Wednesday, October 30, 1996
MEDIA:
Journalists knowingly influence
voters, Times expert saysBy John Digrado
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
In his field, few are more qualified to criticize the press and its role in politics than David Shaw.
The media knowingly influence the voter, changing the course of American politics and causing the public's well-publicized apathy toward their elected officials, observed the Pulitzer Prize-winning Los Angeles Times media critic.
"Most people have lost interest in the campaign largely because of the media," he said. "Because the media is cynical and negative, voters have lost confidence in the process and in their own votes" to cause any real change in Washington and beyond.
A special program Tuesday, presented by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, focused on the media's role and influence on the upcoming election, pitting a panel of four well-known experts in their respective fields against each other in a spirited discussion.
"When the public views its leaders with ... mistrust, the entire system breaks down," Shaw said, adding that while journalists are by their nature skeptical, that skepticism often rubs off on voters, influencing their decision.
Polls of all sorts take much of the responsibility for influencing voters, Shaw said, by becoming "self-fulfilling prophecies." Candidates who are ahead early in the campaign are more likely to garner larger campaign contributions from various donors.
Those funds, in turn, allow a candidate to campaign harder and get their message before the voters more than their competitors, garnering more support and more votes a cycle effect that is difficult for other candidates to break, Shaw said.
But while the numbers appear to support those kinds of statements, there are far more pressing issues on voters' minds when they vote than polls and the media, said panelist John Zaller, a UCLA professor of political science.
Handing out statistics that show direct correlations between the economic performance of the country and the candidate who wins the election, Zaller explained that it is often "the economy, stupid," as the handout claimed, that pushes a presidential candidate into office.
Election outcomes can often be predicted well before the campaign actually begins, Zaller said. "The better the economy is doing (on Election Day), the better the incumbent does."
President Clinton, while maintaining a commanding lead over former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, is further buoyed by the performance of the American economy during his tenure as president, Zaller said.
For whatever reason Clinton's economic policy, changes in the economic climate or just sheer luck the president has the economy in his favor heading into the home stretch of the campaign.
"Despite all of the money and hoopla, peace, prosperity and moderation are probably the most important determinants in election outcomes," Zaller said.
This separation and trivialization of the media's effect on the election process cannot be made, however, since the media and politics are inextricably intertwined with each other, said panelist Peter Wollen, chair of the critical studies program at UCLA's Department of Film and Television.
"It's a mistake to see the political process and the media as two separate systems," Wollen said. "We're actually seeing two dimensions of the same (phenomenon)."
Since the advent of television as a medium of disseminating information to the masses during the 1960s, politicians have manipulated the media to their own ends. "The media is a player in the game, not just an outsider," Wollen said.
So involved is politics in the media that politicians actively seek funding from commercial sources, deeply imbedding the political process in commercialism and advertising, he said.
"Politics becomes like everything else," Wollen said. "The press and television are funded by advertising politics, too, becomes an exercise in marketing."