This page is part of undergraduate assignment at Davidson College
Media Analysis
Washington Post and Washington Times
The first set of regression models run on the republican and democratic framed articles from the Washington Post provide no significant relationships. All the variables have extremely high p values. The R-squared value .008 also supports the fact that no relationship exists between the Washington Post and the amount mentions by senators. The same is true for the results from the Washington Times, save the link between the repetitions of democratic frames by democrats. This specific piece of data does not match up with expectations. The Times represents a conservative leaning media source. The significance of the democratic representatives ability to consistently get their frames provokes a host of possible explanations as well was questions. Democratic senators released a considerably larger amount of releases than republicans. For example, on February 21 and 22 Senator Schumer from New York issued several press releases each very similar to the other and all containing numerous mentions of democratic frames. Senator Durban from Illinois also made several floor statements throughout the two-month period regarding Social Security reform. The data finds Schumer referencing the established democratic frames some 344 times and 172 times for Durbin during the short January and February period. Their number of mentions far exceeds that of the republicans and most other democrats. Therefore, it appears that a few of outspoken senators have the ability to impact the message and word choice in the media, most surprisingly in a reportedly conservative news outlet.
The R-squared value for the Washington Times democrat regression of only 10% supports the general lack of significance found in all of the regressions. The other regression tests run for republican framed articles in the Washington Times yields no relationships and an R-squared value of less than ten percent. The lack of significance in all of the media outlets presents several theories regarding the position of the media and the climate for Social Security reform during January and February, especially given the strength of the regression models for the senators.
The lack of a relationship with the frame of Social Security in news media and senatorial rhetoric can be explained by taking into account the many factors influencing each individual senator. For example, the size of a state and the date of re-election differ for each senator. This competition between electoral power and the factors associated with campaigns produce a battle over rhetoric and therefore and increased attention to choice of frames by senators. Analysis behind the first regression tests reveal straightforward, significant results that can be summed up with the notion that politicians weigh several factors when deciding how exactly they communicate with the public. The ability of the press to shape a political message appears to force senators into greater consideration about policy specifics and the party affiliation of their message
Most of all, the regression results from tables one and two meet expectations but the lack of relationship in all Washington Post tests and all but one Washington Times tests present unexplained and seemingly irrational results. One possible explanation behind the absence of relationships relates to the size of the Post in comparison to the Times. The number of articles produced by the Times for the two-month period containing democratic frames numbers 92 versus the Post who numbers 154. The volume disparity matches again with republican framed articles reaching 59 for the Times and 96 for the Post. The volume inequality indicates the possibility for the Post to have a broader range of articles. The volume also signifies that the number of staff working on Social Security articles at the Times might be smaller and as a result, those who write about the reform effort might tend to site the same sources, thus resulting in a tendency toward bias. Other possible explanations include the fact that editors at the Times simply do not support the conservative agenda on Social Security. One more notion involves the idea that the democrats have done a better job at getting their desired message into the media. Ultimately, the weak significance and low R-squared value of ten percent calls into question the overall impact of the variable and raises the likelihood that Schumer’s large quantity of press releases skewed the overall data.
Reasons for the lack of significance in other variables include the short time frame, the fact that the public focus on politics in Washington centered mostly around the swearing in of new Senators and the president. The President’s State of the Union address also falls in the middle of the time rage. Most republican senators who comment on Social Security reform fail to use more than four or five republican frames and opt for ambiguous language in an apparent effort to avoid committing to a decisive stance early in the debate. This can be seen most notably in the releases responding to the State of the Union. Unfortunately, the public debate really sparked in March and April. Both the republicans and democrats markedly increased their efforts to strengthen their support base. The significance of the media coverage and the independent variables might have developed had the period been expanded. Ultimately, the use of party frames represents the ever-morphing power policy struggle in the senateCreated by Katie Parsley
Created on May 1, 2005