The Media

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We will Tell You What to Think!

Media Models

Old Media• Newspapers• Network TV• Radio• Magazines

Gatekeepers (experts)ObjectiveFactual

Media Models

New Media• Internet• Cable• Direct mail• Blogs

Non-hierarchicalSlantedOpinion

What Sells?

Front Page Death Ratios

How many deaths does it take to make the front page (lead story) of the news. Surf around to someof the major news outlets from the past few weeks and see if you can find the ratio of deaths to fill inthe chart below. For example, last week, the death of Anna Nicole Smith made front page news (for a few days meanwhile, it took a bomb killing 120 Iraqis to make the front page (and only for one day).What is a death worth in the news? Deaths_____Celebrity =_____White Americans * =_____Minority Americans * =_____Europeans =_____Latin Americans=_____Asians =_____Haitians=_____Africans =_____Iraqis =

How much power does the media have to shape public opinion?

• Certain factors limit the media influence on public opinion • 1-political socialization. • We view the news we get through filters through which we interpret • the news and the world. We view news through our political attitudes • which we developed through political socialization. • Through what lenses do you view the news? • 2-Selectivity.• People use selective exposure to screen out messages that don’t conform to their biases. People use Selective perception to

perceive what they want to in the media messages and disregard the rest.• Do you do that? • 3-Needs. • People watch the media for different reasons. Sometimes to be informed, other times to just be entertained. • 4-Recall and comprehension. • If you can’t understand or remember it, it doesn’t influence you much. • People tend to believe the parts of the media that conform to what they already believed. • Are you any different from this?