Unit 14 mass media
Mass communication has revolutionized the modern world. In the United States it has given a rise to what is sometimes called a media state, a society in which access to power is through the media. The public's right to know is one of the central principles of American society. The men who wrote the Constitution of the United States determined that the power of knowledge should be placed in the hands of the people. To assure a healthy and uninhibited flow of information, the framers of the new government included press freedom among the basic human rights protected in the new nation's Bill of Rights (the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution). The First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ....” That protection from control by the federal government meant that anyone – rich or poor, regardless of his political or religious belief – could generally publish what he wished. Ever since, the First Amendment has served as the conscience and shield of all Americans who reported the news, who wished to make their opinions public, or who desired to influence public opinion. Over the past two centuries the means of communication – what we now call the "media" – have grown immensely more complex. In the past, the media, created by printing presses, were few and simple – newspapers, pamphlets and books. Today, the media also include television radio, films, cable TV and the Internet.
This media explosion has created an intricate a system shaping the values and culture of American society. News and entertainment are beamed from one end of the American continent to another. The result is that the United States has been tied together more tightly, and the media have helped to reduce regional differences and customs. People all over the country watch the same shows often at the same time. The media bring the American people a common and shared experience – the same news, the same entertainment, the same advertising.
History of the media
America's earliest media audiences were the colonies' upper class and community leaders – the people who could read and who could afford to buy newspapers. The first regular newspaper was the Boston News-letter, a weekly started in 1704 by the city's postmaster John Campbell. It published shipping information and news from England. Most Americans, out in the fields, rarely saw a newspaper and depended on travelers or passing townsmen for news.
When rebellious feelings against Britain began to spread in the 1700s, the first battles were fought on the pages of newspapers and pamphlets. Perhaps one of America's greatest political journalists was one of its first, Thomas Paine. Paine's stirring writings urging independence made him the most persuasive "media" figure of the American Revolution against Britain in 1776. His pamphlets sold thousands of copies and helped mobilize the rebellion.
By the early 1800s the United States had entered a period of swift technological progress that would mark the real beginning of "modern media". The inventions of the steamship, the railroad and the telegraph brought communications out of the age of windpower and horses. The high-speed printing press was developed, driving down the cost of printing. Expansion of the educational system taught more Americans to read and sparked their interest in the world.
Publishers realized that a profitable future belonged to cheap newspapers with large readerships and increased advertising. In 1833 a young printer named Benjamin Day launched the New York Sun, the first American paper to sell for a penny (until then, most papers had cost six cents). Day's paper paid special attention to lively human interest stories and crime. Following Day's lead, the press went from a small upper class readership to mass readership in just a few years.
Competition for circulation and profits was fierce. The rivalry of two publishers dominated American journalism at the end of the 19 century. The first was Joseph Pulitzer (1847-1911), a Hungarian immigrant whose Pulitzer prizes have become America's highest newspaper and book honors. His papers, the St Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York World, fought corporate greed and government corruption, introduced sports coverage and comics, and entertained the public with an endless series of promotional stunts.
The second publisher was William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951), who took Pulitzer's formula to new highs – and new lows – in the San Francisco Examiner and the New York Journal. Hearst's brand of outrageous sensationalism was dubbed "yellow journalism" after the paper's popular comic strip, "The Yellow Kid ". Modern media critics would be horrified at Hearst's coverage of the Spanish-American War over Cuba in 1898. For months before the United States declared war, the Journal stirred public opinion to near hysteria with exaggerations and outright lies. When Hearst's artist in Cuba found no horrors to illustrate, Hearst sent back the message “Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war”.
Pulitzer and Hearst symbolized an era of highly personal journalism that faded early in this century. The pressure for large circulation created one of today's most important press standards objective, or unbiased, reporting. Newspapers wanted to attract readers of all views, not drive them away with one-sided stories. That meant editors began to make sure all sides of a story were represented. Wider access to the telephone helped shape another journalistic tradition the race to be first with the latest news.
The swing to objective reporting was the key to the emergence of The New York Times. Most journalists consider it the nation's most prestigious newspaper. Under Adolph S. Ochs, who bought the paper in 1896 this paper established itself as a serious alternative to sensationalist journalism. The paper stressed coverage of important national and international events – a tradition which still continues. Today the New York Times is used as a major reference tool by American libraries, and is standard reading for diplomats, scholars and government officials.
