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Chapter 8: The Mass Media and Politics

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Flash Cards

Practice Quiz

Critical Thinking and Learning Exercises

  1. 1. Choose five cartoons from the following website and provide your interpretation: http://www.cagle.com/politicalcartoons/.
  2. 2. Identify a current issue and find two major newspapers that have been categorized as liberal and conservative. Compare the same article written by the two different newspapers. Input the articles into Wordle and compare the results: http://www.wordle.net/.
  3. 3. Watch CNN's and Fox News's nightly news stories and compare the two based on the following:
  4. a. Lead news story
  5. b. Advertisements
  6. c. Number of stories related to crime or terrorism

Links to further Resources

How It Happens: Press Briefings

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQO8ZTyUuOY

Minnesota Public Television political cartoonist David Gillette explains the complex dynamics between government officials and the press. Of particular interest is the interdependent relationship between elected officials and members of the press. How does this interdependence potentially interfere with the roles and responsibilities of the press outlined in your text?

FactCheck.org

http://www.factcheck.org/

The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania is a nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters, and their FactCheck.org website is designed to actively monitor the factual accuracy of news reporting. By offering a critical evaluation of the accuracy of media reporting, FactCheck.org strives to promote a better-informed electorate and to hold news agencies accountable for the quality of their reporting.

Snopes: Debunking Misinformation in the Internet Age

http://www.snopes.com/

With the rise of the internet and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter as a preferred source of information for so many people, there has been growing confusion about how to distinguish what is true and what is not. Snopes is a website dedicated to researching and debunking misinformation on the Internet. As an informed consumer of information, how do you determine whether or not something you have seen on the Internet is true? With the rising popularity of “memes” (Internet graphics designed to quickly spread an idea from person to person in a “viral” manner), are people becoming less concerned with proper sourcing of information and less interested in verifiable evidence?

The Monkey Cage

http://themonkeycage.org/

As a political blog founded and run by political scientists, The Monkey Cage is a blog forum for the wider dissemination of political science research and a rigorous critical evaluation of important news stories.