did not accord with interpretations policies

mediafinancethem by pleasingthe politicians and the elites to whom the politiciansrespond.In these cases

Review Essay t ChangingMedia,ChangingPolitics

Qatar is willing to fund the station, governmentswill be under pressureto change their media policies. President Assad orderedSyrianmedia to shift to balancedreporting and "respect the intelligence of the audience." Egyptbanned allwork by columnistMuhammadHassanayn Haykalafter he wrote that GamalMubarak wanted to succeedhis father as president.Haykalthen signed a contractwith al-Jazeera and devoted his firstshow to the attempt to silence him.26 Saudi Arabiacountered by financing a moderate alternative to al-Jazeera, whose directorpromisedthey al-Arabiya, for Abu Dhabi, would not "make problems Arabcountries." Hezbollah, and Egypt also startednew channels. In every Arab country surveyedby Zogby Internationalin 2004Lebanon,Jordan,Morocco, SaudiArabia,and the United Arab Emirates-al-Jazeera was the most-watched news channel and Al Arabiyawas a very distant second. Just as party-controlled papers in the U.S. a century ago could not compete with independent, partisan papers, televisionthatpromisesnot to make government-controlled to indepenproblemscannot providea crediblealternative dent media. Between 44 and 62 percent of respondents was the news channel they watched most, said al-Jazeera while an averageof 8 percentwatched Al Arabiya.27 It is not only in totalitarianand authoritarian countries that new media appear threateningto governments and elites.When millions of Britishteenagersbought inexpensive transistorradiosand listened to pirateFM broadcasts of recordsby The Beatlesand the Rolling Stones, the BBC eventuallyhad to acknowledgethe actual tastes of youth, instead of music the BBC Governorsdeemed suitable.28 The offshorestations, Radio Carolineand Radio London, and Labouralike.The ToriesworinfuriatedConservatives ried about obscenity, both partiesworried about possible ads for "peppills," and Labourwas ideologicallyopposed to segmenting the public space to sell consumer goods with built-in obsolescence.The same scenariowas played out in the Netherlandsand at one point, 150,000 people marched there in 1973 to support the offshore Radio Veronica.29 crats trying to prevent "confusion,"and wartime leaders classifying documents for reasons of "nationalsecurity," they have alwaysfought to protect the value of their product by eliminating, diminishing, and disparagingother forms of news-always, of course, in the name of the public good. In 1992, immediatelyafter he had securedthe Democraticnominationfor President, Bill Clinton departedfrom traditionwhen he began making the rounds of television programs.In addition to regularnews shows, he appeared on the late-night ArsenioHall Show wearing sunglasses and playing the saxophone, and on an MTV "Rock the Vote" programhe answeredquestions from the youthful host and an audience of 18- to 25-year-olds. Commentatorssaid these appearances were acts of desNews that peration. analystssuggested appearingon these talk shows was Clinton'sway of avoiding hard questions from professionaljournalists, and therefore unpresidential. They were particularlycaustic about his late-night The New YorkTimescolumnist Arsenio Hall appearance. Tom Wicker thought the appearancewas exactly what a man consideredto have been a swingerdidn'tneed: "This is undignified ... The association with jazz music, the darkshadesand the Arsenio Hall Show, I don't think that is an asset."David Gergen, a MacNeil-Lehrer commentator and US News and WorldReporteditor-at-large,was even more critical: "The difference in the gap between Arsenio Hall and talking to someone like [BritishPrime Minister] John Major, to me, is so dramatic, it suggests that he doesn't have a handle on what it takes to be President."30 What it takes to be president is communication with voters, not communication with journalists.Bill Clinton went on these shows to reachvoters who don't watch the network news and Sunday morning political interviews. Not surprisingly,journalistswho considered themselves the rightful mediatorsbetween politicians and the public were peeved by this challenge to their stature. The Founding Fathersbelievedthat it was their prerogative to decide what and when to report to the citizenry. JamesMadison believedthat an uninformedpublic was a key to the survivalof democracy:without ongoing access to informationabout government,there could be no factional alliancesto contravenethe common good.31Madison did not believethereshould be a congressional record; better that legislators should tell the public what they needed to know when they returned home from Congress. He also assumed that there would be only face-toand voters in face accountabilitybetween representatives America. That is, when a representativereturned home from the distant capital, he would give an account of his actions to the voters and this would be their basis for judging him. He did not expect that beforelong the postal would make it possiblefor citizens systemand newspapers to monitor his activitieswhile Congresswas meeting.After

