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Gravity
Terms in this set (111)
High - tech politics
A politics in which the behavior of citizens and policymakers and the political agenda itself are increasingly shaped by technology.
mass media
tv, radio, newspaper, magazines, internet, and other means of popular communication. popular communication that reach and influence not only the elites but also the masses.
media events
events that are purposely staged for the media and that are significant just because the media are there.
The cozy relationship between politicians and the press in the twentieth century lasted until...
the Veteran war and Watergate
The use of detective-like reporting methods to unearth scandals is known as...
Investigative Journalism
Today's news people work in an environment of ______ toward government.
Cynicism
press conference
meetings of public officials w/ reporters
print media
newspapers and magazines, as compared with electronic media.
electronic media
tv, radio, and the internet, as w/ print media.
The nation's most influential newspaper and its unofficial "newspaper of record" is..
The New York Post
For most newspapers in medium-sized cities and small towns, their principal source for reporting national and work news is...
The Associated Press
A ________ is staged by a campaign primarily for the purpose of being covered on television
and in the press.
A) media event
B) TV commercial
C) political incident
D)ʺGet Out the Voteʺ effort
E) political play
A
Media events are
A) spontaneous occurrences such as train wrecks or assassinations that we normally think
of as news.
B) monopolized by political elites.
C) purposely staged events held in front of the media.
D) spontaneous events used to enhance image.
E) ineffective when used by political radicals.
C
Approximately ________ of presidential campaign spending is for TV ads.
A) 40 percent
B) 20 percent
C) 60 percent
D) 80 percent
E) 90 percent
C
News management in the Reagan White House operated on each of the following principles
EXCEPT
A) talk about the issues you want to talk about.
B) control the flow of information.
C) expand reportersʹ access to the president.
D) revving helicopter engines so the president would not be able to hear reportersʹ
questions and not have to answer them.
E) stay on the offense.
C
Up until the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt,
A) reporters did not ask presidents questions, they simply reported what presidents did.
B) presidents held daily press conferences.
C) presidents held private chats with reporters in a very informal setting rather than hold
public press conferences.
D) reporters submitted their questions to presidents in writing.
E) reporters had fireside chats with presidents in the White House.
D
In what was a very different era, the press chose not to point out to readers or to photograph
the fact that President ________ was confined to a wheelchair.
A) Warren Harding
B) Harry Truman
C) Dwight Eisenhower
D) Lyndon Johnson
E) Franklin Roosevelt
E
Why did President Roosevelt become silent during the last minute of a radio address during a
reelection campaign?
A) Political pranksters from the Republican party disabled the power supply to the radio
station.
B) He wanted to reduce the size of his opponentʹs audience.
C) The radio station director disliked the positions Roosevelt was taking and cut him off.
D) He talked for so long that he lost his voice.
E) The radio station cut him off because he had exceeded his time limit.
B
When the First Amendment was written guaranteeing freedom of the press,
A) the penny press was prevalent.
B) there was virtually no daily press in this country.
C) only the largest cities had a daily press.
D) the press was owned by the government.
E) the telegraph was revolutionizing the newspaper industry and stimulating the rapid
spread of daily newspapers throughout the country.
B
Prior to the 1930s,
A) press conferences were held twice a week.
B) the president was rarely directly questioned by the media.
C) the media was dominated by a few influential newspapers.
D) image-building was essentially built around radio broadcasting.
E) the president catered to the local, rather than the national, press.
B
The first president to successfully utilize media politics was
A) Ronald Reagan.
B) Richard Nixon.
C) George Washington.
D) Abraham Lincoln.
E) Franklin Roosevelt.
E
17) Which of the following statements about FranklinRoosevelt and the news media is FALSE?
A) Roosevelt used presidential wrath to warn reporters off material he did not want
covered.
B) The press revered Roosevelt.
C) Roosevelt knew how to feed the right story to the right reporter.
D) The press often reported on Rooseveltʹs health and confinement to a wheelchair.
E) none of the above
D
At the turn of the century, newspaper magnates Joseph and William Randolph Hearst ushered
in the era of
A) yellow journalism.
B) nickel tabloids.
C) newspaper chains.
D) penny press.
E) political advertising.
A
The first daily newspaperin America was
A) the Associated Press established in 1841.
B) The New York Times established in 1800.
C) printed in Philadelphia in 1783.
D) the Colonial Gazette printed in 1607.
E) Common Sense printed in 1776.
C
Since Kennedy,
A) news coverage of presidential candidates has become increasingly less favorable.
B) the news media have reduced their coverage of presidential candidates.
C) the amount of news coverage of presidential candidates has increased dramatically.
D) coverage of issues in presidential campaigns has increased dramatically.
E) emphasis of campaign reporting has changed dramatically from ʺwhyʺ to a simpler,
descriptive ʺwhatʺ format.
