Political Science test 2

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Terms

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narrowcasting: programming oriented to a small segment of viewers, like that found on cable television stations.
momentum: the ability of a presidential campaign to maintain viability by meeting or exceeding press-generated expectations during the long primary period.
new deal coalition: the political coalition composed of urbanites, ethnic and racial minorities, unions, liberals, and southerners that made the democratic party the majority party during the fifth party system.
democratic party: this political party is very liberal and on the far left of the spectrum.
outside strategies: lobbying approaches that rely on mobilizing group members to influence the actions of officials.
republican party: this political party is very conservative and on the far right of the spectrum.
FCC: the federal agency responsible for regulating broadcast communications, including radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable transmissions.
priming: a media effect whereby the context in which a political figure is presented in the news can create a positive or negative cue for how viewers think about and evaluate that figure.
229.14 million: how many internet users do the U.S. and Canada have combined?
Federal Commissions Act of 1934: the act of congress that established the FCC and the equal time provision.
collective goods: benefits stemming from the work of an interest group that are available to everyone, whether or not they join the group.
coattails: the ability of a victorious presidential candidate to sweep congressional candidates of the same party into office on the strength of people voting for one political party.
single-issue parties: third parties that form to advance a specific issue agenda, like environmentalism, that members feel is not being adequately addressed by the two major American parties.
pluralism: the theory that government responds to individuals through their memberships in groups, assuring that government is responsive to a wide range of voices. people who subscribe to this position believe that the wide distribution of resources in society drives the decisions government officials make.
Federal Election Campaign Act: the 1974 act aimed at limiting the influence of big money contributions on political campaigns.
reform party: the organization built by businessman Ross Perot in a mostly unsuccessful attempt to create a competitive third party.
single-member district: the structure of electoral districts in winner-take-all electoral systems, in which each electoral district sends only one representative to the legislature.
social economic liberals: these liberals are the moderates and their main concerns are crime and the environment.
McCain-Feingold Act: the name commonly used to describe the bipartisan campaign reform act of 2002, which prohibits the use of soft money in federal elections in an attempt to close a loophole in the 1974 federal election campaign act.
patronage: jobs, favors, and other resources that party officials provide in exchange for people's political support.
expectations: the benchmark for how well a campaign needs to perform in presidential primaries in order to receive positive horserace coverage, based on reporter assesments of the campaign's viability.
ideological parties: third parties that form around a broad ideology not represented by the two major American parties.
media events: activities stages by campaigns or political officials that have enough news value to draw press attention to a message the politician wants to communicate.
political socialization: the process by which we acquire political knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs.
lobbyists: professionals hired by interest groups to influence the political process on behalf of the group
small government conservatives: these types of conservatives have laissez-faire views (hands off government) and think government shouldn't do anything but protect them.
photo opportunities: staged appearances by politicians in visually appealing settings designed to produce images that will be widely disseminated in the press.
inside strategies: lobbying approaches that rely on direct relationships between lobbyists and officials.
social liberals: these liberals are the farthest left on the spectrum, and are mainly concerned with minority rights.
Horace Greeley: in 1841 this man established the New York tribune as an intelligent alternative among penny newspapers.
females, older, less educated, nonwhite, make a small amount of income: democrats are more likely to attract what kinds of people?
fairness doctrine: the FCC requirement, no longer in force, that electronic media provide a balanced forum for controversial public discourse.
FEC (federal election commission): the federal agency that administers and enforces campaign finance laws.
focus groups: a small group of voters chosen by a political campaign for their demographic similarities who are brought together to gauge how the group they represent feels about the candidate.
dealignment: the weakening of party affiliation, signified by an increase in the number of people who call themselves independents.
Howard Dean: obscure former Vermont Governor who momentarily became the front-runner for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 2003 behind an unprecedented internet fund-raising and organizing effort.
efficacy: the attitude that you can be effectual and effective in your dealings with government.
interest aggregation: the process by which groups with different and potentially conflicting agendas are brought together under the umbrella of a political party.
press conferences: scheduled meetings between reporters and political figures like the president, which give the press access to the official and an opportunity to ask him or her questions firsthand.
party in the electorate: party identifiers who make up the rank-and-file membership of the political parties.
realignment: a shift from one party system to another, the result of a lasting, long-term adjustment in the groups that identify with the major political parties.
plurality: winning the most votes in an election, or at least one more vote than the next closest candidate or party.
revolving door: a consequence of the close relationships between interest groups and government officials that makes it possible for lobbyists to become government officials charged with regulating the organizations they once worked for, or for government officials to become lobbyists who influence friends in their former agency.
majority: winning more than half the votes in an election, or 50 percent plus one.
free rider: someone who is sympathetic to the objectives of an interest group and enjoys the benefits produced by that group without making a contribution.
