PLAP 3140 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Kevin Riley, Muckraker, Male Privilege
1 Nov 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
10.10.16
● Agenda
○ Odds and Ends
■ Will talk about 2nd debate in sections
■ No lecture on Wednesday, but sections will meet
■ Online quiz is next week: opens at 7:00 am on Tuesday October 18th,
closes on Wednesday October 19th at 3:00 pm
● Through Bias and Objectivity
■ Bennett, Lawrence, Livingston (2007)- things to know
● What is their central argument? (How has the press failed?)
● What do they mean by independence?
● What is indexing?
● What sort of evidence do they offer?
● What are the strengths and weaknesses of their analysis?
○ Making the News 1: Bias, Objectivity, and Newsroom Diversity
■ Stewart
○ Making the News 2: Scandal Coverage
○ Making the News 3: The Interdependence of Media and Political Actors
● Parenti (1986)
○ Key point: Media serve to uphold and support status quo including distribution of
wealth and power in conscious and unconscious ways
○ Key Question: What are the mechanism by which established power is reflected
and shapes the news?
○ Key Answer: “Anticipatory self-censorship”
■ “The anticipation that superiors might disapprove of this or that story is
usually enough to discourage a reporter from writing it, or an editor from
assigning it. Many of the limitations placed on reporting comes not from
direct censorship but from self-censorship.” (p 36)
○ Central Insight: The worldviews of media actors constrain their ability to provide
an unbiased representation of the political world
■ Conspire, but not explicitly
● Stewart: newsroom diversity and world views
○ “As a white man, I can avoid race if I want. I live with that white male privilege.
Unless you are exposed to the idea that people of color do not have that option,
and race is in front of them all the time, you don’t have that awareness, and
therefore it makes it much harder to compel yourself to act, to hear the kind of
things you need to hear to take action in the newsroom.” Kevin Riley
○ We don’t reallyyyyyy have diversity in the newsroom
● Simple muckraking model (Graber and D)
○ Journalists investigate ->
○ publicize corruption, scandal, abuse of power ->
○ arouse public opinion ->
○ pressure on politicians and reformers ->
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Will talk about 2nd debate in sections. No lecture on wednesday, but sections will meet. Online quiz is next week: opens at 7:00 am on tuesday october 18th, closes on wednesday october 19th at 3:00 pm. Bennett, lawrence, livingston (2007)- things to know. What is their central argument? (how has the press failed?) Making the news 1: bias, objectivity, and newsroom diversity. Making the news 3: the interdependence of media and political actors. Key point: media serve to uphold and support status quo including distribution of wealth and power in conscious and unconscious ways. The anticipation that superiors might disapprove of this or that story is usually enough to discourage a reporter from writing it, or an editor from assigning it. Many of the limitations placed on reporting comes not from direct censorship but from self-censorship. (p 36) Central insight: the worldviews of media actors constrain their ability to provide an unbiased representation of the political world.
