Media Influence On Presidential Elections

There has been much discussion about how mass media presents and can determine the outcome of presidential elections. The media has been accused of focusing on subjects such as the politician's personal life and their characteristics rather than looking at the political issues of the election. The voter's views can also be altered by political advertisements that do not focus on issues. This can cause the voters to believe that certain issues are important when in reality they are trivial concerns. Elections often become popularity contests because of the polling that is done by newspapers and TV news programs prior to the actual voting. Politicians then can have a difficult time guiding voter's opinions on their concerns.
Commercial advertisements used
In 1988 the University of Florida did research on the Vice Presidential debates. The researched showed that after watching media analysis of the debate women took less extreme views of candidates than men did (Engstrom, 1989).
In the 1988 election between George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis the term "Gender Gap" was a large issue because men and women has different reactions toward the candidates. Bush's campaign used the media and advertisements to break this "gender gap." The first approach share the same views on street crime as most women. Another advertisement displayed Bush's family values and the third showed a human side to Bush by him poking fun at himself. These uses of mass media helped Bush reach out to both genders (Nelson, 1989).
A classical example of a televised aged political campaign was the 1960 presidential election between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. The Presidential debate between these two candidates showed the contrast between their television personalities. Most people believe that John F. Kennedy's persona was responsible