political machines: the name given to urban political parties that used patronage to overrun their competition and maintain power.
horse race: the element of a political campaign that deals with winning and losing, whether a candidate is leading or trailing an opponent, and what the candidate may be doing to improve or solidify his or her electoral prospects.
winner-take all system: the electoral system in use in the United States, whereby the candidate of the party receiving the most votes in an electoral district gets to represent that district.
competition among media: what causes the news cycle to accelerate?
structural bias: the possibility that news stories are skewed toward the limited set of sources and topics selected by gatekeepers for publication and broadcast.
spin: a technique used by political figures to characterize events in a favorable way in order to get the media to report them in a favorable way, regardless of what the facts of a story may indicate.
party system: the regular, over-time competition of the same major political parties, composed of the same groups of identifiers.
electorate: the portion of the public eligible to vote in elections.
Robert Dahl: a political theorist that thought up of two criteria, effective participation and enlightened understanding, for effective democratic processes that guide us to figure out how well we are served by the media.
iron triangle: the ongoing, mutually beneficial relationship among an interest group, members of congress sharing the interest groups objectives, and bureaucrats in federal agencies responsible for carrying out legislation pertaining to the interest groups field.
gridlock: the term given to legislative inaction, when members of congress are unable to reach agreement and legislation stalls.
nomination: the official endorsement of a candidate by a political party, making that candidate the one whose name will appear on the ballot next to the party label in the next general election.
equal time provision: the federal requirement that broadcast outlets selling commercial time to a political candidate must make equal time available to other candidates running for office.
religious conservatives: these types of conservatives are concerned about moral issues, but not economic issues
mass media: media, such as television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and the internet, capable of rapidly communicating information to large numbers of people over large distances.
platform: the official document produced at the major party conventions that serves as a philosophical and policy blueprint for the party's presidential nominee.
70%: political parties try to gain how much of the population?
gender gap: a difference in the voting pattern of men and women, evident since 1980, whereby men are more likely than women to support republican presidential candidates.
gatekeepers: television producers, newspaper editors, and prestigious reporters and anchors who make the decisions about what stories will be published or aired.
agenda setting: the tendency for topics given great weight by the media to be given equally great weight by those who use the media, such that the people and events considered important by those who determine media coverage will become the people and events that the public considers important.
gridlock: the term given to legislative inaction, when members of Congress are unable to reach agreement and legislation stalls.
interest groups: organized associations that seek to promote common objectives through government action.
issue voting: choosing a candidate in an election on the basis of his or her proximity to your position on an issue or issues you consider important.
political party: an organized group of individuals with common interests seeking to gain power in government by electing officials to public office.
access: the ability to maintain personal contact with public officials. many lobbying strategies depend on maintaining an open door to contacts in the legislative and executive branches.
popular vote: the votes individuals cast in a presidential election. a candidate who wins the plurality of these votes in a state gets all the electoral votes allocated to that state.
party identification: an individuals association with a political party. the most common of which being democrat or republican. those who do not identify with any party are called independents.
hard money: funds contributed directly to candidates or national parties by individuals or PACs for the purpose of electing candidates to federal office.
# of independents have increased, number of democrats have decreased, and the number of republicans have remained the same: what has been happening to the number of people in the three politcal parties (independents, democrats, and republicans) since the 1960's?
great society: the name given to the programs of president Lyndon B. Johnson, which elevated the federal government to the most prominent role it would play in the twentieth century. the philosophy of this was to solve large social problems like hunger and poverty.
name recognition: an informal measure of how much the public is aware of a candidate or elected official, based on how widely people are able to identify who the candidate or official is.
faithless elector: a member of the electoral college who does not cast a vote for the plurality winner of the popular vote in his or her state.
influence: the ability to shape political outcomes to your liking.
trade associations: groups that advance the concerns of specific business interests, such as banks, energy companies, real estate firms, and car manufacturers.
Asia/ Pacific Rim (413.24 million): what part of the world has the most internet users?
be able to raise a lot of money, be able to connect with the people, and be able to look good on camera: what three things do you need in order to be a good candidate?
elitism: the theory that government responds to a small, stable, centralized hierarchy of corporate and academic leaders, military chiefs, people who own big media outlets, and members of a permanent government bureaucracy. people who subscribe to this position believe the actions of regular citizens, like voting and joining groups, simply mask the real power exercised by elites.
