Connecting Fahrenheit 451 to Today

Throughout history, media has presented current events and effectively channeled information to large groups of people. As technology evolved, the format of media transformed, beginning with printing presses generating newspapers that wrote descriptions of news stories, followed by the introduction of the radio that allowed the masses to hear transmissions of news for themselves, and later the creation of the television that let the public see events. Most recently, social media has been used to spread news among people, with audience rather than reporters generating the news stories. The ubiquity of media is particularly evident in election years, with media and technology constantly following candidates around. The contenders in an election must exercise caution about what they say, their actions, and how it is translated to the general public, since the media communicates and displays to the public what the candidates stand for and can influence public opinion. In this regard, candidates can both be aid and hurt by the media: helped because the media can present an unbiased version of the candidate and harmed because the general public may focus on superficial aspects of the candidate, such as outward appearance, rather than on issues. Both media and technology can have a profound influence on elections as evidenced by the 1960 presidential debate, the book Fahrenheit 451, and the 2008 presidential election.
During the 1960 presidential debate, as media and technology evolved, voters shifted from primarily using the newspaper to television as an information source, and television proved to be both an asset and a hindrance for candidates as the general public formed views on the basis of televised debates. Despite the growing popularity of the television, the majority of candidates in the 1950s still addressed the public via the radio. As television began to surpass newspapers and the radio in use, the demand to start televising important events grew.