The first American magazines appeared half a century after the first newspapers and took longer to conquer widespread readership. Andrew Bradford, a London-born printer, published the first U.S. magazine in Philadelphia on February 13, 1741, but it lasted only three months. In 1893, the first mass-circulation magazines, which cost ten cents at the time, began to appear. In 1923, Henry Luce invented the concept of the weekly news magazine, creating Time. Time and its major competitor, Newsweek, gradually carved out important niches with their in-depth analyses of national and international developments.
Newspapers and magazines
Newspapers and magazines have long been major lines of communication and have always reached large audiences. Today more than 11,000 different periodicals are published as either weekly, monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, or semiannual editions. More than 62 million copies of daily newspapers are printed every day and over 58 million copies of Sunday newspapers are published every week. More than two-thirds of American adults read a daily newspaper on an average weekday. Most of the daily newspapers are published rain or shine, on Christmas, Thanksgiving, or the Fourth of July. The top five daily newspapers by circulation are: The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post. Most daily newspapers are of the “quality” rather than the “popular” variety. Sunday papers are usually much larger than the regular editions. Reading the Sunday paper is an American tradition, for some people an alternative to going to church. Getting through all of the sections can take most of the day, leaving just enough time for the leisurely Sunday dinner.
It is often said that there is no “national press” in the US as there is in Great Britain, for instance, where five popular followed by three quality newspapers dominate the circulation figures and are read nationwide. In one sense this is true. Most daily newspapers are distributed locally, or regionally, people buying one of the big city newspapers in addition to the smaller local ones. A few of the best known newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal can be found throughout the country, yet one wouldn’t expect The Boston Globe to be read in Huston. There has been an attempt to publish a truly national newspaper, USA Today, but it can only offer news of general interest, which is not enough in a country where state, city, and local news and political developments most deeply affect the readers and are especially interesting to them.
In another sense, however, there is a national press, one that comes from influence and the sharing of news. Some of the largest newspapers are at the same time newsgathering businesses selling news and photographs to hundreds of other papers in the USA and abroad. Three of the better-known of these are The New York Times’, The Washington Post’s and The Los Angeles Times’ news services. Because so many newspapers print news stories from the major American newspapers and magazines, they have great national and international influence.
American newspapers get much of their news from the same sources which serve about half of the people in the world, that is, the two US news agencies AP (Associated Press) and UPI (United Press International). These two international agencies are the world’s largest and neither of them is owned, controlled or operated by the government.
American magazines cover all topics and interests, from art and architecture to tennis, from aviation and gardening to computers and literary criticism. Quite a few have international editions, are translated into other languages, have “daughter” editions in other countries. Among the many international are National Geographic, Reader’s Digest, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Time, Newsweek, Scientific American, and Psychology Today.
The weekly magazines – the best known are Time and U.S. News and World Report – serve as a type of national press. They also have considerable international impact, above all Time; no other single news publication is read so widely by so many people internationally.
The news magazines are all aimed at the average, educated reader. There are also many periodicals which treat serious educational, political, and cultural topics at length. The best known of these include The Atlantic Monthly, Harvard Educational Review, Saturday Review, National Review, Foreign Affairs, Smithsonian and, of course, The New Yorker. These widely read periodicals provide a broad and substantial forum for serious discussion.
A basic characteristic of the American press is that almost all editors and journalists agree that news should be very clearly separated from opinion about the news. Following tradition of journalistic ethics, young newspaper editors and reporters are taught that opinion and political viewpoints belong on the editorial and opinion pages. Therefore, when a news story appears with a reporter’s name, it means that the editors consider it to be a mixture of fact and opinion. There is also a very good economic reason for this policy of separating news and opinion. It was discovered in the late 19th century that greater numbers of readers trusted, and bought, newspapers when the news wasn’t slanted in one direction or another. Today, it’s often difficult to decide whether a paper is Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative. Most newspapers are careful to give equal and balanced news coverage to opposing candidates in elections. They may support one candidate or the other on their editorial pages, but one year this might be a Republican, and the next a Democrat.
A typical daily paper contains more than 40 pages of news, editorials, interviews, cartoons, information about sports, art, music, books, and general entertainment, including radio and TV schedule. There is a business section, a family page, comics, general advertising, real estate and employment ads (classified ads). Newspapers and magazines carry a lot of advertisements. They subsist mainly on the revenue generated by the advertising that they sell. Ads usually take up a large part of newspaper space. A cleverly planned newspaper advertisement will cause the reader to stop and read it.
