Media shifts made politician scrutiny constant and pushed structural issues to the background

Evidence

None of this would be possible without the specific ways in which mass media in tandem with social media depicted politicians, found Clarke and his cowriters. Large publications, now owned by profit-maximizing private firms, cultivated very specific (and very demanding) expectations of politicians as individuals. These men and women (in the past, mostly men) used to only appear in the public eye when discussing policy and addressing the public. Now there was the possibility of a twenty-four-hour performance of humanity and professionalism. Making a gaffe by demonstrating the lack of any of the above could easily be caught by the media. Meanwhile, less visible, but deeply important, structural issues moved into the background. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 598

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Unelected bodies captured policy while media seized politics after the 1990s. — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 146; Media agenda shifts alter the political weight the public assigns to events over time — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 1626; News coverage prominence shifts how heavily people weigh issues in political judgments — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1404 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Media agenda can determine which problems the public deems important. #expands (0.92) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1446
• News revelations shift political support by spotlighting some issues while suppressing others #corroborates (0.90) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1605
• Dynamic, time-series tests confirm that media attention shapes public concern #corroborates (0.88) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1445
• Media agenda shifts alter the political weight the public assigns to events over time #corroborates (0.85) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1626
• News coverage prominence shifts how heavily people weigh issues in political judgments #corroborates (0.85) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1404
• News salience can temporarily push even unrelated political fault lines out of presidential evaluations #expands (0.85)
• Media coverage alters the standards people use to evaluate the president #corroborates (0.82) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1482
• Media framing shifts which issues novices weigh in judging political performance #corroborates (0.80) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1611
• Unintended media prioritization still wields enormous, uneven political power. #corroborates (0.78) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1497
• Public attention to social problems swings in patterned waves that media amplify #expands (0.75) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 842
• Media balance reproduces the shared presuppositions that bracket political disagreement #qualifies (0.72)