Crowd-Seekers and Gatekeepers

who naturallyseek alliances Politiciansare crowd-seekers with crowd makers.Everytime new channelsor modes of communication create new audiences, politicians try to And when they do, the peoplewhose developnew alliances. status is based on the old channels and the old audiences try to disparagethe new communications and keep control of the interfacebetween politicians and the public. Editors, producers,or censors-who decide what the do not like news should be-are gatekeepers. Gatekeepers to see people get news that did not pass through their gate; and they do not like any politician to reachthe people without going throughtheirturnstile,either.Likepriests trying to maintain a monopoly on Bible reading, auto336 Perspectives on Politics

his travelsthroughAmericain the 1830s, Alexisde Tocqueville wrote that he had expected small town and rural Americansto be as politicallyignorantas Frenchpeasants. Instead,he found that the postal system was a "greatlink between minds," penetrating into the wilderness and "bringingenlightenment to palaceand hovel alike."32 When Bagehotsaid, "Wemust not let in daylightupon the magic"because"whenyou poke about something you cannot reverenceit," he was referringto the monarchy. But in any democracy,political elites will seek the benefits to be found when the possibilitiesfor oversightarelimited and voters defer to their judgment. John Adams distrustedTom Paine, saying he wrote in the languageof "emigrants and brutes."Paine'spamphlet CommonSensewas a critical document in the American Revolution; 150,000 copies were printed in the first six months alone and possibly as many as 500,000 overall, one copy for every five persons in the colonies. Paine's arguments stripped the monarchy of biblical authority, transformedthe language of debate, and first made the argument that the triad of monarch, lords, and parliament was not a perfectsystem of government.YetAdams fearedthe effect that "so popular a pamphlet might have among the people"and despisedPainefor being "toodemocratical"and using biblical reasoningand common vernacularlanguageto explainthe issuesto ordinarypeople.33 It was predictable that by writing in the vernacular, Paine, like Luther,would provokeoutrageas well as adulation; he was overthrowing patterns of deference and empowering citizens to think for themselves. Rulers use an officiallanguagethat implicitlyinsultspeople by implying that their speech is inadequatefor political discussion. RichardAnderson studied the changes in political communications after 1989 in Russiaand noted that ordinary people understoodthat the verbalstyle of a politician had political implications. In their view, politicians using the officiallanguagewere denigratingthe competence of people who were using ordinary language.34Karl Deutsch noted a similardenigrationof the competenceof ordinary people in Indonesiain the 1950s. Indonesianleadersused phraseslike "theIndonesianpeople should do this,"while American politicians were using phrases that acknowledged the sovereigntyof voters and flatteredtheir judgment like "peopletell me," "some people in my district feel," or "othermembersof Congressseem to think."35 The history of new media is an unbroken string of boundaries breached and standards challenged. When reportersstartedto reportcongressionalspeeches,legislators first tried to stop them, and when that failed, they developed the officialcongressionalrecordcontaining the correctedremarksthey had meant to give. PresidentJohn Quincy Adams thought "hired reporters"(he compared them to spies) had no right to impinge on the right of the leadersto decide what and when to report to the citizenry.36In eighteenth-centuryEngland, when it was a crim-

