Download or read book Congress and the Media written by C. Danielle Vinson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-09 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last four decades, members of Congress have increasingly embraced media relations as a way to influence national policymaking and politics. In 1977, nearly half of congressional members had no press secretary. Today, media relations is a central component of most congressional offices, and more of that communications effort is directed toward national media, not just the local press. Arguing that members of Congress turn to the media to enhance their formal powers or to compensate for their lack of power, Congress and the Media explains why congressional members go public and when they are likely to succeed in getting coverage. Vinson uses content analysis of national newspaper and television coverage of congressional members over time and members' messages on social media as well as case studies to examine how members in different political circumstances use the media to try to influence policymaking and how this has changed over time. She finds that members' institutional position, the political context, increasing partisan polarization, and journalists' evolving notions of what is newsworthy all affect which congressional members are interested in and successful in gaining media coverage of their messages and what they hope to accomplish by going public. Ultimately, Congress and the Media suggests that going public can be a way for members of Congress to move beyond their institutional powers, but the strategy is not equally available to all members nor effective for all goals.

Download or read book Congress the Media and the Public written by Stephen E. Frantzich and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-08-27 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the beginning of the Republic, members of Congress have been in the media spotlight. In recent years, the expansion of media venues has provided both challenges and opportunities to Representatives and Senators, the public, and even the media itself. Legacy media such as newspapers and broadcast television each carry with them their own needs and accepted usages affecting the kind and volume of news about Congress delivered to the public. These sources still serve important roles for much of the public and are covered here. This book goes beyond the traditional legacy media to include Congress’ portrayal on live television, in political cartoons, in film, as a part of the emerging “infotainment” venues, and through social media such as web pages, Facebook, and Twitter. We increasingly live in a world where the lines between traditional news and others sources of information have been erased. This is an exciting, if challenging, time, for Congress, the media, and the public as each attempts to sort out the new media environment and employ it to its advantage. Using a comprehensive analysis of previous research, dozens of interviews, and the inclusion of empirical data, this book assesses the current status of the relationship between Congress and the media and sorts out the temporary changes from those likely to represent future trends. Whether one is associated with Congress, is an interested citizen, or is part of the media industry, understanding the relationships and developments between and among them is key to understanding how the public behaves in relation to Congress, and vice versa.

Download or read book Local Media Coverage of Congress and Its Members written by Danielle Vinson and published by Hampton Press (NJ). This book was released on 2003 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It can be explained to varying degrees by three sets of factors - market-district congruence, characteristics of different types of media, and member-media relations."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book Covering Congress written by Everette Dennis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-04 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Observers of media-government relations most often think first of conflicts with the executive branch, yet interactions between Congress and the media have been extensive and varied since the first Washington "correspondents" began sending dispatches from the sessions of Congress. In recent years the relationship between Congress and the news media has grown more complex. Coverage of Congress by the print and electronic media is extensive. At the same tune, Congress has increasing power to make communications policy that will have an important impact on the ability of the media to conduct their affairs, both economically and politically. Covering Congress explores those aspects of the relationship between the media and Congress that shape the news that reaches an information-seeking public.The contributors consider Congress as the source of much news as well as a great deal of self-promotion. They note there is neither a broad nor deep understanding of our national legislature in the United States. Contributors try to remedy this shortcoming by looking at the overall picture, the media scene on Capitol Hill, the messages that reach beyond Washington, and the history of relations between the Congress and the press. They discuss such issues as: the relationship Newt Gingrich has forged between his office and the media, perhaps at his own peril; the importance of speed over substance when reporting from Capitol Hill; the unflattering image of Congress as depicted in political cartoons; and the unparalleled power wielded by Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn when he dealt with the national media.Congress depends on the media to reach the public but also has considerable muscle to shape its media relations when it has strong leadership and a coherent plan. It usually lacks these, but Congress does much to try to project a friendly face to the public through the media, facilitating interviews hi Capitol Hill radio and television studios. Regardless of what happens in any particular election, it is clear that Congress is fully alert to the modern communications age and that the consequences of this encounter are likely to be accentuated in the years ahead. Covering Congress is a necessary addition to the libraries of communications scholars, media specialists, political scientists, historians, and sociologists.

