53 stratified three ways: by seniority (1-2 terms of service, 3-6 terms of service, or 7+ terms); by major political party (Democratic or Republican); and by geography (region, air distance from Washington, and population per square mile of the congressional district). Following this initial stratification, the population cells were sampled on a judgment basis so that the total sample would approximate the population universe as closely as possible in terms of the party, seniority, and geography variables, while at the same time being judgmentally representative in terms of additional variables identified by the communication systems model and technology analysis. These additional variables included: (a) level of political competition in the congressional district (safe or competitive); (b) political orientation of the congressman (liberal, moderate, or conservative); (c) age of the member; (d) socioeconomic nature of the district (degree of urbanization, median income, median education, percent Negro population, percent male white collar, and media market size); (e) key participant status (known interest and/or leadership and/or committee membership in areas relating to the research focus); and (f) House leadership status. Careful development of the interview instruments, coupled with an effective inside access strategy (using a congressional letter of introduction) and the inherent relevance of the research subject to the job of the congress man resulted in the participation of 77.5% of the congressmen and 97.5% of the senior staff persons from the final sample of 40 offices. APPENDIX B A "REPRESENTATIVE TIME" APPROACH TO ACCESS ALLOCATION47 Any approach to the allocation of political access to communication media must be based on a value judgment of some sort, whether implicit or explicit. In the view of several congressmen and staff in the present study, and of this researcher, the basic goal during election campaigns should be to achieve fair and balanced access to communication channels for both incumbent office-holders and challengers. A minimum level of access should be guaranteed to all eligible and qualified candidates in order to achieve a reasonable balance of exposure between the incumbent and challengers, and to increase 48 the flow of information to and dialogue with voters. To realize this goal with broadcast television, some have proposed the "voters' time" concept which would require television stations to make available specified amounts of time under clearly defined conditions for the purpose of political broadcasts by candidates for the House or Senate.49 47 This discussion is based largely on Frederick Bruce Wood, "Politics on the Cable: A Cybernetic Approach to Access Allocation," Communication Theory in the Cause of Man 3 (forthcoming). 48See the statement of Sig Mickelson, Director, Aspen Institute Project on Politics and the Media, in U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Commerce, Subcommittee on Communications, Federal Election Campaign Act of 1973, Hearings, 93rd Congress, 1st Session (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1973), pp. 104-108. 49Voters' time has been proposed for presidential campaigns in The Twentieth Century Fund Commission on Campaign Costs in the Electronic Era, Voters' Time (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1969), and in a later Fund study by Minow, Martin, and Mitchell, Presidential Television. Reps. John Anderson and Morris Udall have made a similar proposal for congressional campaigns in U.S., Congress, House, Clean Elections Act of 1973, H.R. 7612, 93rd Congress, 1st Session, Title VI. 55 While "voters' time" has merit, this approach does not solve the problems inherent in the technical and economic limitations of broadcast TV, and has generated considerable opposition on this basis. In addition, the problems of eligibility, use, and especially allocation have proved difficult to resolve. The emergent telecommunication channels--such as cable television-make it possible to overcome the technical and economic limitations. And cybernetics 50 can help show how cable and other emergent channels could be used so as to improve the political campaign process. Of course, full equality of access for every candidate, even if possible, might well be harmful. While opportunity for expression and right of access to communication forums are essential to democratic politics, the political communication system must also keep social stability in balance with social change. Unlimited political communication can lead to communication overload, distortion, and stress which in turn could have an adverse effect on the political system itself. What follows below is an exploratory application of cybernetics for the allocation of cable television access time to congressional candidates so as to achieve an optimal balance between stability and change, incumbents and challengers, the "ins" and the "outs." "51 The idea proposed here is to move 50Defined as the science of communication and control in both human and machine systems; also known as the science of organized social complexity. See, for example, Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society (New York: Doubleday, 1954), and Charles R. Dechert, ed., The Social Impact of Cybernetics (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966). 51The allocation methodology is based on the "modified thermodynamic imperative, a cybernetic hypothesis which suggests that the optimum balance between stability and change (order and freedom) in society can be achieved in part by maximizing the entropy of communication (known as negentropy). For extensive technical discussion, see Frederick Bernard Wood, Communication Theory in the Cause of Man 1 and 2 (1971, 1972). 56 52 from the present "equal time" rule, which is clear-cut but tends to result in the provision of little or no time to political candidates and thereby restrict political communication, to the concept of "representative time." Under a "representative time" provision, eligibility might be defined in terms of those legally qualified candidates who (1) represent a political party whose candidate placed first or second in the previous election, (2) represent a political party recording a specified percentage of the total vote in the previous election, (3) receive a designated level of support in voter opinion polls, or (4) gather a given number of voter signatures as evidence of an acceptable minimum level of support. .53 Candidates qualifying under these eligibility rules might then be allocated free time according to specified formulas. For example, one-half of the total time available could be alloted on a major-minor-third party proportional basis to assure adequate exposure for candidates of the organized political entities. The other half of the time could be allocated on an individual probability basis to guarantee at least some exposure for independent candidates. 52The "equal time" rule requires that TV stations afford equal broadcasting or cablecasting opportunity to all candidates for any particular public office. That is, the same amount of commercial time must be made available at the same price (or free, if public service time) to all candidates for the same public office. Due largely to technical and economic limitations of broadcast television, broadcast stations generally end up providing relatively little time. For discussion, see generally Minow, Presidential Television; U.S., Senate, Federal Election; and National Association of Broadcasters, Political Broadcast Catechism (Washington, D.C.: NAB, 1972). Statutory authority is Sec. 315 of the Communications Act of 1934, which empowers the Federal Communications Commission to administer the "equal time" provision. 53Criteria of eligibility derived from Michael J. Baker, "Constitu tional Remedy for the High Cost of Broadcast and Newspaper Advertising in Political Campaigns," California Law Review 60 (September 1972): 1414; and U.S., House, Clean Elections, pp. 27-28. 57 As illustrated in Figure Six, allocation on a party proportional basis favors the established and majority political interests while allocation on an individual probability basis favors the independent and minority political interests. Thus the total combined allocation is intended to provide an equitable and efficient balance of representation between establishedmajority and independent-minority political expression and exposure. In the example of Figure Six, 20 hours is the total "representative time" available over cable origination channels for a particular congressional general election campaign. One-half of the total--10 hours--is allocated among party candidates in direct proportion to each party's percentage of the total vote in the previous general election. Thus, major party candidate A receives five hours based on party A's 50% of the total vote, major party candidate B receives three hours based on a 30% vote, and so forth.54 The other 10 hours is allocated among all candidates--both party and independent--according to each individual's weighted probability of support as measured by voter opinion polls or number of voter signatures collected. The effect of the weighting factor is to partially offset the advantage accruing to major party candidates from the proportional allocation. 54Formulas for the Figure Six allocation of cable access time are: Total "representative time" allocated to each candidate = Ti = ViTy + PiTp Vi = percentage vote of candidate's party in last election TaT time available for party proportional allocation where: T = total available cable access time where: a = fraction allocated on a party proportional basis = 0.5 = proportional time allocated to each party candidate ViTv T = PiTp weighted probability time allocated to each legal candidate |