Politics, the Media, and Agenda Setting Authored by Amber Boydstun - Book Report/Review Example

 Book Review: Making the News: Politics, the Media, and Agenda Setting Introduction The book titled making the News: Politics, the Media, and Agenda Setting authored by Amber Boydstun is an intriguing text that explores the patterns exhibited by the media in new coverage. Nobody can deny that the media plays a critical role in influencing the political structure of any system. Scholars highlight that the political system determines the role of the media in influencing policies. Boydstun focuses on the American media, which evidently has an immense effect on politics and policymaking. She seeks to highlight why the media gives attention to some issues while ignoring others. She relies on relevant examples to make her book worth reading. The topic she explores is of critical importance to the society. Although everyone acknowledges that the media exerts a measure of impact on politics and policymaking, none of the previous authors has focused on describing why the media gives attention to some issues and leaves others uncovered even if they seem to be of critical importance. Boydstun gives attentionto this issue and develops theories that explain why the media exhibits a skewed pattern of influencing policies. Throughout the book, numerous examples of stories that have appeared on cover pages of newspapers such as The Times,place emphasis on the theories develop by Boydstun. The book challenges the role of the media making it evident that there is an evident need for change in the way the media covers issues, if it is to register an even impact on policymaking. This paper will present the review of the book highlighting Boydstun main arguments. In the first chapter of the book titled Patterns in the News and why they matter Boydstun makes it evident that the media is of critical significance to not only the politics but also of democracy and the citizens as well. In this chapter, she introduces the reader to the observed patterns of news coverage. She highlights that the patterns observed in new coverage include explosiveness and skew. She gives examples of media explosions such as the BP oil spill, the school shooting that killed 20 children, as well as the September 11 terrorist attack in the US. Usually, the media give little attention to other issues such as sexual trafficking, homelessness, and genocides even though they deserve equal coverage. In this chapter, Boydstun outlines the approach used in the rest of the book in order to enlighten the reader on what to expect in the next chapters. She describes all the approaches used in the other chapters of the book in an effort to introduce the text (Boydstun 6). The second chapter of the book titled the forces that drive the news examines the different factors that determine what appears in the news coverage. Boydstun highlights that the process of making news is not only messy, but also highly complex. The discussions presented by Boydstun have the basis of the fact that the media are an institution. In the American system, the media institution plays a critical role in ensuring that there are checks and balances in the system. She then focuses on eight variables which form the main driving forces in the media. One of the variables described in this chapter is institutional setup. This variable denotes the rules and the norms that surround and define the media system. The media as an institution has both formal and informal powers that control it. Boydstun highlights that there are extensive formal and informal powers that define theAmerican media. These powers define what is given coverage in the news (29). Moreover, the formal and informal powers define the leadership and the management systems of different media houses. This explains why some media houses have registered changes in the past. The second variable given attention is events, which focuses on real world events that are unfolding currently. As mentioned above, the media is of critical importance tocitizens. Therefore, all the events happening in different realms of the world form the news in different media houses. However, Boydstun is keen to identify that the news coverage is not a perfect reflection of the real events in the globe. This is because some issues are given minimal attention while in real sense they are highly prevalent in the real world. The third variable described by Boydstun is the policymaker attention. Notably, policymakers include people like politicians and lobbyists. Issues that are of interest to politicians will feature in the news coverage as main stories. This means that, policymakers have a measure of effect in determining what receives attention from the media. Therefore, issues that may be of relevance to the citizens, but not to the policy makers may receive minimal or no attention (34). Public concern is the fourth variable that Boydstun describes as being a driving force in determining the story features in the news. Evidently, the media is of relevance to the citizens and the public at large. Therefore, issues of concern to the public are more likely to appear in the news coverage. However, it is evident that the media does not cover all the issues that prove to be of great concern to the public. Some of them receive minimal attention, whereas they are of significance to the public. The fifth variable is the diversity of discussion. This factor involves the level of concentration of a certain issue discussed by the media. If one issue is given an in-depth discussion, this may affect its coverage in other news. The agenda congestion is the sixth variable that determines the issues covered in the news. This focuses on “mega storylines” that define the media agenda. Such stories must receive attention on a daily base as they define the central agenda of the media. The context forms the seventh variable that Boydstun gives attention. This determines whether social, political, or economic issues are the ones that deserve news coverage. For example, in the period before an election, many issues covered in the news are likely to be political. Moreover, if the society is facing a major social problem, then the media may decide to give it attention. The eighth variable is prior attention. According to the author, if the media has covered a certain issue in the past, there is a higher likelihood that it will consider an in-depth coverage of the same issue in the future (50). Boydstun introduces the reader to two different systems that define new coverage by the media. The firs system is the watchdog system, which gives the media an opportunity to constantly keep watch of any developing issues that may deserve the public attention. The second system is the alarm in which the media only give coverage of specific issues and events that manage to trigger an alarm. When these issues trigger an alarm, it becomes evident that there is a need for urgent attention. According to Boydstun, the alarm system is more prevalent in the American media. The watchdog system fits to be a patrol system concerning some issues. The variables described above are the determining factors on whether the media adopts the alarm mode or takes the patrol mode. For example, the media will exhibit the alarm mode in issues that involves numerous actors, and that receive attention form many policy makers as well as high public concern. If at that specific time, there is low media agenda congestion, then such issues which are sensational and trigger other events will receive coverage from the media. On the other hand, Boydstun highlights that the media takes the patrol mode by undertaking an in-depthanalysis and coverage of an issue that received a wide coverage through the alarm mode. For example, after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the media focused on numerous issues, especially