Download or read book The Media and the Congress written by Stephen Bates and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Making Laws and Making News written by Timothy Cook and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2010-12-01 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The news media, especially television, have become a fixture on Capitol Hill in the past twenty years. Making Laws and Making News describes the interactive relationship between the press and Congress that strongly affects the news, the legislative process, and the types of laws enacted. Instead of focusing on how reporters decide who and what to cover and how news is resented, Cook examines the other side of the equation—the relationship between the media strategies of House member’s press offices and the legislative strategies of the members themselves. The book won the 1990 Benjamin Franklin Award for Excellence in Independent Publishing.

Download or read book The Public Congress written by Gary Lee Malecha and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-05-22 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary members of Congress routinely use the media to advance their professional goals. Today, virtually every aspect of their professional legislative life unfolds in front of cameras and microphones and, increasingly, online. The Public Congress explores how the media moved from being a peripheral to a central force in U.S. congressional politics. The authors show that understanding why this happened allows us to see the constellation of forces that combined over the last fifty years to transform the American political order. Malecha and Reagan’s keen analysis links the new "public" Congress and the forces that are shaping political parties, the Presidency, interest groups, and the media. They conclude by asking whether the kind of discourse that this "new media" environment fosters encourages Congress to make its distinctive deliberative contribution to the American polity. This text brings historical depth as well as coverage of the most current cutting edge trends in new media environment and provides an exhaustive treatment of how the U.S. Congress uses the media in the governing process today.

Download or read book The Problem of the Media written by Robert D. McChesney and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2004-03-01 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The symptoms of the crisis of the U.S. media are well-known—a decline in hard news, the growth of info-tainment and advertorials, staff cuts and concentration of ownership, increasing conformity of viewpoint and suppression of genuine debate. McChesney's new book, The Problem of the Media, gets to the roots of this crisis, explains it, and points a way forward for the growing media reform movement. Moving consistently from critique to action, the book explores the political economy of the media, illuminating its major flashpoints and controversies by locating them in the political economy of U.S. capitalism. It deals with issues such as the declining quality of journalism, the question of bias, the weakness of the public broadcasting sector, and the limits and possibilities of antitrust legislation in regulating the media. It points out the ways in which the existing media system has become a threat to democracy, and shows how it could be made to serve the interests of the majority. McChesney's Rich Media, Poor Democracy was hailed as a pioneering analysis of the way in which media had come to serve the interests of corporate profit rather than public enlightenment and debate. Bill Moyers commented, "If Thomas Paine were around, he would have written this book." The Problem of the Media is certain to be a landmark in media studies, a vital resource for media activism, and essential reading for concerned scholars and citizens everywhere.

Download or read book Congressional Record written by United States. Congress and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 1462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published daily when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record began publication in 1873. Debates for sessions prior to 1873 are recorded in The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (1789-1824), the Register of Debates in Congress (1824-1837), and the Congressional Globe (1833-1873)

Download or read book Congress the Press and Political Accountability written by R. Douglas Arnold and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2006-04-02 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Congress, the Press, and Political Accountability is the first large-scale examination of how local media outlets cover members of the United States Congress. Douglas Arnold asks: do local newspapers provide the information citizens need in order to hold representatives accountable for their actions in office? In contrast with previous studies, which largely focused on the campaign period, he tests various hypotheses about the causes and consequences of media coverage by exploring coverage during an entire congressional session. Using three samples of local newspapers from across the country, Arnold analyzes all coverage over a two-year period--every news story, editorial, opinion column, letter, and list. First he investigates how twenty-five newspapers covered twenty-five local representatives; and next, how competing newspapers in six cities covered their corresponding legislators. Examination of an even larger sample, sixty-seven newspapers and 187 representatives, shows why some newspapers cover legislators more thoroughly than do other papers. Arnold then links the coverage data with a large public opinion survey to show that the volume of coverage affects citizens' awareness of representatives and challengers. The results show enormous variation in coverage. Some newspapers cover legislators frequently, thoroughly, and accessibly. Others--some of them famous for their national coverage--largely ignore local representatives. The analysis also confirms that only those incumbents or challengers in the most competitive races, and those who command huge sums of money, receive extensive coverage.

