Is Our Congress Bad
Twenty-five years ago, Richard F. Fenno, Jr. said that people love their members of Congress but hate the Congress, but at the end of the 1990s, Fenno might be wrong because of some potential problems for the members of Congress and the Congress. People do not love their members of Congress at all because the members of Congress do not know what people really want and also public lack of information about what they do by the modern mass media at the end of 1990s. Another potential problem is that people still are not always satisfied with the length of time involved in passing a law at the Congress. To compound the problems, members of Congress tend to define their job in terms much different from those of general public and so people today dislike both the members of Congress and the Congress. Representation was a key issue when the house and Senate were being designed. However, the members of Congress do not know what people want and the point is often made that Congress is not truly a representative body, as it members are usually order, richer and better educated than the average American. Clearly, the members of Congress do not represent women, minority groups, and the young in anything like
"Mass Media specifically refer to those publications and programs that attempt to serve most or all of the people in a given market." (The Pursuit of Happiness, Macmillan) Studies show the over half the population depends on mass media, particularly the electronic media, for information about the world in which they live. (The Roper Organization, 1973) For many Americans, TV and radio news broadcasts, with perhaps an occasional glance at the day's headlines in the newspapers, represent the only source of information and opinion about the government and its leaders. However, public always lack of information about what the members of Congress do, from inaccurate information about congressional perquisites, and from the negative stories from the mass media. Because of some negative stories from the mass media, people are absorbing the inaccurate information about the members of Congress and therefore people dislike them based on that inaccurate information. "The power to decide what is mass media is the power to define reality for many people." (Macmillan) Thus, if the public knew about the some facts, people would be much more supportive of the members of Congress. their proportions of the population. "More than half the nations population are women, but the 102nd Congress had only thirty one women members." (New York Time, 1997) The members of Congress must strive to understand and represent the needs of the people. They cannot ignore the disadvantage
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 993
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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