policies surrounding the vulnerability of America to future terrorism (62). In the case of Hurricane Katrina, the media exhibited a continued high-level coverage highlighting the role of policies and disaster management programs and how they could be improved to manage disasters in the future. Boydstun highlights that there is a need for a new concept, which combines both of the systems described above. In chapter three, she described the alarm/ patrol hybrid model, which determines how the media covers different issues. According to this new concept, Boydstun reveals that a news outlet is likely to exhibit response to a specific alarm in a selective manner. However, after this coverage, the news outlets and the journalist move from the alarm mode to a patrol mode. In this patrol mode, the media covers related policies as well as the geographical areas associated with the issue. A clear example of this hybrid model in use is that of the Hurricane Katrina coverage. Boydstun highlights that the media adopted an alarm mode when reporting the issue for the first time. During the initial coverage, news outlets remained selective. However, the journalists and reporters then exhibited a major shift into the patrol mode. It is during this patrol mode that news outlets covered different policies and the roles of different agencies related to disaster management (65). According to the author, the significance of the hybrid model stretches beyond the media. This is because it presentscritical implications for the society. This is evident because the alarm mode allows the media to exhibit a momentary explosion about a certain issue. For example, in the case of the September 11 attacks, the media exhibited a momentary explosion of the issue. However, through the patrol mode, news outlets were able to develop a more meaningful discussion about the issue by touching on related policies. The hybrid model leads to Boydstun introducing one of the critical arguments presented in the book. She argues that the media process exhibits a highly skewed distribution of policy issues. Moreover, she expresses her opinion and conviction that the skewed pattern contributes in changing the explosions that occur over time. According to her views, the skewed pattern of policy distribution presents certain benefits (69). One of the benefits is that the hybrid model in its two phases of the alarm mode and the patrol mode has the potential of creating valuable awareness to issues that could have lacked attention. Moreover, the coverage of such issues in both phases of the hybrid model may facilitate focused attention of both citizens and policymakers. This may contribute to a change in the society. However, the disadvantage of this hybrid model system is that the skewed distribution of policy issues focuses all the attention on certain issue while giving minimal time to other important issues that may develop to policy problems. An additional disadvantage is that the explosive nature in which the media covers issues may serve as a hindrance to any reaction or response from either citizens or policymakers in a long-term manner. Therefore, the hybrid model system may contribute to policy makers giving little attention to issues after the explosion coverage (70). In addition, Boydstun discusses the phenomenon of momentum as a critical aspect defining the media process. This momentum is responsible for triggering t eight variables described above to serve as driving forces for the coverage of the issues in the news. When all the variables act in combination, there is an additional pattern of skewed coverage as well as explosiveness resulting in the news. As highlighted in the example presented above, the variables act in combination. An explosion of an issue may result if there is high public concern and high policymakerattention. Moreover, if the issue includes many actors, and is likely to trigger other events, then it will receive an explosion from news outlets (74). In chapter four of the book, Boydstun discusses the New York Times as an example of how content has been changed on the front page. She highlights that atthe first page of the New YorkTimes, which is about 22 inches by 12 inches contains the powerful political agenda. The stories appearing on the front page of the New York Times determine what other news outlets within America will give attention. In this chapter, Boydstun considers the size of the agenda presented on the front page in the New York Times. Moreover, the amount of attention given to different issues is considered. Her third consideration is how the front-page attentionchanges over time. In the same chapter, Boydstun highlights that the agenda on the front page keeps getting smaller over the years. Moreover, there is skewed distribution of attention to different issues. She also highlights that the attention on the front page changes explosively.She presents a thorough analysis of how all of this happens in the New York Times by presenting the dataset of the front-pageindifferent years. This is a clear illustration of the real coverage of different issues in news outlets (110). The reputation of the New York Times qualifies its use as an example in this book because it is one of the major news outlets in America. In chapter five, the author explains how the front page attention shifts, making the reader more enlightened about theskewednature of issue distribution in news coverage. In order to illustrate how the hybrid model functions, the author dedicated the sixth chapter toexplaining how the coverage of the war on terror began and how it ended with the news. She also tackles the issue of the death penalty and the kind of attention it receives in the news coverage. The detailed description of the pattern exhibited in the coverage of these issues serves to give the reader a conviction that a skewed pattern does exist. In chapter seven, the author gives attention to institutional mechanisms. She describes how these mechanisms contribute to media skewexplosiveness. Evidently, the media is an institution that operates under different mechanisms. As Boydstun highlights, institutional mechanisms contribute to the increased coverage of some issues and explain why some issues receive minimal attention. In the eighth chapter, Boydstun focuses on the shifting media landscape, the skew, and the explosiveness that will result in the new media landscape. This chapter enlightens the reader on the emerging media landscape and the factors that define it. The author uses the chapter to highlight how the skewed pattern and explosiveness will persist even in a new landscape. In the final chapter, the author considers the implications for politics and society in relation to the way news coverage exhibits a skewed and explosive manner. This is a critical aspect because the nature of news coverage determines the attention of policy makers as well as that of the society. Moreover, it determines whether any long-term response to thecovered issues will emerge from either policy makers or the society (197). Conclusion Evidently, Boydstun discusses critical issues that surround news coverage in the media. Without doubt, some issues have received increased attention from the media while others are rarely coveredeven though they are important policy problems. The author takes the reader through an extensive description and explanation of why some issues receive more attention thanothers do. She introduces her hybrid model, which is effective in explaining why the media focuses on certain issues and gives minimal attention to others. Eight variables emerge as the drivingforce of the coverage of issues in the news. Without doubt, a Boydstun book ishighly enlightening. Work Cited Boydstun, Amber E. Making the News: Politics, the Media, and Agenda Setting. Chicago, [Ill.] [etc.: The University of Chicago Press, 2013. Print. Read More