News Coverage of Political Campaigns and its Negative Affects Have you ever turned on the TV to watch the news during election year? News programs constantly bombard the public with campaign coverage that negatively affects the way people vote. The most noticeable effect the TV news media causes is a decrease in voter attendance at the ballot boxes. News coverage of political campaigns reduces voter turnout because of the negative campaign tactics used by candidates and their parties; exit polls that predict the outcome of an election; and the public's perception that the media can be bought to influence people to vote for a certain issue or candidate. Voter turnout has significantly dropped from 75 %-85% in during the 19th century to fewer than 55% in modern day elections as written by Pierce Lewis of American Demographics (Page 20). The result of low voter turnout reveals a broad dissatisfaction and unconcerning attitude towards politics from America's citizens. The main cause for this public attitude in current voting is the news media. What better place is there to display all the events of pre-election activities? The first and most effective discouragement to voting is exit polls that predict the outcome of an election or in modern terms "electronic forecasting." Exit polling on or before Election Day has become the predominant method used by mass media in American politics for predicting outcomes of elections according to George Bishop and Bonnie Fisher of Public Opinion Quarterly (Page 568). In most recent elections exit polling has grown into an even more complex mass survey medium with institutions such as Voter Research and Surveys (VRS) of New York who provide polling results for massive television netwo... ... middle of paper ... ...n of media and government resulting in an even less voter turnout. If only news media were totally factual and neutral in their coverage of election events the voting population may begin to rise again promoting a true non-bias exercise of democracy Bibliography: Works Cited Page Barrett, Laurence I. "Getting down and dirty (presidential Campaign)." Time March 1992: 28-30 Bishop, George F. "Secret ballots and self-reports in an exit poll experiment." Public Opinion Quarterly 59.4 (Winter 1995): 568-569. Lewis, Peirce. "Politics: who cares? (voter turnout for 1992 Presidential elections) (cover story)." American Demographics 16.10 (Oct. 1994): 20-27 Rouner, Donna. "How perceptions of news bias in news sources Relate to beliefs about media bias." Newspaper Research Journal 20.2 (Spring 1999): 41-50
Samples, John. "Three Myths about Voter Turnout." Political Analysis. N.p., 14 Sept. 2004. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. .
Among the many ways Americans can participate in politics, voting is considered one of the most common and important ways for Americans to get involved. The outcome of any election, especially at the national level, determines who will be making and enforcing the laws that all Americans must abide by. With this in mind one might assume that all Americans are active voters, but studies show the voter turnout is actually astonishingly low. With this unsettling trend it is important to know what statistics say about voter turnout as was as the four major factors that influence participation: Socioeconomic status, education, political environment, and state electoral laws, in order to help boost turnout in future elections.
The different strategies in political campaigning have led to lower voter turnout and less political participation by the general public according to Steven Schier in his book, "Payment Due: A Nation In Debt, A Generation In Trouble." Different public and private interest groups can link these downturns to the changing political strategies and the lobbying of the government. Political participation and lower voter turnout is something that we should not be concerned about and doesn’t pose a significant problem in the United States.
From its early period, the United States has obtained an indirect type of democracy, and has always had contentment that its citizens are allowed to vote for their representatives, especially the President. Nevertheless, the amount of citizens that actually vote in nationwide elections has decreased noticeably over the years. Voter participation and turnout has been declining in the United States throughout history. Voter turnout, the percentage of eligible individuals who actually vote (Ginsberg), to this day is lower than it was in the 1900’s. Since 1912, presidential elections have only had about 50 to 65 percent of Americans participate. This means that about half of United States citizens who are eligible and have the freedom to vote have failed to participate in presidential elections. At the end of the nineteenth century voter turnout started plummeting, reaching the 60 percent level by the election of 1912 (Teixeira, 1987). The declining rate of voter participation in the United States is due to voter registration and procedu...
The record distrust in the media, based on a survey conducted Sept. 6-9, 2012, also means that negativity toward the media is at an all-time high when election happens. This reflects the continuation of a pattern in which negativity increases every election year compared with the year prior. The current gap between negative
Voting is one of the citizens’ rights living in a country. In the past, not everyone can vote. Voting used to be for only white American men. However, our ancestors fought for that rights. Eventually, any American who are older than eighteen can vote, despite their race or gender. In addition, voter turnout is used to keep track of the voting. It is the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election. Unfortunately, the voter turnout has been decreasing over time, and it means that there are less and fewer people who actually show up and vote. This essay will discuss the voter turnout in Harris County, Texas.
