The 2014 midterm election had the lowest percentage of voter turnout since 1942 (the middle of World War II).1 One effect: the Republican Party took control of Congress during President Obama’s last term, just as the Democrats won both houses during George W. Bush’s last term in 2006. Turnout among eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-olds was particularly small, representing only 13 percent of voters, compared to 19 percent in the 2012 presidential election.2

The local and national media played key roles 2014, as they do in every election cycle. The main narrative threads that dominated the news and TV-Internet punditry pointed to an unpopular president advised by his own party not to campaign for a number of Democratic candidates who eventually lost. Despite economic improvements, intense partisanship by the parties and enormous amounts of media advertising turned off many moderate voters and helped win the day for the GOP.

These changes in political power are common, and enabled in part by ubiquitous political ads that run on radio, TV, and the Internet during election cycles.

These ads, which usually offer stories designed to build up one candidate while tearing down the other, are expensive, and candidates now depend on both their parties and outside partisan groups for additional money—the 2014 election, for example, cost parties and donors about $3.7 billion.3 Following the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling by the Supreme Court in 2010 (see Chapter 16), election campaigns now benefit from unlimited funds raised by corporations, rich individuals, and unknown groups, prompting concern about rich donors dictating election outcomes.

Much of this money is spent, of course, on TV ads. In 2014 marketing firm Kantar Media estimated that local TV stations raked in $2.4 billion from political ads, with another $600–$800 million going for local ad purchases on national cable channels like AMC and USA. Media business reporter Brian Stelter sees a conflict of interest that may prevent local TV news from covering this story: “Station owners are the ones benefiting . . . so might their newsrooms be a little less likely to cover proposals to reduce the amount of money in politics?”4

Notably, local and large media firms do not invest this money in more reporters, whose numbers have declined precipitously over the past decade. Faced with a need for complex narratives, documented information, and sharp analysis about the world, large chunks of our media instead fill twenty-four-hour news cycles with sensational crime and corruption stories and partisan sniping.

Following the digital turn, most media today communicate not to the mass audiences of the past but to niche markets and interest groups, to sports fans and history buffs—and to conservatives and liberals. It’s in the economic interest, then, of many media outlets to stoke the flames of partisanship. But Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein describes a phenomenon he calls partyism: “In 1960, 5 percent of Republicans and 4 percent of Democrats said they would feel ‘displeased’ if their son or daughter married outside their political party. By 2010, those numbers had reached 49 percent and 33 percent.” Citing current research, Sunstein says that “when people are exposed to messages that attack members of the opposing party, their biases increase [and] the destructive power of partyism is extending well beyond politics into people’s behavior in daily life.”5

So in the end, do the media help us understand the complex issues of our time or merely reinforce our biases? Do they discourage young people from voting? In election cycles, news media often reduce the story of an election to two-dimensional “right versus left” narratives, obscuring complex policy issues like affordable health care, technological innovation, climate change, economic recovery, and stateless terrorism. In a democracy, we depend on the media to provide information to help make decisions about our leaders, and should expect that media outlets who earn so much money from political ads will use that money to further investigate the issues of the day. Despite their limitations, the media’s job of presenting the world to us and documenting what’s going on is enormously important. But we also have a job to do that is equally important. As media watchers, we can point a critical lens back at the media and describe, analyze, and interpret their stories, arriving at informed judgments about the media’s performance. This textbook offers a map to help us become more media literate, critiquing the media not as detached cynics or rabid partisans, but as informed citizens with a stake in the outcome.

SO WHAT EXACTLY ARE THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF NEWSPAPERS AND MEDIA IN GENERAL? In an age of highly partisan politics, economic and unemployment crises, and upheaval in several Arab nations, how do we demand the highest standards from our media to describe and analyze such complex events and issues—especially at a time when the business models for newspapers and most other media are in such flux? At their best, in all their various forms, from mainstream newspapers and radio talk shows to blogs, the media try to help us understand the events that affect us. But at their worst, the media’s appetite for telling and selling stories leads them not only to document tragedy but also to misrepresent or exploit it. Many viewers and critics disapprove of how media, particularly TV and cable, hurtle from one event to another, often dwelling on trivial, celebrity-driven content.

In this book, we examine the history and business of mass media and discuss the media as a central force in shaping our culture and our democracy. We start by examining key concepts and introducing the critical process for investigating media industries and issues. In later chapters, we probe the history and structure of media’s major institutions. In the process, we will develop an informed and critical view of the influence these institutions have had on national and global life. The goal is to become media literate—to become critical consumers of mass media institutions and engaged participants who accept part of the responsibility for the shape and direction of media culture. In this chapter, we will:

As you read through this chapter, think about your early experiences with the media. Identify a favorite media product from your childhood—a song, book, TV show, or movie. Why was it so important to you? How much of an impact did your early taste in media have on your identity? How has your taste shifted over time? What do your current preferences indicate about your identity now? Do your current media preferences reveal anything about you? For more questions to help you think about the role of media in your life, see “Questioning the Media” in the Chapter Review.