Media and Politics!!

Summer Fun

I spent the past two summers working in a congressional office in Washington D.C. I wish I could go into all the details about my experience of working on “the hill”, but that would take entirely too long. I will highlight some of the most important things I witnessed and learned along the way. Every day is different when you work in politics, there is a new story that breaks, new bills being proposed and many different hearings happening daily. Each day for me was pretty routine, but the content of the day was never the same. I got the responsibility to track all press mentions, which is an article that the representative was mentioned in, answered the phone when constituents call, draft email responses to constituents and giving tours (my favorite).

How do you get your News?

Being in college during such a pivotal time in the United States has been very interesting. A college is a place where you can figure yourself out whether it is your religion or your political views. Our generation is very aware of what is going on in the political world due to social media. It doesn’t mean everyone in our generation is going out to vote but the engagement has shifted in the past few years. How many people get their news from Twitter or Facebook? I have read many different news stories on a social media platform. News Media has more ways to reach their audiences than ever before. However, there could be bias when you receive this news. Receiving your news on social media can be biased due to who you follow. The concept of media bias goes further into depth and explains how media has become more bias in the past years, but I don’t have time to give you a full history lesson!

My Experience with the Media

Working for a representative over the summer, I tracked a lot of news articles. I’m talking like 8,000 articles that the representative was mentioned in over three-months. I am interested in political communication and how the media works so I found this task very interesting. I got to witness how the media works. The representative that I interned for was nominated for a Cabinet-level position. The media began writing stories about the nomination and continued to that entire week. In a week, there were about 1,300 articles posted about the representative. If you are thinking that it is crazy, it was! In just one week the media wrote over 1,300 articles over ONE representative in Congress. I witnessed the power the media has first-hand been an experience I will never forget.

The Fox News Effect

Okay now that I shared a story from my time on the hill, I am going to share some research that was recently brought to my attention. There are tons of research to show how news media influences voters. The Fox News Effect is one study that shows how news media can influence voters. The outcome in the research is that Fox News affects elite perceptions and electoral outcomes and how districts that have fox news lean more republican than districts without Fox News. I don’t know about you, but I find this very interesting. When I was working in DC, our office had Fox News on 24/7. The representative would frequently go on Fox to talk about a certain issue going on and people in his district could see him on TV at their house. The Fox News Effect is very complex, but very important when it comes to media influencing voters.

Media is Important

The landscape of media and politics has shifted in the past year and will continue in the next few years. Media is a powerful thing and affects voters across the country. Media has played an important role in politics since the First Amendment established freedom of the press as a cornerstone of American democracy and will remain important.