The Power of News. - book reviews

Whole Earth Review, Fall, 1995 by Allison Levin

Michael Schudson. 1995; 269 pp. ISBN 0-674-69586-0 $29.95 ($32.95 postpaid). Harvard University Press, Customer Service, 79 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138; 800/448-2242

Most everyone in this country is influenced - or thinks that everyone else is influenced - by what becomes "the news," be it war, scandal, political races, mainstream trends, or good gossip. But the business and purpose of newsmaking is about as well understood (or respected) as the craft of sausagemaking.

Michael Schudson provides a calm, thorough analysis of journalism's role and responsibilities in US society. Opening chapters describe a fascinating history and evolution of news components: the interview, current events, and investigative journalism. In chapters about Watergate, Ronald Reagan's alleged popularity, and citizenship, Schudson's nondogmatic approach helps debunk the common myths about media's power and agenda. The Power of News made me reconsider how our national identity is formed

* The phenomenon of people believing that only others are influenced by the mass media is what W. Phillips Davison calls the "third-person effect" in communication. The assumption that gullible others, but not one's own canny self, are slaves to the media is so widespread that the actions based on it may be one of the mass media's most powerful creations.

* While many observers speculated about how Reagan established his special rapport with the American people, a more important question is why the news media - and many others - believed that Ronald Reagan in fact had a special rapport with the American people. On what evidence did they base their conclusions?

It wasn't from the available polling data. All the polling data from the fist two years of the Reagan administration indicate that ... Ronald Reagan was, in actuality, the least popular president in the post-World War II period.