Just as there are no official or government owned news agency in the USA, there are no official or government-owned newspapers. There is no censorship, no “official secret acts”, nor any law that says, for example, that that government records must be kept secret until so many years have passed. The Government attempts to keep former intelligence agents from publishing secrets they once promised to keep – from “telling it all” – have been notoriously unsuccessful. One of the best known examples was when The New York Times and The Washington Post published the so called “Pentagon Papers”. These were secret documents concerning US military policy in Vietnam. The newspapers won the Supreme Court case that followed. The Court wrote (1971): “The government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the government”.
The tradition of “muckraking” – digging out the dirt and exposing it for all to see – is still extremely strong, and investigative reporting is still a large part of journalists’ work. This is one reason why so many young Americans are attracted to careers in journalism as a way of effecting change in society. Even small-town newspapers employ reporters who are kept busy searching for examples of political corruption, business malpractice, or industrial pollution.
Needless to say, some Americans are not happy with this strong tradition of investigative reporting. They say this has gone too far, that it gives a false impression of the country, that it makes it almost impossible to keep one’s private life private. The American press responds by quoting their constitutional rights. They perform a public service that is necessary for a healthy democracy, they claim. Less nobly, they also know, of course, that when something which has been hidden behind closed doors is moved to the front pages, it can sell a lot of newspapers.
Radio and television
The 1920s saw the birth of a new mass medium – radio. Although mostly listened to for entertainment, radio’s instant on-the-spot reports of dramatic events drew huge audiences throughout the 1930s and World War II. Radio also introduces government regulation into the media. Early radio stations went on and off the air and wandered across different frequencies, often blocking other stations and annoying listeners. To resolve the problem American Congress gave the government power to regulate and license broadcasters.
Radio flourishes in the US and has a growing audience, despite the competition from TV, cinema and the Internet. The US has more than 10,000 local radio stations. Many are affiliated to national networks such as ABC (American Broadcasting Company), CBS (Columbia Broadcasting Service), and NBC (the National Broadcasting Company). There are also over 100 regional radio networks. Although most stations are commercial, advertising on radio is a lot less obtrusive than on TV. There are many “special audience” radio stations, including a variety of foreign-language stations, and non-commercial stations operated by colleges, universities and public authorities.
U
S
mainstream commercial radio is excellent if you are into music,
sports or religion. As a rule, news and talk stations broadcast on AM
and music stations on FM. Music stations are highly specialized, the
most common of which are categorized as adult contemporary, country,
contemporary hits, easy listening or middle of the road. In
addition to these, there are stations specializing on top 40 hits,
golden oldies or classic rock, black music, light rock, jazz, blues,
R&B, progressive, gospel reggae and classical. If you are looking
for serious radio, then you must turn into NPR (National Public
Radio) which is non-commercial and specializes in news and public
affairs. APA (American Public Radio) is also non-commercial and
specialized in entertainment. NPR and APR survive on grants and
sponsorship from large corporations.
After World War II, American homes were invaded by a powerful new force – television. The idea of seeing “live” shows in the living room was immediately attractive. TV was developed at a time when Americans were becoming more affluent and more mobile. Watching TV soon became a social ritual.
Today television is an essential part of American life and in many homes it rivals family and religion as the dispenser of values. TV is often referred to as the “boob tube”, the “plug-in drug” or the “idiot box”. Some 98 % of US households have at least one TV and around 70 per cent have two or more. The average American watches three hours of TV a day and a good twenty per cent of the public admit to more than four hours a day. Some “coach potatoes” (people who spend all their time passively watching TV) leave their TVs on all day and even overnight, though in recent years, computer use, particularly surfing the Internet, has cut into television time. Prime time viewing is from 7 pm to 11 pm and attracts an average 85 million viewers.
US television is the most competitive in the world, with national networks, local stations, cable and satellite TV stations all competing vigorously for the attention of the audience. There are largest national networks ABC, CBS, NBC, known as the big three. In 1986, however, the Fox Broadcasting Company launched a challenge to the big three networks (thanks largely to the success of shows like The Simpsons, as well as the network's acquisition of rights to show National Football League games). In addition to the national networks, there are more than 800 licensed commercial TV stations and some 400 non-commercial public and educational stations. Major cities have up to 20 local broadcast stations and viewers in many areas can receive well over 100 stations when national and cable stations are included. Spanish language channels are becoming increasingly common throughout the country and there are several national Spanish language networks developing, such as Univision or Telemundo.
The major networks buy programs from independent TV production companies (mostly located in Hollywood) and distribute them to local stations across the country (local TV stations may be affiliated or owned and operated by a TV network). Programs aimed at mass entertainment are preferred over educational and news programs. Most stations’ output consists of a profusion of game shows, sit-coms, reality programs, violent or old films and “public access” programming.