inaloffenseto reporton parliamentary Samuel proceedings, around the law Johnson got by writing "Debates of the Senate of Magna Lilliputia,"in which barely disguised parliamentary speecheswere put in the mouths of satirical replicasof Britishleaders.37 The Associated Press further disrupted political business as usualwhen it developednonpartisanstandards for news to be shared by many papers. Politicians resented this. They believeda partisanpresshad the duty to "publish theirspeeches,defendtheirpolicies,and promotetheir candidacies." John C. Calhoun, for example, said he distrusted nonpartisanreporting because it simply hid the political intent of the reporteror his paper.When the AP began to reportspeechesgiven to citizen constituents,not just speechesin Washington,politicianseven triedto block such coverage as an assault on privileged communications. Henry Clay expressedoutrageat the very idea that a could "presume to reporterwriting for "unknownpapers" report what [he] had said to his own constituents with first obtaining his consent."38 When radio stations began to broadcastnews, newspaperowners tried to block them, arguingthat the newsWhen paperwas the onlyproper placefor such information. publisherstried to prevent stations from using the AssociatedPress wireservice,radiobroadcasters developedalternate news sources. Newspapers stopped printing radio programlistings only to restorethem after readersbegan canceling their subscriptions.They called for an investigation of the legality of advertising over a wavelength grantedby federalfranchise.And they warned that hearing news without the context provided in a newspaper would confuse the public. An editorialin Editorand Publisherwarned of the propagandapotential of radio, arguing that radio could do only a superficial job of reporting that would create "confused,incomplete public thought and intensified ignoranceon public matters."39 Matt Drudge is reviled as the epitome of a coarser, seamierpolitics that has forcedprint media to rushrumors and one-sourcestories into print to avoid being scooped, as Drudge scooped Newsweekwhile it was waiting to verify the Monica Lewinskystory.40Yet The DrudgeReport also sends more persons to the Washington Postweb site than any other page on the web.41 While the Fox News Channel was the easy explanation for the rise of the new right in the 1990s, it was actually C-SPAN that changed the balance of power within the Republicanparty.Startingin 1984, when only one in ten households even had access to C-SPAN, Newt Gingrich began using "specialorders"at the close of each House session, a time when any representativecould take the microphone, speaking to a nearly-emptychamber and a lone C-SPAN camera. While established politiciansscoffed at C-SPAN's miniscule ratings, yet were willing to "go around the planet"to speak before five thousand people, Gingrich figuredthat there were alwaysat least a quarter
June 2006 1Vol. 4/No. 2 337

Review Essay I ChangingMedia,ChangingPolitics

of a million tuned to C-SPAN. He gatheredlike-minded to "jumpthe queue",going over the radicalbackbenchers heads of the Republican leadership to build their own constituency-and their own fundraising base-within the party.42 Today we bemoan the decline of a style of network news delivery that was considered irreverentand brash when it first appeared.When he retiredafter decades in network news, David Brinkleyreminiscedabout his work on the pioneering NBC show, the Huntley-Brinkley Newshour: hadallgrown Wehadallgrown up,withnews up,andthecritics or thought who pretended broadcasters theywerethe voiceof andveryoppressive, and doom.I meantheywereveryheavy the world's the newsas if theyweredelivering theydelivered andwe did not. We both talkedas we had always obituaries andit went aswe aretalking talked, stuffy rightnow,not really it wasnewandnobody haddoneit before wellbecause over very tremendous.43 it wasreally andtheythought something but after Tamworth, it also began to alter the relations betweenvotersand partiesand to increasethe importance of national issues at the expense of local considerations. "Votersbegan generally to respond to party cues taken directly from debates and events in Westminster. Local affairs,even those of long standing, gave way to national
issues."45

