⇒ The media is very important in shaping public policy - some people even call it the ‘fourth branch’ of government acting as a further check and balance on the other three branches i.e. a watchdog function

• People are able to understand what is going on through the media and understand the potential issues of policy

⇒ The media isn’t limited to newspapers – it also includes magazines, blogs, websites, television, and even social media – which means there is a wide range of ways for people to stay informed with policy and gather information

• For example, in 1990 a small North Carolina newspaper successfully exposed a city in the State had a contaminated water supply. From a policy perspective, the newspaper revealed that that the local government had neglected to disclose or correct the issue for many years

⇒ Social media is the collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Impulse

• Social media allows people to control what news they read and customise their information gathering experience

⇒ In the early 20th century, ‘muckrakers’ were a powerful media source for providing public information

• Coined by Theodore Roosevelt, a muckracker is a person who intentionally seeks out and publishes the misdeeds, such as criminal acts or corruption, of a public individual for profit or gain e.g. muckrakers successfully exposed the dangerous working conditions of the time

⇒ Clearly then, the media plays an important agenda-setting role

• Agenda-setting is the creation of public awareness and concern of salient issues by the news media.

⇒ The media can quickly bring policy issues to the public’s attention and allow them to form their own opinions about what is wrong

• To some extent, the more the news covers a policy matter the more likely government is giving (or will give) that matter some attention

⇒ Interest groups try to influence the media to push their own goals forward and gain wider public support

• When the media decides what topic to cover a news hole will always be left, because their decision to choose one topic will therefore mean another has not been chosen – the media are limited in time and space and cannot cover everything. They have to publish what they think the public will care about the most.

⇒ The media is often criticised for being too influenced by their corporate owners who would rather publish something that makes them more money than what is truly in the public interest

⇒ The media often choose stories with an exciting or interesting story over other, perhaps more important, news

• In other words ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ – this means that the most traumatic story will lead the newscast (even if isn’t the most relevant to viewers).
• Such methods also make the public think certain matters are worse than they are e.g. if the media are always publishing murders the public will think that murder is common – they neglect to put their stories in context or provide any useful background information

⇒ Personalising the news by focusing on the particular conflicts of an issue and who is on each side of the debate can cheapen the news

• For example, the news often depicted the Gulf War as a mere battle between Bush and Saddam Hussein

⇒ Pack journalism: the journalism of a group of reporters from different newspapers, especially of reporters from different newspapers who work in close collaboration with each other, producing uniform or monotonous news coverage of a particular event or story.