Anglais sociologique

US POLITICS AND THE MEDIA

QCM

media : main means of mass communication (tv radio, newspaper, internet))

new media : constant tension

⇒ supplying vital civic information (audience = voters)

OR / AND

=> generating profits within a business structure audience = consumers)

how does the US media inform the public and to what exent does it contribute to shaping US politics ? How do politicans use the media to communicate with their voters , how has the media – poliitcs relationship evoled throught time ?

Lecture outline

I . A brief history of usa news media

1. Newspaper

a the early days : partisanship and economic dependence

Marginal business in 18th century colinies (1770 : 25 weekly newspaper)

⇒ long, painful, expensive printing process : high unit cost

⇒ poor communication and transportation infrasructure

Pamphlets preferred to mewspaper for political expression

⇒ more durable

⇒ easy to circulate

escalation of tensions with British government that lead to the revolutionary war (1775-83)

=> press used as propaganda (pro/anti independence)

1790’s : emergence of us political parties ::

george whashington, 1st president : unaffiliated

1776 presidential election – whashington declines candidacy, no 3rd term

2 candidates from 2 competing factions of whashington’s administration

John Adams, Federalist

thomas jefferson, democratic-republican

federalist / democratic republican : the party system

-each party launches newspaper to defend their views

-editor under party direction

-dedicated partisanship, no objectivity

-financial dependence, no viable business plan

-4,000 readers by 1800, all party-affiliated voters

Going at each other : the birth of political cartoon

-president from 1829 to 1837

-union of press and politics

-3/5 close advisors from press (« jackson’s lying machine »)

-alliance with whashington globe editor in exchanfe for printing contracts

-57 editors appointed to offical positions (public payroll)

=> corruption ? Threat on freedom of the press ?

b. The Penny press and economic independence (18830s – 11900)

Growing business concern : readers rather than voters

-revenue// readers // advertisers

=>how to attract readers and advertisers ?

=>lower unit cost

1830s : steam power and cylinder press : printing process long less costly

immediate success

-larger scope of issues :

HUMAN INTEREST STORIES, CRIMES, BUSINESS, social events

-no party affiliation = broader audiences

-1848 war with Mexico : creation of AP (association press)

End of 19th century

-screaming headlines and sensational stories (« yellow journalism »)

-1870-1900 : from 2.5 million to 15 million il daily newspapers + 12 million of sunday newspaper

-newspaper chains

-megapublishers

Willliam Hearst

-24 daily and 16 sunday newspapers from NYC to LA

-use of newspapers to support his political causes (erratic, from left to right)

-wooed and feared by politicans for his huge influence on public opinion

-megalomaniac (citizen Kane , 1941, Hearst’s biopic)

-political ambitions : 2 terms as representative in the us congress

Joseph Pulitzer

-consistent liberal (use of his newspapers as progressive platform)

-defender of freedom of speech and personal liberty

-1912 : bequestto columbia university

=> annual awards for achievements in journalism and letters : Pulitzer Prize

Presiding over Politics

-Pulitzer and Hearst :

incited war on spain on the front pages of their newspapers (1898)

coongress officially inssued declaration of war after the publication

-president of spain : US national newspapers more powerful than national Government

c. the Golden Age : 1880s-1930s

Monopoly over mass communication in urban markets

populist stand :

muckraking exposés of corrupt capitalisme, government abuse, corporate greed

political and social cartoons (caricatures, characters )

Sales skyrocketting

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