Major-network affiliates run very similar schedules. Typically, they begin weekdays with an early-morning locally produced news show, followed by a network morning show, such as NBC's Today, which mixes news, weather, interviews and music. Syndicated programming, especially talk shows, fill the late morning, followed often by local news at noon. Network run Soap operas dominate the early afternoon, while syndicated talk shows such as The Oprah Winfrey Show appear in the late afternoon. Local news comes on again in the early evening, followed by the national network's news program at 6:30 or 5:30 p.m., followed by more news. Family-oriented comedy programs are shown in the early part of prime time, although in recent years, reality television like Dancing with the Stars has largely replaced them. Later in the evening, dramas like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, House, M.D., and Grey's Anatomy air. At 10 or 11 p.m., another local news program comes on, usually followed by late-night interview shows, such as Late Show with David Letterman or The Tonight Show. Saturday mornings usually feature network programming aimed at children (including animated cartoons), while Sunday mornings include public-affairs programs that help fulfil stations' legal obligations to provide public-service programming. Sports and infomercials (30-minute advertisements) can be found on weekend afternoons, followed again by the same type of prime-time shows aired during the week.
Local stations also show their own local news, sports and other broadcasts, which vary from amateurish to reasonably competent programs. Local news generally consists of a catalogue of soaring crime, flavored with showbiz gossip. TV companies compete to bring instant pictures of disasters and on-the-spot reports from helicopter crews.
Viewers also have the option of watching non-commercial public television. Public television in the US has a far smaller role than in most other countries. The best programs for discerning viewers (that commercial stations do not offer) are usually shown on the Public Broadcasting system (PBS) or public-service channels. PBS channels show some of the high-quality programs, including comedy, children’s programs (e.g. Sesame Street and Teletubbies), drama, documentaries, discussion programs, excellent science and nature features, live music and theater. PBS TV used to be strictly uncommercial and survived on fund-raising drives, donations from government, foundations, viewer contributions, corporate sponsorship. Nowadays PBS stations accept some advertising, however advertisements are currently limited to the breaks between programs.
Cable TV is available in around 60 % of US households and cable networks collectively have greater viewership than broadcast networks. Most cable stations broadcast 24 hours a day and in the larger cities there are dozens of cable channels in addition to the national networks and PBS stations; many cable subscribers can receive more than 100 stations. Although there are some general entertainment cable TV channels, most are dedicated to a particular topic, including films, sports, religion, comics, game shows, local events, news, financial news, shopping, children’s programs, weather, health, music and foreign-language programs, e.g. Spanish. Top cable networks include USA Network (general entertainment), ESPN and Versus (sports), MTV (music), CNN and MSNBC (news), Syfy (science fiction), Disney Channel (family), Discovery Channel and Animal Planet (documentaries), TBS (comedy) and TNT (drama).Cable TV isn’t subject to the same federal laws as broadcast television and therefore channels may show programs, such as pornographic films, which aren’t permitted on network TV.
Satellite television was originally designed to offer a greater selection of programs to people in rural areas that could not easily be connected to the cable system. Now there are around 20 TV satellites in North America serving the US and Canada. However many people are buying small satellite dishes to install them in the backyards. DBS (Direct broadcast satellite television services), which became available in the U.S. in the 1990s, offers programming similar to cable TV. Dish Network and DirecTV are the major DBS providers in the country.
American television is focused on popular entertainment to provide large audiences to advertisers. Over-the-air commercial stations and networks generate the vast majority of their revenue from advertisements. Many Americans, who pay no fee for either commercial or public TV, simply accept TV ads as the price they have to pay if they choose to watch certain programs. Advertisements range from those that are witty, well-made and clever to those that are boring and dull. According to a 2001 survey, broadcast stations allocated 16 to 21 minutes per hour to commercials. Most cable networks also generate income from advertisements, although most basic cable networks also receive subscription fees. However, premium cable networks, such as the movie network HBO, do not air commercials. Instead, cable-TV subscribers must pay extra to receive the premium networks (about 35 million Americans pay a monthly fee of approximately $17 for greater selection).
Broadcast television is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC awards licenses to local stations, which stipulate stations' commitments to educational and public-interest programming. The FCC also prohibits the airing of "indecent" material over the air between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. Although broadcast stations can legally air almost anything they want late at night – and cable networks at all hours—nudity and graphic profanity are very rare on American television, though they are common on pay television services that are free from FCC regulations and pressure from advertisers to tone down content, and often require a subscription to view. Broadcasters fear that airing such material will turn off advertisers and encourage the federal government to strengthen its regulation of television content.
