Jason Pye is in his thirties with a hipster beard, cool-nerd glasses, and a big smile. He wears baggy pants and a hoodie around the offices of FreedomWorks where he is the Vice President for Legislative Affairs. Pye says that he is one of the oldest guys in the office and that Millennials dominate his libertarian advocacy group specifically, and DC politics in general. Cans of Mt. Dew litter the FreedomWorks desks, which may be one reason Pye talks so fast, and the overall vibe of the office is something that Aaron Sorkin would have created if he were writing a TV show about an ideological activist group in the twenty-first century. Pye came to FreedomWorks without a college education or any formal political experience: He was a blogger.
Jason Pye is successful at FreedomWorks, the firebrand organization that takes great pleasure in shuttering the government, because of his ability to craft messages quickly and stay on-brand. His brand is libertarianism. Pye speaks about the future of political communication in terms of ârapid reactionâ and âhitsâ and âfollowersâ which fits in neatly within the political messaging environment of today: Quick and immediate missives are blasted from far and wide on capricious platforms. Jason Pye is at FreedomWorks at a time when the American public wants their political alerts in strident bursts of ideological fervor; fast, direct, and emotional, delivered so the public can respond and react with equal zeal and feeling. The modern American political media climate is crowded with voices from countless places, where politicos jockey for attention, and the public is fired up and fuming. Jason Pye is good at his job; accordingly, the right-leaning portion of the American public hears from (and about) FreedomWorks often. The job of the FreedomWorks communications staff is to keep their members angry and active, because the best way to motivate a political base is through wrath and alarm. Most political messaging, from FreedomWorks, or any other political activist, ends with what is termed a âcall to action,â a direction for the public to do something. Most calls to action are answered because of anxiety and anger.
FreedomWorks is located on Capitol Hill, close to the action of government, blocks from both Congress and the Supreme Court, and is an easy cab ride to the White House. In that way, FreedomWorks represents the norm of traditional American politics; they are located in the right spot and the office is chock-full of eager recent graduates of Political Science programs. But beyond the standard-issue cubicle furniture and whiteboards where they plot government shutdowns, FreedomWorks represents the new Washington. It is not just the beer kegs that are tapped in their kitchen (signaling a bro-culture of ideological warriors), but the cell phones, monitors, and data that dominate their workspaces and dictate every action and response. The new political communication landscape is hard-wired and built for speed. This is for a good reason: The country is similarly connected, and the public is just waiting to hear from FreedomWorksâor the Environmental Defense Fund or the National Abortion Rights Action League or any of the other political groups that play such a big role in American politics today. Other interest groups may not have the kegs tapped in their kitchens, but their Communications Directors and Legislative Affairs reps share Jason Pyeâs intensity and drive. They will tell you that politics today is a war and the first side to reach the most people will win. It is more than the reach in the âemails sentâ way; it is the persuasion and the connection to a specific, segmented, and ideological audience. It is about reaching an American public who are super mad at everything all the time, and keeping them that way.
A growing number of people who work in politics embrace the new Washington media culture. While many have noted the expansion of government, what has grown even more profoundly are the numbers of political consultants, interest group activists, and unelected advisors who play critical roles in the policymaking process. There are more political players in DC today who have to communicate to both politicians and to the voting public, and luckily they do not have to fight for limited coverage in a few select newspapers, or for precious airtime on three television channels. Everyone involved in politics has had to raise their communications game in the last decade because media technology has changed so dramatically, which has consequently magnified the landscape. The media have exploded in size, form, and reach, and as a result there are seemingly endless outlets to utilize in political communication efforts. Politicians and other political actors need this media system in order to reach the public, and they clamor for the attention of a disparate and finicky audience. Forget Warholâs twentieth-century idea that everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame; in todayâs political media environment, everyone has to put in their 15 minutes of face time just to keep the whole thing running. Because the media are ubiquitous, and because the public chooses not to escape from the relentless push-notifications and alerts, Americans are awash in news and information. There are so many places to find news content, politicians and politicos have to work hard to attract serious attention while news outlets have to elbow away a mounting volume of competition. The current political messaging landscape has a sizeable (and growing) number of people all vying for attention from an audience that has too many options.
This is at once democratizing because the abundance of voices leads to a diversity of perspectives, but also tricky because the media terrain is so vast and crowded that it is hard to be heard over the din. The word âmediaâ is the plural of âmedium,â and today there are many different platforms on which to communicate, and all are interlinked. There are no stand-alone political programs or forums; something broadcast on TV or radio will also have a Web site, something online will also stream video content, all print media have journalists who blog, tweet, and podcast, and everyone wants you to like them on Facebook. Jason Pye knows that in the old days, a well-placed newspaper story or cable news story about FreedomWorks would suffice, but today these outlets are only one piece of a very large puzzle.