Political Gatekeepers
Just as media gatekeepersdecide which stories are presented to an audience, there are gatekeepersin politics who decide which politicians are presentedto their organizations or to the crowds they can gather. Local politifor example,want to control ciansand partyorganizations, accessto voters and limit the power of outside candidates to addressvoters directly.Changes in media alwaysoffer advantagesto the politician who can exploit them. Presidents and Prime Ministers have exploited State of the Union speeches, convention acceptancespeeches, fireside chats, pressconferences,town meetings, and Rose Garden strategiesto enhance presidentialcommunication. During the generalelection of 1834, the Conservative PrimeMinisterof England,Sir RobertPeel, issued a letter to the electorsin his Borough ofTamworth applyinggeneral party principlesto the specific issues of the day. Distributed throughout England in the press, the Tamworth letter usheredin an era of partisanvoting. Suddenly,MPs accustomedto winning electionslocallyby dispensingpork wereforcedto defend-or attack-the Tamand patronage worth letter. Peel had been averse to popular "interference" in government, but his innovation changed the structureof politics, giving more power to the partyleaders and less to individual MPs. It marked the birth of modern partyvoting, both in parliamentand among the electorate. "Now politics would relate more directly to questionsof policy;now policy would revolvearoundgreat questions of principle;now principlecould be considered by the political nation. Electioneeringmight continue in the form of the old system but without its substance,or, rather,without its lack of substance."44 Peel'sTamworthManifesto is a classic example of how new communicationpatternschangepolitics.The Reform Act of 1832 was intended simply to enlargethe electorate; 338 Perspectives on Politics

In the United States, changes in newspaperownership and circulation made it possible for Theodore Roosevelt to strengthenthe position of the presidentrelativeto party bosses, who had never wanted their party'spresident to have an independent political base. Their preferreddivision of labor was clear:presidentssigned bills and spoke to Congress,and bossescontrolledvotersand donors.They did not want an autonomous president any more than English backbenchers wanted a policy platform. The RepublicanPartybosses made Teddy Rooseveltvice president in 1900 to get him out of New Yorkand weaken his influence in the state. And indeed, as vice president he of William McKinwas harmless-until the assassination ley in 1901. Then, as president, knowing that the party bosses did not intend to nominate him for a full term, Roosevelt took advantage of the emerging nonpartisan press to enhance his power at their expense. He was the first president to communicate directly with the people on a regularbasis. His charismadrew enormous crowds whereverhe went to speak,and all his speechesand policy pronouncementswere coveredwidely in the press. werecontrolledby the partyleadWhen the newspapers ers or were dependent on their subsidies, no mere president could circumventthe local bossesand reachthe party faithful directly.With nonpartisanpapers, however,TR could do just that. Old GuardRepublicanstried to defend their monopoly on access to partyvoters by arguingthat becausegoing TR'spolicy speechesdebasedthe presidency, an "undigniwas while directlyto the voters campaigning fied spectacle."A president"wassupposed to put himself in the hands of professionals."46 While party bosses called it undignified, congressmen charged that Roosevelt was usurping the power of Convoters. The New YorkTimes gress by speaking to "their" had noted a few years earlier:"Congress,so far as the Presidentis concerned, is the people, and to it his appeals of one sort and anotherwill be addressed."47 Votersand reportersliked Teddy Roosevelt'sapproach. TR made great copy and a politically independent press learnedthat the presidentwas good for sales. He was also good for the careersof reportersfollowing him, because they could talk with him and gain prestige compared to their editors back home. Roosevelt became so popular that he could not be denied the nomination in 1904. The party bosses dared not alienate the popular base he had built up. If Theodore Rooseveltchangedthe balanceof powerby using independent newspapersto position himself in the

popular mind, his cousin FranklinD., a generationlater, used radio to reach out directly to the literate and nonliteratealike, firstwith his formalradioaddresses and then with his firesidechats. Both were dramaticchangesin the natureof presidentialcommunication.In the 1890s, when presidentialcandidatesbegan makingacceptancespeeches after receiving the nomination, their speeches were tailored for a national newspaperaudience, not for the live audience in the convention hall. In the 1930s FDR began tailoring his speeches for radio, dramaticallyshortening them and restoringsome of the rhetoricalflourishesof a live speech.48His firesidechats, in contrast,were designed as informal conversationsbetween a presidentand a family, not as oratoryto assembledmillions. He was addressing citizens of the nation directly,not just permitting the broadcastof a speech before a group.49 This was an innovation of form akin to Michel de Montaigne'sdevelopment of the essay,which would be read by many people "who were not gathered together in one place but were scatteredin separatedwellings and who, as solitary individuals with divergent interests, were more receptive to intimate interchanges than to broad-gauged rhetorical effects."50 One president's undignified abrogation of hallowed norms-like Teddy Roosevelt speaking directly to the sacredduty.When people-can become a laterpresident's President Richard Nixon campaigned for reelection in 1972, he spent little time campaigning in public. He employedwhat became known as a Rose Gardenstrategy, staying in his office and stepping outside into the Rose Garden to make announcementsafter meetings with legislators or foreign leaders. Ironically,when Nixon abandoned the campaign trail and returned to the more dignified approach of an earlier era, some reporters denounced it as an obstacle to the performanceof their duty-providing the public with the information essential for a democracy.51

