How Government Intervention Shaped Radio

Starting with the Radio Act of 1912, the US government has intervened in the development and uses of radio. Government intervention in radio directly led to the formation of RCA, which developed the radio business in the United States. Typically, the force that is government intervention occurs after a significant event makes the government feel the need to interfere, or if there is a public outcry for action. The government will usually then set up some form of an investigative committee to look into whatever it is that they are intervening in. After the committee has investigated, they will compile a report and the governmental body, i.e. congress, will create a policy or law in order to regulate that interest. That policy will typically have some sort of expiration date, around which congress will evaluate that policy and vote whether to extend it or not. As for how it happened with radio, the significant event that caused governmental action was the sinking if the Titanic, which was equipped with radio transmitters, and was able to send out distress calls by Morse code, which were received in New York. This event showed both the government and the public the power of radio, causing the government to take control of it until after World War I, when Gugliemo Marconi attempted to buy US patents. Fearing foreign control of radio, the US government forced Marconi to sell his assests to GE, who, along with AT&T and Westinghouse, then proceeded to form RCA. RCA then proceeded to shape the radio industry in America, all because of government intervention.

Priming in Media

The priming theory is supported by Albert Bandura's 1961 Bobo Doll experiment. Priming is the theory that media images motivate similar ideas in the brains of the audience. For example, when children watch one cartoon character act violently toward another cartoon character, that child is more likely to act violently toward another child. Or, when someone uses a baseball bat to kill someone and steal their car while playing the video game Grand Theft Auto, that person is more likely to attack someone with a baseball, steal a car, or both. Some believe that people, especially children, may store media images about how to react in certain circumstances with violent behavior, and then call on those images and recreate them in real-life situations.

Albert Bandura performed an experiment, commonly known as the Bobo Doll experiment, in 1961 to determine the effect of viewing violent behavior. Bandura showed some children a video of someone acting violently toward an inflatable doll. He then placed the children in a room with an inflatable doll, and observed the way the children treated the doll. Bandura also placed children that had not seen the video in a room with the inflatable doll and compared the way those children treated the doll with the way the children who saw the video treated the doll. Bandura found that the children exposed to the violent movie played much more aggressively and violently with the doll than those that did not see the movie. Also, he found that those exposed developed an attraction to guns and displayed hostile language toward the doll as well as physical abuse, while the control group did not.

The results of this experiment support the theory that media images create related thoughts and behavior in the audience. When violence is portrayed in the media, it causes and increase in violent thoughts and behaviors in the media. Now, while not supported by this experiment, it is reasonable to conclude that this effect is not limited to violence. Other thoughts and behaviors could theoretically be increased by related media images, such as kindness or promiscuity.

Framing in Media

The media practice of framing is perfectly demonstrated by the graphs of MSNBC's and FOX News' coverage of the 2008 presidential election. Framing is done to not only tell the audience about an issue, but to tell the audience how to think about that issue. It not only presents the facts, it also interprets them, leaving the audience with no role other than to sit back and enjoy the show. The practice of framing deals with which facts to include and what tone to set when reporting an story. News reporters will likely only include facts that will support the interpretation of the story that they are trying to instill in the audience. These graphs of MSNBC's and Fox News' coverage of the 2008 presidential election show how they framed their stories about presidential candidates by establishing a positive or negative tone. Over 70% of MSNBC's coverage of John McCain had a negative tone with only about 10% having a positive tone. Their coverage of Barack Obama, however, was only about 15% negative, with the rest of the coverage split between positive and neutral. Fox News, on the other hand, kept the tone of their coverage of these two candidates very similar. Both candidates were covered negatively about 40% of the time, with Obama receiving a little more positive coverage, which really surprises me. I definitely would have thought that FOX News would have covered the election in the same way as MSNBC, with the candidates switched. The graphs, however, show that MSNBC's coverage of the election was specifically framed toward supporting Obama, while Fox News' coverage does not seem like it was framed in support of either candidate.

The image of the graphs was found at http://www.verumserum.com/?p=16357