Stedman Ap Unit 2
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31 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Public opinion | The distribution of the population's beliefs about politics and policy issues. |
| Demography | The science of human population changes. |
| Census | A valuable tool for understanding demographic changes. The constitution requires that the government conduct an "actual enumeration" of the population every 10 years. |
| Melting pot | The mixing of cultures, ideas, and peoples that has changed the American nation. The United States, with its history of immigration, has often been called a melting pot. Link to: salad bowl. |
| Minority majority | The emergence of a non-Caucasian majority, as compared with a white, generally Anglo-Saxon majority. It is predicted that by about 2060, Hispanic Americans, African Americans, and Asian Americans together will outnumber white Americans. |
| Political culture | An overall set of values widely shared within a society. |
| Reapportionment | The process of reallocating seats in the House of Representatives every 10 years on the basis of the results of the census. Link to: gerrymandering. |
| Sample | A relatively small proportion of people who are chosen in a survey so as to be representative of the whole. |
| Random sampling | The key techniques employed by sophisticated survey researchers, which operates on the principle that everyone should have an equal probability of being selected for the sample. |
| Random digit dialing | A technique used by pollsters to place telephone calls randomly to both listed and unlisted numbers when conducting a survey. |
| Exit polls | Public opinion surveys used by major media pollsters to predict electoral winners with speed and precision. Link to: bandwagon effect. |
| Political ideology | A coherent set of beliefs about politics, public policy, and public purpose. It helps give meaning to political events, personalities, and policies. Link to: liberalism; conservatism.. |
| Gender gap | A term that refers to the regular pattern by which women are more likely to support Democratic candidates, Women tend to be significantly less conservative than men and are more likely to support spending on social services and to oppose higher levels of military spending. Link to: cross pressure. |
| Civil disobedience | A form of political participation that reflects a conscious decision to break a law believed to be immoral and to suffer the consequences. |
| Salad bowl | A new term to describe, and celebrate the diversity of the United States without the controversial notion of assimilation found in the term melting pot. |
| Bandwagon effect | An effect caused by exit poll projections in which undecided voters turnout to support the candidate who is leading in the polls. |
| Cross-pressure | A term used to describe being caught between two or more conflicting demographic tendencies. |
| Mass media | Television, radio, newspapers, magazines, the Internet, and other means of popular communication |
| Media events | Events purposely staged for the media that nonetheless look spontaneous (a "photo op"). In keeping with politics as theater, media events can be staged by individuals, groups, and government officials, especially presidents. |
| Press conference | Meetings of public officials with reporters. Since the Watergate/Vietnam era, the media has become more aggressive in its scrutiny of the Whitehouse (watchdog); therefore, recent Presidents have preferred the electronic throne over the press conference. |
| Investigative journalism | The use of detective-like reporting to unearth scandals, scams, and schemes, placing reporters in adversarial relationships with political leaders. Ever since the Washington Post broke the story of Watergate (Richard Nixon's illegal activities) the media has been in a constant posture of suspicion against big government and big corporations. |
| Print media | Newspapers and magazines, as compared with broadcast media. |
| Broadcast media | Television and radio, as compared with print media. |
| Chains | By 1994, more than 80 percent of America's daily papers were controlled by national and regional chains. |
| Narrowcasting | Media programming on cable TV or the Internet that is focused on one topic and aimed at a particular audience. Examples include MTV, ESPN, and C-SPAN. While it certainly increases our entertainment options, critics claim it makes our news coverage more biased and splintered, contributing to selective perception. |
| Trial balloons | An intentional news leak for the purpose of assessing the political reaction. |
| Sound bites | Short video clips of approximately 15 seconds, typically all that is shown from a politician's speech or activities on the nightly television news. |
| Talking head | A shot of a person's face talking directly to the camera. Because this is visually unappealing, the major commercial networks rarely show a politician talking one-on-one for very long. Link to "infotainment." |
| Policy agenda | The issues that attract the serious attention of public officials and other people actively involved in politics at the time. |
| electronic throne | The presidential skill of using the television as a platform for public persuasion; developed as an alternative to press conferences. Link to: media event; gatekeeper role of the media. |
| Infotainment | A term used to characterize the recent trend in network television news production that blends analysis with entertainment. Many experts believe this trend can be linked to many other trends in politics and voter behavior. A good example is the ever-growing illusion that a Hollywood break-up is actually news. |
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