Telecommunications Act of 1996: legislation that overhauled the Federal Communications Act of 1934 by deregulating a range of communications technologies in effort to promote competition in the development and provision of telecommunications services.
yellow journalism: the term given to the sensational newspaper coverage prevalent during the turn of the twentieth century, noteworthy for its emphasis on violence, sex, and human-interest stories.
front-runner: the presidential candidate who leads the primary horserace, based on media assessments of the campaign.
ticket splitting: voting for candidates of different parties for different offices, rather than voting a "party line" for all republicans of all democrats.
libel: the legal restriction against the malicious publication of material that knowingly damages an individuals reputation.
infotainment: news reports and information-based programs that use information to entertain by playing on sensational topics, such as celebrities and violence.
attack journalism: a form of aggressive coverage in which reporters latch onto an allegation of misdoing by a candidate or public official and engage in a "feeding frenzy" in which they cover it intensely and to the exclusion of other news.
frame: the frame of reference for a news story, or the context around which the facts of a story are organized.
fair deal: the name given to the domestic policies of president Harry S. Truman which built on the popularity of the New Deal.
issue network: a fluid policy community permeable to a wide range of interest groups, permitting a broad array of policy outcomes.
critical election: an election that heralds a realignment, during which large numbers of voters deviate from their traditional party allegiances in what turns out to be a lasting change.
the issue of dealignment: what is the main issue for why the number of republicans and the number of democrats have been around the same since Reagan?
religious right: ideological interest groups promoting a conservative political agenda consistent with an evangelical religious perspective.
coalition: a government formed as a partnership among several victorious parties in a multiparty system, following negotiations about the agenda that each party will be allowed to pursue in exchange for its participation in the new government.
long shot: a presidential candidate who is not expected to fare well in the primary horserace, based on media assessments of the campaign.
federalism: the division of power between a sovereign federal government and sovereign state governments, which provides that some functions will be performed by the national government, some by the state governments, and some by both the national and state governments. this works to decentralize power by creating dual levels of authority.
national enquirer: a soft news and often false magazine that is only continues because of how hard "libel" is to prove.
primary: a method of candidate selection in which party identifiers vote for the candidate who will run on the party label in the general election.
paid media: radio and television ads paid for and produced by political campaigns.
muckraking: investigative reporting prevalent during the turn of the twentieth century, which centered on uncovering corruption in government and industry for the purpose of promoting progressive reforms.
subgovernments: another term for iron triangles, which captures the specialized (and often hidden) relationships among lobbyists, members of congress, and bureaucrats, who share mutual professional and policy interests and objectives.
selective exposure: the tendency to pay attention to messages that are consistent with existing attitudes or beliefs, while overlooking messages that conflict with them.
new deal: the name given to the programs of president FDR, which vastly expanded the role of the federal government in an effort to deal with the debilitating effects of the great depression on American Society.
free media: the news coverage that major candidates for high office can expect to receive on a regular basis.
newsworthy: the conditions under which a story warrants publication or dissemination, based on a set of values applied by newspaper editors and television producers.
purposive benefit: the gratification an interest group member gets by contributing to a cause.
lobbying: attempting to influence the content of policy by exerting influence on government officials.
hard news: traditional news items that derive their value from recent, relevant events that have some bearing on the lives of readers or viewers.
he was a third party candidate (progressive/bull moose party) and a splinter third party: Theodore Roosevelt was a significant presidential winner because of what?
inverted pyramid: a style of reporting typical of twentieth-century newspaper coverage, in which stories were constructed with the most important factual material in the first paragraph, followed by successively less important facts.
PACs (political action committees): organizations formed by interest groups such as labor unions, businesses, and ideological groups for the purpose of contributing money to political candidates.
tryranny: the denial of liberty to individuals through the actions of a faction or through the actions of government itself.
party in government: that component of political parties composed of elected officials that organizes and runs our governing institutions like congress, the presidency, state governorship and assemblies.
fireside chats: the term given to FDR's radio addresses to the American public, which demonstrated his ability to master the medium and build a sense of rapport with ordinary Americans.
business conservatives: these types of conservatives favor free enterprise, and are not particularly concerned about moral questions.
soft news: feature stories, stories about celebrities, and other news items that do not derive their news value from proximity, timeliness, or relevance to the reader or viewer.
caucus: a method of candidate selection in which party identifiers gather in a series of meetings to select delegates to the national convention.
special interest groups: another term for interest groups that emphasizes the narrow scope of their concerns.
party press: newspapers that functioned as an arm of a political party, communicating information about partisan politics from party leaders to their supporters.
splinter parties: third parties that split away from one of the major parties in protest against the direction taken by the Republicans or Democrats.
divided government: partisan division of the national government, in which each of the two major parties can claim control of one branch (or one legislative house) of the federal government.
news cycle: the time between when an event happens and when it gets press coverage.
pressure groups: another term for interest groups that emphasizes the demands interest groups make on the political system
economic liberals: these liberals are centered around unions, and are concerned with wages, benefits, job creation, and the interest of workers.
soft money: funds contributed to state and local parties or to national parties for the purpose of running state elections or conducting local "grassroots" political activity.
selective benefits: incentives offered exclusively to interest group members as a means of getting people to join.

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Number of cards 128