Public concerns
The American media is troubled by rising public dissatisfaction. Critics complain that journalists are unfair, irresponsible or just plain arrogant. They complain that journalists are always emphasizing the negative, the sensational, and the abnormal rather than the normal.
Reporters are sometimes seen as heroes who expose wrongdoing on the part of the government or big business. In the early 1970s, for example, two young reporters for the Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, investigated a break in at the headquarters of the Democratic Party in a Washington building known as "the Watergate ". Their reporting, along with an investigation by a Congressional committee and a court trial, helped implicate high White House officials in the break-in. Woodward and Bernstein became popular heroes, especially after a film was made about them, and helped restore some glamour to the profession of journalism. Enrollments in journalism schools soared, with most students aspiring to be investigative reporters. But there is a feeling that the press sometimes goes too far, crossing the fine line between the public's right to know, on the one hand, and the right of individuals to privacy and the right of the government to protect the national security.
One growing pressure on reporters and editors is the risk of being sued. Even though the First Amendment protects the press from government interference, the press does not have complete freedom. There are laws against libel and invasion of privacy, as well as limits on what reporters may do in order to get a story. The right of privacy is meant to protect individual Americans' peace of mind and security. Journalists cannot barge into people's homes or offices to seek out news and expose their private lives to the public. Even when the facts are true, most news organizations have their own rules and guidelines on such matters.
DISCUSSION
Why is the USA sometimes called a “media state”?
What does the First Amendment stipulate for?
How did media explosion influence American society?
What was the first American regular newspaper?
What do we learn from the text about Thomas Paine?
How did American mass media change in the early 1800s?
What do we learn about the rivalry of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst?
When did first American magazine appear?
What is the number of periodicals published in the USA today?
What are the top five daily newspapers? Are they popular or quality papers?
Why is it often said that there is no “national press” in the USA?
What are the most popular American magazines published internationally?
What are the reasons for separating news and opinion in newspaper articles?
Why are many young Americans attracted to careers in journalism?
How can a typical American daily newspaper be described?
When did radio appear in the USA?
What are three largest national networks which many radio stations are affiliated to?
Do American radio stations specialize in certain types of programming?
What nicknames did Americans give to television?
Why do many people believe that TV rivals family and religion as disperser of values?
What are the largest TV networks? What is a typical day schedule of a major-network channel?
What is PBS? What kind of programming does it offer to American viewers?
Is cable TV widely available in the US today?
What are the most popular cable channels?
What was the original purpose of developing satellite TV?
What is the main source of revenue for American TV?
What is FCC? What are its functions?
Why is the audience often dissatisfied with American mass media?
What did the Watergate scandal prove?
Are American mass media completely free to publish whatever they want?
GUIDED TALK
Develop the following points using the words below.
The public’s right to know is one of the basic principles of American society. To revolutionize, media state, to determine, framer, basic human rights, freedom of speech, to serve as smth., to influence public opinion
By 1800s publishers realized that a profitable future belonged to cheep newspapers with large circulation. Modern media, swift technological progress, cost of printing, expansion of educational system, mass readership
William Randolph Hearst took journalism to new heights and new lows. Yellow journalism, sensationalism, coverage of smth., to stir public opinion, exaggeration, to symbolize an era of smth.
The New York Times is a highly reputable paper. Objective reporting, alternative to smth., coverage of smth., important event, to establish oneself as smth., to be standard reading for smb.
American newspapers and magazines attract large audiences. To print, to publish, circulation, “quality” and “popular” varieties, American tradition
In one sense, there is no “national” press in the USA. To dominate circulation, to be read nationwide, to be distributed locally, to be found throughout the country, news of general interest, to affect the readers
American editors and journalists agree that news should be very clearly separated from opinion about the news. Journalistic ethics, political viewpoints, editorial page, mixture of fact and opinion, to be slanted, to be careful to give equal news coverage
American TV is a dispenser of values. Powerful force, an essential part of life, “plug-in drug”, an average American, “coach potato”, overnight, to surf the Internet, prime-time viewing, to compete vigorously
Major-network affiliates run similar programming. Weekday, news show, talk show, soap opera, family-oriented program, to aim at smb., public-affairs program, infomercial
Cable TV is widely available in the US today. Greater selection of programs, to have greater viewership, subscriber, to be dedicated to a particular topic, to be permitted on network TV, to be connected to the cable system