Pye keeps his eye on news organizations and trade publications, on bloggers and pundits and fellow activists, and now more than ever FreedomWorks interacts with their members on social media. What used to be a fairly linear public relations push to sell policy (or an ideology or a candidate) is now far more serpentine. It is also focused on two separate and disparate audiences: As a figurehead of FreedomWorks, Jason Pye needs to communicate with other political players in Washington, and so he is frequently quoted in mainstream political outlets like The Hill and USA Today. This is his inside game: Capitol Hill reporters likely know that they should find Jason Pye for a good quote about economic liberty. As a figurehead of a group that remains ideologically connected to the Tea Party, Pye also needs to communicate with a more specific audience of ideologues, and so he is quoted on Breitbart , Newsmax, and Hot Air. These outlets are within a right-wing media circle that is tightly closed and specific: This circle includes talk radio shows, Web sites, media conglomerates, and Fox News, and its mission differs from the mission of rest of the political media. This right-wing circle exists because of a long-standing opposition to the so-called liberal media, and because of its origin story this circle has a negative objective: Their purpose is to support conservative ideals but even more to oppose those outside of their bubble. If the rest of the mainstream media (to include liberal, centrist, and conservative outlets) work to break stories with scoops and investigative reporting, the right-wing media circle works to oppose an enemy. Jason Pye pitches his press releases to the broader press, but much of the time the outlets within the right-wing media circle are the ones that run them because they share a philosophy. Vehemently anti-Washington, raging against liberals and the institutions of government that have left them behind, the right-wing media circle encapsulates resentment. Much of the content produced within this circle is not journalism in classic sense of breaking stories, but it is considered ânewsâ to a segment of the population who has no use for any other media source because they simply do not trust them.
It would be false equivalence to say there are two equal ideological media bubbles since the right-wing circle is small, focused, and closed off, while the rest of the mainstream media exists around it. Yet those inside this right ring see themselves fighting against everyone who opposes them, and this battle is one constant source of their fury. Concurrently, while the mainstream media is not a tightly controlled circle, today the public can sense a similarly intense anger in the press, felt across a wide expanse of programs and platforms, focused on much of what the right-wing media circle espouses, targeting the politicians supported by the right. In this manner, there are two opposing media sides today even though they may be differently constructed and varying in size, scope, and mission. Journalism today is a combative industry, reflective of the genuine fury all over politics. The American political system has always been ideologically divided, but now the political media are divided as well with audiences on both sides pointing at the other saying âCan you believe what those people are saying?â There are now two very different news narratives informing the public. Both narratives expose and feed our anger.
The right-wing media and the mainstream news media might be separated by ideology but they operate in similar ways: They both race the clock to be first with a story because being first means more attention (and more profit) from a content-hungry public. They both feature journalists and media stars who bounce from program to program, across platforms in order to gain recognition, capture an audience, and sell their media brand, and they also include politicos like Jason Pye who lend expertise and authority to their content. They are dedicated to delivering stories to their audiences that they will find interesting, stories that make the public feel strongly. Yet despite these structural similarities, the missions of these two media sets are different and so their product is too, which means that their audiences have dissimilar information experiences. The mainstream media break news and varying outlets will build on a big story, adding facts and analysis to make it their own. Within the right-wing media circle, the commentators and reporters will provide their own take on a situation that stays in line with what others in the circle articulate. One important quality of outlets within the right ring is how unified they are in their messaging, how uncritical they are toward one another.
The broader mainstream media is so vast that it cannot maintain such a united purpose. Everything outside of the right ring includes liberal Web sites such as the Huffington Post and Salon, centrist news organizations such as The New York Times , Washington Post , Axios , and the PBS Newshour, and conservative sources such as The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, and The National Review . Certainly, there are ideological clusters within the mainstream media but they are not as cohesive, reinforcing, or unified as those in the right-wing circle. 1 Size matters here, too: Within the right-wing circle, there are only a few dozen outlets while the mainstream media includes many, many more. This means that it is easier for the right ring to stay on-message, while the rest of the mainstream media have a harder time doing this.
Additionally, the ambitions of the mainstream news media differ from their right-wing counterparts as well. The professed journalistic dedication to the First Amendment may come off as sanctimonious, but the craving for professional success and the profit imperatives of news organizations support the self-aggrandizing. In modern news journalism, newspapers, television networks, and Web sites are rewarded for breaking news, either through major scoops or minor scooplets. The intense competition between the Washington Post and The New York Times (and the resulting financial gains for both) is one example of how those engaging in actual journalism are compensated for their efforts. To stay profitable, a news organization has to supply something, and the mainstream news media supplies breaking news, while the right-wing media circle furnishes the counter narrative.
Political media organizations from both sides face the challenges of financial solvency, but again this reveals itself in different ways. Within the right-wing media circle, speed is important and the competition among these outlets is to be first. There is very little real competition between these organizations given the bunker mentality of this partisan press corps, but the right-wing media outlets do race against each other to attract as many clicks and hits as possible. This is how they make money. The financial imperatives of the mainstream media are more complicated since (a) legacy outlets in the mainstream press have had to transform themselves in the face of a rapidly evolving technological landscape and (b) the competition among news organizations is ferocious. Time, technology, and circumstance collided to force the mainstream media to renovate and that transition has been rocky. Mainstream news organizations, be they legacy or digitally native, now have ...