Download or read book Congress and the News Media written by Robert Okie Blanchard and published by Hastings House Book Publishers. This book was released on 1974 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the role of the media in current political processes -- not only its role as watchdog against political wrongs, but also its little-understood and changing relationship with Congress.

Download or read book Combative Politics written by Mary Layton Atkinson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-04-27 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Affordable Care Act to No Child Left Behind, politicians often face a puzzling problem: although most Americans support the aims and key provisions of these policies, they oppose the bills themselves. How can this be? Why does the American public so often reject policies that seem to offer them exactly what they want? By the time a bill is pushed through Congress or ultimately defeated, we’ve often been exposed to weeks, months—even years—of media coverage that underscores the unpopular process of policymaking, and Mary Layton Atkinson argues that this leads us to reject the bill itself. Contrary to many Americans’ understandings of the policymaking process, the best answer to a complex problem is rarely self-evident, and politicians must weigh many potential options, each with merits and drawbacks. As the public awaits a resolution, the news media tend to focus not on the substance of the debate but on descriptions of partisan combat. This coverage leads the public to believe everyone in Washington has lost sight of the problem altogether and is merely pursuing policies designed for individual political gain. Politicians in turn exacerbate the problem when they focus their objections to proposed policies on the lawmaking process, claiming, for example, that a bill is being pushed through Congress with maneuvers designed to limit minority party input. These negative portrayals become linked in many people’s minds with the policy itself, leading to backlash against bills that may otherwise be seen as widely beneficial. Atkinson argues that journalists and educators can make changes to help inoculate Americans against the idea that debate always signifies dysfunction in the government. Journalists should strive to better connect information about policy provisions to the problems they are designed to ameliorate. Educators should stress that although debate sometimes serves political interests, it also offers citizens a window onto the lawmaking process that can help them evaluate the work their government is doing.

Download or read book Media and Congress written by and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Media Power Media Politics written by Mark J. Rozell and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2003 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work examines the role and influence of the media in every sphere of American politics. Organized thematically, the book analyzes the relationship between the media and key institutions, political actors and nongovernmental entities, as well as the role of the new media, media ethics and foreign policy coverage. Written by leading scholars in the field, the chapters serve as broad overviews to the issues while discussion questions and suggestions for further reading encourage deeper inquiry. Designed to complement a wide variety of classes the book is a look at the pervasive influence of the media in American society.

Download or read book The Politics of Herding Cats written by John Lovett and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2021-01-22 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Politics of Herding Cats, John Lovett looks at the relationship between media, Congress, and public policy, showing that leaders in Congress under normal circumstances control public policy on issue areas due to their status both within Congress and in the media by and large. When issue coverage on topics increases in media, however, other members seize on the opportunities to engage in the issue and shift public policy away from leader desires. As more members engage and more groups become involved, leaders lose the ability to control the process and are more likely to have problems actually getting public policy enacted. Lovett look at this phenomenon using newspaper coverage in the Washington Post over a 40-year period, both in terms of general analysis as well as individual case studies exploring agricultural subsidies (a low coverage topic), immigration (a changing coverage topic), and health care (a high coverage topic). As coverage increases, the amount leaders can control in the process decreases. Only under extreme circumstances, as seen in the Affordable Care Act, can leaders get anything done at all. The Politics of Herding Cats would be useful for those who wish to better understand the relationship between the media and Congress. It will also be useful to those who want to understand the relationship between actors in government and how the media has influenced American politics, as well as how individual members of Congress can go against party leaders on major issues.

Download or read book Congress and the Media written by Danielle Vinson and published by . This book was released on with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Members of Congress have increasingly embraced media relations to influence policymaking. In 'Congress and the Media', Vinson argues that congressional members use the media to supplement their formal powers or to compensate for their lack of power to explain why congressional members go public and when they are likely to succeed in getting coverage.

Download or read book Mass Media and American Politics written by Doris Appel Graber and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Graber discusses the media and its place in the public and private sectors, the media's influence on individual attitudes and perceptions, and the media's coverage of government institutions and political situations.