120 PART TwO • THE POlITICS OF AMERICAn dEMOCRACy
played by the media in American politics,^3 media scholar
Doris A. Graber points out that high school students,
when asked where they obtain the information on
which they base their views, mention the mass media
far more than they mention their families, friends, and
teachers. This trend may significantly alter the nature
of the media’s influence on public debate in the future.The Impact of the new Media. The extent to which
new forms of media have supplanted older ones—such
as news papers and the major broadcast networks—has
been a major topic of discussion for several years. New
forms include not only the Web but also talk radio and
cable tele vision. Talk radio would seem to be a very dated
medium, given that radio first became important early in
the twentieth century. Between 1949 and 1987, how-
ever, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
enforced the Fairness Doctrine, which required radio and
television to present controversial issues in a manner that
was (in the FCC’s view) honest, equitable, and balanced.
Modern conservative talk radio took off only after the
Fairness Doctrine was abolished.
The impact of the various forms of new media appears
to vary considerably. Talk radio and cable networks such
as Fox News have given conservatives new methods for
promoting their views and socializing their audiences. It
is probable, however, that such media mostly strengthen
the beliefs of those who are already conservative, rather
than recruiting new members to the political right. Indeed, cable news and talk radio are
widely blamed for the increased polarization that has characterized American politics in
recent years. A similar observation is often made about political blogs on the Internet,
although in this medium liberals are at least as well represented as conservatives.
The impact of social networking sites such as Facebook is more ambiguous. Facebook
does have strongly political “pages” that, in effect, are political blogs. Many interactions
on Facebook, however, are between members of peer groups, such as students who
attend a particular school or individuals who work in the same profession. Such groups are
more likely to contain a variety of views than groups explicitly organized around a politi-
cal viewpoint. Facebook, in other words, may enhance peer group influence. The media’s
influence will be discussed in more detail later in the chapter.Political Events and Public Opinion
Generally, older Americans tend to be somewhat more conservative than younger
Americans—particularly on social issues but also, to some extent, on economic issues.
This effect probably occurs because older adults are likely to retain the social values that
they learned at a younger age. The experience of marriage and raising a family also has
a measurable conservatizing effect. Young people, especially today, are more liberal than
their grandparents on social issues, such as on the rights of gay men and lesbians and onPastor Rick warren, author of The Purpose
Driven Life, speaks to a conference on AIDS in Washington,
D.C. Is Warren an opinion leader? (Michael Kovac/Getty Images
for the Elton John AIDS Foundation)Social Media
in Politics
U.S. Politics on Facebook
has almost 250,000 “likes”
and is a major gateway to
dozens of other sites. You
can search for it by name,
using Facebook or any
search engine.- Doris A. Graber, On Media: Making Sense of Politics (Boulder, Colo.: Paradigm Publishers, 2011).
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