runsdirectlycontraryto the credobehind hardnews shows like the LehrerNews Hour on PBS, the epitome of hard news in America.As Hamilton quotes Jim Lehrerfrom a 1992 interview: be noticed should orabsorbed theinformation. Nothing except else should be memorable. There is no suchthingasa Nothing a zippy of music, a trendy a dynamic set, slide, shirt, pretty piece a toughquestion, or anything evena blinkof else,if it deflects attention fromthe information. Thosefew seconds whilethe viewer or retches admires overthe gaudy greentie or the redbeltcandestroy the white-and-blue-flashing mapof thedrought wholepointof theexercise, thetransmitting of information.52 In historicalcontext Lehrer's quote is culturalprotectionism, a defense of news tailored for people who find personalconnections,drama,and humaninteresta distraction from the facts. Others, perhaps a majority by now, are turning to Oprah, Jon Stewart,and soft news. Changing the media changes the organizationof politics as well as the content of news.

Notes
1 Iyengarand Kinder 1987, Iyengar1991; Sniderman, Brody and Tetlock 1991. 2 Schudson 1978, 18-19. 3 Ibid., 22. 4 Ibid., 22-23. 5 North 1884, 109. 6 Hamilton 2004, 216. 7 Crouse 1973. 8 Hamilton 2004, 266-275. 9 Patterson2000, 7-8. 10 On network news in 2003, there were approximately as many stories about Arnold Schwarzenegger'srace for governorof Californiaas about all other governorsin the country combined. 11 Crouse 1973, 313-14. 12 Patterson2000, 15. 13 Baum 2003, ch. 7. 14 Ibid., 278-9. 15 McCombs and Zhu 1995, 511-12. Based on a hypothesis in Popkin 1994. McCombs attributes this to the broadeningeffect of education. I now believe that the evidence suggeststhat the broadening is due more to the changes in media than to increasededucation. 16 Baum 2003, ch. 5. 17 Baum and Kernell 1999, 110. 18 Kirkpatrick 2005; Woodward2005. 19 Eisenstein 1979, 303-310. 20 Ibid., 400. 21 Ibid. 22 New York TimesMagazine,July 20, 2003. 23 Leonhard1958. During WWII when Wolfgang Leonhardand other prizedyoung communists were organizingparty archives,they first learnedof
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Conclusion
Elite disdain for soft news blinds us to the ways that hard news has talked down to many people who are now able to see government through different frames from those preferredby the elite. What makes the old standardsof excellence so self-evident that alternativesare barelyconsidered?Reading Hamilton and Baum, it can be argued that political news is actuallyimprovingand that citizens arebetterinformed;thatwe arewising up insteadof dumbing down. The wall between news and entertainment protected the gatekeeperstatus of some reportersand kept many citizens at arm'slength. Some people are learning more from soft news than they ever did from hard news. Soft news has changed the agenda by reaching people with personal impact and drama. Personalimpact and drama

