‘Nowadays, It’s Neither Politicians nor Voters Who Decide Elections, It’s the Media.’ Discuss
‘Nowadays, it’s neither politicians nor voters who decide elections, it’s the media.’ Discuss
In modern democracy the issue of who decides elections is one that is particularly important to investigate due to the idea that in a perfect democracy, the majority of power should lie with the electorate, as by definition democracy means the rule of the people. Whilst much debate about the relationship between the media and democracy focuses on the role of different types of media, and the media as a platform, the focus of this essay shall be to analyze the electoral influence of the independent mass media. In order to be able to decide elections, the media should be able to manipulate both voters and politicians as they are generally held to be the key players at election time. The aim of this essay then is to determine the extent to which the media holds influence over voters and politicians during elections. If the media holds great power then it can be seen to decide elections, if however it is proved that the media struggles to influences voters and politicians then we should conclude that its electoral power is limited. By focusing on the issue of agenda setting before proceeding to analyse the nature of media bias this essay will show that the impact of the media in deciding elections is fairly minimal and is reserved largely to influencing politicians.
One of the key areas that much scholarly debate focuses on when determining the extent to which the media influences elections is the issue of agenda setting. According to McCombs, (1972, p.176) this can be defined as ‘the ability of the news media to influence the salience of topics on the public agenda’. If the media can be seen to dictate which issues take prominence in elections then it accordingly should be seen as having considerable power in dictating the electoral outcome. This is because the media will have the power to focus on specific issues which favour certain parties and thus leave the
In modern democracy the issue of who decides elections is one that is particularly important to investigate due to the idea that in a perfect democracy, the majority of power should lie with the electorate, as by definition democracy means the rule of the people. Whilst much debate about the relationship between the media and democracy focuses on the role of different types of media, and the media as a platform, the focus of this essay shall be to analyze the electoral influence of the independent mass media. In order to be able to decide elections, the media should be able to manipulate both voters and politicians as they are generally held to be the key players at election time. The aim of this essay then is to determine the extent to which the media holds influence over voters and politicians during elections. If the media holds great power then it can be seen to decide elections, if however it is proved that the media struggles to influences voters and politicians then we should conclude that its electoral power is limited. By focusing on the issue of agenda setting before proceeding to analyse the nature of media bias this essay will show that the impact of the media in deciding elections is fairly minimal and is reserved largely to influencing politicians.
One of the key areas that much scholarly debate focuses on when determining the extent to which the media influences elections is the issue of agenda setting. According to McCombs, (1972, p.176) this can be defined as ‘the ability of the news media to influence the salience of topics on the public agenda’. If the media can be seen to dictate which issues take prominence in elections then it accordingly should be seen as having considerable power in dictating the electoral outcome. This is because the media will have the power to focus on specific issues which favour certain parties and thus leave the
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