A
The overriding bias in the news is toward stories that...
draw large audiences
the principal source of news and info for most americans today is....
the broadcast.
the 1960 presidential debate between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy illustrates the.....
power of television in american politics
to a large extent, commercial television networks define news as what is _____ to viewers.
entertaining
the bottom line that shapes how journalists define the news, where they get the news, and how they present it is....
profits
television news programs are tailored to....
a fairly low level of audience sophistication.
Method used by public figures of leaking certain stories to reporters to see what the political reaction will be....
a trial balloon
television news coverage characteristically..
lacks in0depth analysis.
a 1992 survey of 1,400 found that, compared to general public, journalists were twice as likely to consider themselves ...
liberals
the watchdog orientation of the press helps to....
stories that will draw the largest audience
media contributes to the trend of party dealignment in that....
people who watch do not match the demographic of people who join parties
As TV viewership has increased....
newspaper readership has decreased
What differentiates American media from its counterparts in other democracies?
American media is totally dependent on advertising revenues to keep business going.
Which of the following statements about the FCC is false?
A - the president makes appointments to the FCC.
B - the FCC is free from political pressures
C - the FCC regulates communications via radio, tv, telephone, cable, and satellite.
D - congress controls the budget of the FCC.
E - the FCC is an independent regulatory agency.
B
News is what...
the public believes are the most important political issue facing the country
the ____ stipulates that if a station sells advertising time to one candidate, it must be willing to sell equal time to other candidates for the same office.
equal time rule
TRUE/FALSE
Franklin Roosevelt holds the record for presidential press conference
true
TRUE/FALSE
Thomas Patterson found that since 1960, the focus of the press' coverage of campaign issues has shifted from policy statements to campaign controversies.
true
TRUE/FALSE
Newspaper circulation has increased over the last several decades.
false
Narrowing refers to politicains' exclusive use of tv in communicating w/ constituents.
false
TRUE/FALSE
Over 90 percent of americans receive most of their news from cable tv.
false
Nomination
The officially endorsement of a candidate for office by a political party. Requires momentum, money, and media attention to be successful.
Campaign Strategy
The master game plan candidates lay out to guide their electoral campaign.
National Party Convention
The supreme power within each of the parties. The convention meets every four years to nominate the party's presidential and vice-presidential candidates and to write the party's platform.
McGovern-Fraser Commission
A commission formed at the 1968 Democratic convention in response to demands for reform by minority groups and others who sought better representation.
Superdelegates
National party leaders who automatically get a delegate slot at the national party convention.
Caucus
A system for selecting convention delegates used in about a dozen mostly rural states in which voters must show up at a set tie and attend an open meeting to express their presidential preference.
Presidential Primaries
Elections in which a state's voters go to the polls to express their preference for a party's nominee for president. Most delegates to the national party conventions are chosen this way.
Frontleading
the recent tendency of states to hold primaries early in the calendar in order to capitalize on media attention.
National Primary
A proposed nationwide primary that would replace the current system of caucuses and presidential primaries.
Regional Primaries
A proposed series of primaries held in each geographic region that would replace the current system of caucuses and presidential primaries.
Party platform
A political party's statement of its goals and policies for the next four years. The platform is drafted prior to the party convention by a committee whose members are chosen in rough proportion to each candidate's strength. it is the best formal statement of a party's beliefs.
Direct Mail
A method of raising money for a political cause or candidate, in which information and requests for money are sent to people whose names appear on lists of those who have supported similar views or candidates in the past.
Federal Election Campaign Act
A law passed in 1974 for reforming campaign finances. The act created the FE commission, provided public financing for presidential primaries and general elections, limited press campaign spending, required disclosure, and attempted to limit contributions.
Federal Election Commission
A six-member bipartisan agency created by the FE campaign Act. Administers and enforces campaign finance laws.
Presidential Election Campaign Fund
Money from the $3 federal income tax check, which is then distributed to qualified candidates to subsidize their presidential campaigns.
Matching Funds
Contributions of up to $250 are matched from the presidential Election Campaign Fund to candidates for the press nomination who qualify and agree to meet various conditions, such as limiting their overall spending.
Soft Money
Political contributions ear-marked for party-building expenses at the gross-roots level of for generic party advertising. Unlike money that goes to the campaign of a particular candidate, such party donations are not subject to contribution limits. If contributions are unlimited, they are banned by the McCain-Feingold Act.
527 Groups
Independent political groups that are not subject to contribution restrictions because they do not directly seek the election of particular candidates. Section 627 of the tex code specifics that contributions to such groups must be reported to the IRS.
501(c) Groups
Groups that are exempted from reporting their contributions and can receive unlimited contributions. The tax code specifics that such groups cannot spend more than their funds on political activity.