Review Essay I ChangingMedia,ChangingPolitics

ferment within the internationalcommunist movement when they began to cataloguecopies of The Daily Worker,which gave Americanparty faithful the rebuttalto Trotsky's charges. Pool 1973, 481-2. 2001. "The World throughTheir Eyes"2005; Sardar 2001. Sardar 2004b; Lynch Lynch 2004a. Chapman 1992. Ibid., 33-59; Harris 1977. Wicker'scomments appearedon the ABC News Program,The BrinkleyReport, and Gergen'son The MacNeil-LehrerNews Hour. The texts of their remarksappearedin THE HOTLINE, June 8, 1992. John 1995, 29. Ibid., 3. Foner 1976, 79-83; Bailyn 1967. Anderson 1997. Deutsch 1956, 146. Schudson 1978. PressGalleryHistory. Ritchie 1991, 32. Lott 1970, 278. Kalb 1998; Kalb 2001; Kovachand Rosenstiel 1999. Downie and Kaiser2002, 206. Viguerie and Franke2004, 213-217; Clift and Brazaitis1996, 228. NPR Morning Edition June 12, 2003; excerptfrom 1995 Interviewof David Brinkleyby NPR's Bob Edwards. Phillips and Wetherell 1995, 434. Ibid., 434. Morris 2001, 319. Times Gamm and Smith 1998, 97. The New York was reacting-with astonishment-to a suggestion by the Timesof London that PresidentMcKinley appeal directly to the voters to win support for a treaty. Ellis 1998, 121. Marquis 1984, 398. Eisenstein 1979, 230-31. Crouse 1973, 107-8. Hamilton 2004, 171. Public Baum, Matthew. 2003. Soft News Goesto War: OpinionandAmericanForeignPolicyin the New Media Age. Princeton,N.J.: Princeton University Press. Baum, Matthew A., and Samuel Kernell. 1999. Has Cable Ended the Golden Age of Presidential Television?AmericanPoliticalScienceReview93 (1): 99-114. Chapman, Robert. 1992. Sellingthe Sixties:ThePirates and Pop MusicRadio.London: Routledge. Clift, Eleanor,and Tom Brazaitis.1996. Warwithout Bloodshed TheArt of Politics.New York:Scribner. Crouse, Timothy. 1973. TheBoyson the Bus. 1st ed. New York:Random House. Deutsch, KarlW. 1956. Shifts in the Balanceof Communication Flows:A Problemof Measurementin 20 InternationalRelations.Public Opinion Quarterly (1, Special Issue on Studies in PoliticalCommunication): 143-60. Downie, Leonard,and Robert G. Kaiser.2002. The News about the News:American Journalismin Peril. 1st ed. New York:A.A. Knopf. Eisenstein, ElizabethL. 1979. ThePrintingPressas an and CulturalTransAgentof Change:Communications Modern in formations Early Europe.CambridgeUK; New York:CambridgeUniversityPress. Ellis, Richard. 1998. Accepting the nomination: From MartinVan Buren to FranklinDelano Roosevelt. In in Presidency Speakingto the People:TheRhetorical ed. R. Ellis. Amherst:University HistoricalPerspective, of MassachusettsPress. America. Foner,Eric. 1976. TomPaine and Revolutionary Press. New York:Oxford University Gamm, Gerald, and Renee M. Smith. 1998. Presidents, partiesand the public: Evolvingpatternsof interaction, 1877-1929. In Speakingto the People:The ed. R. in HistoricalPerspective, Rhetorical Presidency Ellis. Amherst:Universityof MassachusettsPress. Hamilton, James.2004. All the News ThatsFit to Sell. Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress. Harris,Paul. 1977. Broadcasting fom the High Seas:The in Radio Europe1958-1976. EdinHistoryof Offihore Harris Paul Publishing. burgh: How TeleIyengar,Shanto. 1991. Is AnyoneResponsible? PoliticalIssues.Chicago: Universityof visionFrames Chicago Press. Iyengar,Shanto, and Donald R. Kinder. 1987. News and AmericanOpinion.Chithat Matters:Television of cago: University Chicago Press. the News: TheAmeriJohn, RichardR. 1995. Spreading Morse.Cambridge, to Franklin can PostalSystem from MA: HarvardUniversityPress. Kalb, Marvin L. 1998. TheRiseof the "NewNews" A CaseStudyof TwoRoot Causes of the ModernScandal ShorensteinCenter MA: Joan Cambridge, Coverage.

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