398).It is also stated that news divisions reduced their costs, and raised the entertainment factor of the broadcasts put on air. (p. 400). Secondly, the media determines its sources for stories by putting the best journalists on the case and assign them to areas where news worthy stories just emanates. (p.400). Third, the media decides how to present the news by taking the most controversial or relevant events and compressing them into 30 second sound-bites. (p.402). finally, the authors also explain how the media affects the general public. The authors’ state “The effect of one news story on public opinion may be trivial but the cumulative effect of dozens of news stories may be important. This shows a direct correlation between public opinions and what the media may find “relevant”. (Edwards, Wattenberg, Lineberry, 2015, p.
Since the 1960’s, television has had a major influence on United States presidential elections; however, this influence has been mostly negative. While the introduction of the television allowed an abundance of people to get more information on elections and provided, “. . . a new, direct, and sensitive link between Washington and the people” (Source A), it had also started a shift of the focus of a president’s effort during his or her campaign. Television also has an influence on public opinion-meaning that the public will often believe what they hear from a well-known reporter or celebrity, regardless of its validity. People who are interested in politics have increasingly been turning away from it due to its often disillusioned view of the world. The introduction of television has had a negative influence on presidential elections because of the shift of focus of a candidate’s efforts, the discouragement of becoming invested in the political scene, and the propagation of bias and misinformation.
A new strategy has come into view recently, which may result in actually reversing the trend of increasing the electorate outright. So far in 2011, 14 states have enacted 19 new laws and 2 executive orders placing new restrictions on voting and registration, which could diminish voter turnout in 2012 (Weiser and Norden 2011). These laws cover a wide array of issues; ranging from restrictive voter registration and voter id laws, to even reducing the days which people were able to vote. The Brennan Center for Jus...
Television has affected every aspect of life in society, radically changing the way individuals live and interact with the world. However, change is not always for the better, especially the influence of television on political campaigns towards presidency. Since the 1960s, presidential elections in the United States were greatly impacted by television, yet the impact has not been positive. Television allowed the public to have more access to information and gained reassurance to which candidate they chose to vote for. However, the media failed to recognize the importance of elections. Candidates became image based rather than issue based using a “celebrity system” to concern the public with subjects regarding debates (Hart and Trice). Due to “hyperfamiliarity” television turned numerous people away from being interested in debates between candidates (Hart and Trice). Although television had the ability to reach a greater number of people than it did before the Nixon/Kennedy debate, it shortened the attention span of the public, which made the overall process of elections unfair, due to the emphasis on image rather than issue.
Voter turnout has been declining in the United States throughout history through the potential voters’ personal choice not to vote and ineligibility. According to research a large percentage of individuals are not voting because political parties fail to appeal to the voters and this leads to the voting population losing interest in the campaign, while others postpone registering and by the time they realize their delay the election is upon them.
The media in the U.S. presidential election is supposed to accurately portray what is going on without distorting or editing it. However, with the media the way it is today, this is usually not the case. While there are people who believe the media is good at showing the 2016 election, there are others who do not. The advantages of media are it is easily accessible, it is cheaper to get information everywhere, and it shows more of the candidate’s lives than before. The disadvantages of media are it can be distorted, it is not trustworthy all the time, and it focuses on the two major parties without talking to a great extent about the lesser parties.
The aim of this paper is to look at the relationship between the mass media, specifically television, and presidential elections. This paper will focus on the function of television in presidential elections through three main areas: exit polls, presidential debates, and spots. The focus is on television for three reasons. First, television reaches more voters than any other medium. Second, television attracts the greatest part of presidential campaign budgets. Third, television provides the candidates a good opportunity to contact the people directly. A second main theme of this paper is the role of television in presidential elections in terms of representative democracy in the United States.
Overall, print media has a great effect on shaping the minds of the masses, but in a very different way than that of broadcasted and social media. For one, it is arguably more selective than its other sources, as it can be easily taken out of context and altered by editors to achieve a certain result, or get across a very specific concept. Second, print media, while it can and many times does include important data and information, can also be filled with campaign hoopla, distracting its readers from the true issues and values of the candidates. Rather, campaign hoopla focuses readers on who is ahead during a specific time frame, and other trivial information to voters in the long run of an election. However, such disadvantages can also be turned into positives for the written media as a whole. For instance, the ability of the written media to alter data can be used to the benefit of its
It is the role of the mass media to keep the general public informed and up to date with current news and events in their community, state, country, and around the world. In politics the media can either build or damage a political figure by changing the public’s opinion. Many people depend heavily on television as their source of information where they see or hear about political issues, events, and policies because television is the single most powerful medium of global communication and nightly newscasts are the most frequently watched source of information for the public. (Forum) The mass media is everywhere we turn, from television sets, to airwaves, to print, and even the Internet.