CMN 143 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Soft Media
Document Summary
Americans level of political knowledge is unusually low. Overall, the lack of incentives for becoming informed and the increasingly non substantive content of news in combination explain the low level of knowledge. Rational ignorance: americans relative material in uence contributes to their inattentiveness to politics. It is not necessary to learn about politics. Low information decision making: the public is able to reach reasonable approximations of informed political decisions using shortcuts or heuristics. Online processing: people use relevant information to update opinions and attitudes but then discard the information. News media as a culprit: low quality news and less public affairs news programming. Print journalism conveys more information than tv because it allows for greater depth of coverage. Research ndings: mainstream news vs infotainment programming. Many young people now make up the majority of the audience for soft news and infotainment shows such as the daily show.