Political Action Committees
Funding vehicles created by the 1974 campaign finance reforms. A corporation, union, or some other interest group can create a political action committee (PAC) and register it with the Federal Election Commission, which will meticulously monitor the PAC's expenditures.
Selective Perception
The Phenomenon that people's beliefs often guide what they pay the most attention to and how they interpret events.
Iron Triangles
Composed of key interest group leaders interested in policy X, the government agency in charge of administering policy X, and the members of congressional committees and subcommittees handling policy X.
Potential Group
Composed of all people who might be group members because they share some common interest.
Actual Group
Composed of those in the potential group who choose to join.
Ecomist Mancur Olsen explains this phenomenon in The Logic of Collective Action. Points outs that all groups are in business of providing collective goods.
...
Collective Good
Something of value, such as clean air, that cannot be with-held from either potential or actual group members.
Free-Rider Problem
For a group, the problem of people not joining because they can benefit from the group's activities without joining.
Selective Benefits
Goods that a group can restrict to those who actually join.
Single-Issue group
Groups that have a narrow interest, tend to dislike compromise, and often draw membership from people new to politics.
Lobbying
Communication, by someone other than a citizen acting on his or her own behalf, directed to a governmental decision maker with the hope of influencing his or her decision.
Electioneering
Direct group involvement in the electoral process for example, by helping to fund campaigns, getting members to work for candidates, and forming political action committees.
Political Action Committees
Political funding vehicles created by the 1974 campaign finance reforms. An interest group can create a PAC and register it with the federal election commission, which will monitor the PAC's expenditures.
Union Shop
A provision found in some collective bargaining agreements requiring all employees of a business to join the union within a short period, usually 30 days, and to remain members as a condition of employment.
Right-to-work laws
A state law forbidding requirements that workers must join a union to hold their jobs. State right-to-work laws were specifically permitted by the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947.
Public Interest Lobbies
A collective good, the achievement of which will not selectively ad materially benefit the membership or activists of the organization.
Party Competition
The battle of the parties for control of public offices.
Political Party
Team of men and women seeking to control the governing apparatus by gaining office in a duly constituted election.
Linkage Institutions
The channels through which people's concerns become political issues on the government's policy agenda. Includes elections, political parties, interest groups, and the media.
The party in the electorate
American parties do not require dues or membership cards to distinguish members from nonmembers. Instead register them up under a party.
The party as an organization
Has a national office, a full-time staff, rules and bylaws, and budgets. Each party maintains state and local headquarters.
The party in government
Consist of elected officials who call themselves members of the party.
Rational - Choice Theory
A popular theory in political science to explain the actions of voters as well as politicians.
Party Image
The voter's perception of what the Republicans or Democrats stand for, such as conservatism or liberalism.
Party Identification
A citizen's self-proclaimed preference for one party or the other.
Ticket Splitting
Voting with one party for one office and with another party for other offices.
Party Machine
A type of political party organization that relies heavily on material inducements, such as patronage, to win votes and to govern.
Patronage
One of the key inducements used by party machines. A patronage job, promotion, or contract is one that is given for political reasons rather than for merit or competence alone.
Closed Primaries
Elections to select party nominees in which only people who have registered in advance with the party's candidates, thus encouraging greater party loyalty.
Open Primaries
Elections to select party nominees in which voters can decide on Election Day whether they want to participate in the Democratic or Republican contests.
National Convention
The meeting of partly delegates every four years to choose a presidential ticket and write the party's platform.
National Committee
One of the institutions that keeps the party operating between conventions. The national committee is composed of representatives from the states and territories.
National Chairperson
Responsible for the day-to-day activities of the party and is usually handpicked by the presidential nominee.
Coalition
A group of individuals with a common interest on which every political party depends.
Party eras
Historically periods in which a majority of voters cling to party in power, which tends to win a majority of the elections.
Critical Election
An electoral "earthquake" where new issues emerge, new coalitions replace old ones, and the majority party is often displaced by the minority party.
Party Realignment
The displacement of the majority party by the minority party, usually during a critical election period.
New Deal Coalition
A coalition forged by the democrats, who dominated american politics from the 1930's to the 1960's. Basic elements urban working class, ethnic groups, C
Party Dealignment
Disengagement of people from the parties, as seen in part by shrinking party identification.
Third Parties
Electoral contenders other than the two major parties.
Winner-take-all system
An electoral system in which legislative seats are awarded only to the candidates who come in first in their constituencies.
Proportional Representation
An electoral system used throughout most of Europe that awards legislative seats to political parties in proportion to the number of votes won in an election.
Coalition Government
When two or more parties join together to form a majority in a national legislature. Common in Europe.
Responsible party model
A view about how parties should work, held by some political scientists.
Blue dog democrats
fiscally conservative democrats who are mostly from the south and/or rural parts of the united states.
Interest Groups
Any group that shares an interest.
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