POLI SCI 220 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Paleolithic Diet, Fairness Doctrine, Cross Ownership

• School: Northwestern University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLI SCI 220
• Professor: Chloe Thurston

Document Summary

Lippmann: unrealistic to assume ordinary citizens can be well informed. Lupia and mccubbins: people are capable of making reasoned choices even with little information (they rely on heuristics) Page and shapiro: public opinion is stable in the aggregate. Measurement errors and random individual changes tend to cancel each other out. Aggregate opinion may be stable but not necessarily consistent. First mandement as a safeguard of these roles! The news media is also a private enterprise. Low circulation until 1830s-40s cheaper printing (penny press) 20th century rise of objective press, tv/broadcast news. Early radio/tv: airwaves as tragedy of the commons. Federal communications commision regulates airwaves, due to scarcity. Echo chambers; relying on washington elites to define the news creates some problems. Vietnam, watergate rise of adversarial journalism. Lbj after cronkite vietnam newscast: if i"ve lost cronkite, i"ve lost the country . Proliferation of media outlets greater competitive pressures.