Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Australian Politics and Policy
presidents, Democratic identifiers were more likely to believe the economy was
doing poorer than it was and Republicans were likely to believe it was doing better;
andthereverseisusuallytruewhenaDemocratisinoffice.
Another common shortcut is the availability heuristic. This involves assessing
the probability of an event based upon how easy it is to recall similar cases. When
making a decision, you might remember several relevant examples. Since these are
easier to remember, you may assume these outcomes are generally more common
than harder to recall examples. For example, it might be easy for individuals to
remember media coverage of violent crime, but harder to recall car crash fatalities,
which are more common but less frequently reported.
The availability heuristic is driven, in part, by the influence of mass media.
Newspapers, radio, television and news on the internet provide examples of crime,
terrorism, plane crashes and shark attacks out of proportion to their actual
incidence compared to other events. This often causes us to overestimate their
likelihood. The availability heuristic allows politicians – whose message is amplified
by the media – to influence us with cues and gives the media itself the power to help
set the agenda.
Agenda setting, elite cues and framing
The reason voters use heuristics or other shortcuts – as Lippmann 29 and Zaller 30
identified – is that in large and complex societies they generally have no other
choice. Their time and attention is finite, and political and policy issues are
complicated. There is too much happening, often at a significant distance from
their lived experience, for the average citizen to form a detailed and intimate
understanding of every event, policy and personality that makes up modern politics
in electoral democracies.
One of the major sources relied upon by voters for political information is
the media. Its influence on voter attitudes and decision making has long been
recognised. It is important to realise that the information the public receives – and
that shapes its opinion – is never a full account of all important facts. Rather, it is
a selective view of what is happening, which voters use to try and understand their
political environment. 31
By choosing to report certain stories, the news media and other actors control
the flow of information to the public. They cannot necessarily tell people what to
believe, but they can impact perceptions about the importance of issues. 32 This
process is called agenda setting .
29 Lippmann 1922, 59.
30 Zaller 1992, 6.
31 Graber 2001.
32 Cohen 2001.
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