Mass Media Influence on Presidental Elections - Research Paper Example

? Presidential Elections Ever since the advent of newspaper as the first form of mass media it has been influencing the political arena. After films television was invented which J. Edgar Hoover claimed was one of the most influencing forms of communication ever. After television came new channels. In the US all these forms of mass media had been influencing presidential elections and the first time it was actually used was during the presidential race between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. During the race between Nixon and Kennedy, media was an important tool for both the candidates, while the conservative values had not been seen in the American arena until Ronald Regan in 1980; there was huge bias in the media, there were simple reports with neutral perspectives but during that time radio was mostly listened in the majority of American homes. During the first debate Nixon was not well prepared and had little make up while his rival Kennedy was well dressed and prepared for the interview. During the debate there were huge signs of nervousness and panic on Nixon’s face which led the people to believe that Nixon was not ready to lead the nation while people who were listening to the match on the radio believed that Nixon had won, as they could not see the face of any of the candidates. This was the first time that TV was used as a political tool by political candidates. Media has had tremendous effect on presidential elections but their way of influencing is not without controversy. Media will sometimes provide stories dealing with the personal lives of presidential candidates which is very harmful to the candidate and not useful even to the undecided voter. Influencing these undecided voters has a huge impact on American politics. America basically has two big news channels that are very important to the American public; one is Fox news and the other is CNN. Both the channels have huge impact regarding the painting of the picture of the presidential candidate. Regarding the impact of Fox news on American public, Stefano Della Vigna and Ethan Kaplan have conducted a study on the ultraconservative Rupert Murdoch’s channel. Fox was launched in 1996 and by 2000 it was available in more than 20% of American households. They conducted a study in which they compared the change in republican vote bank between 1996 and 2000, and they came to the conclusion that Fox news had increased the vote bank of Republican Party in the areas which received Fox news by 0.5% or 200,000 votes; this number was enough to change the result of 2000 presidential elections. Fox news is also known for its right wing and Christian agenda which appealed to the most of the voters who had access to it. (Does Fox News Change Votes?) On the other hand, CNN is a relatively liberal news channel with agenda that is mostly neither left wing nor right wing but more to the center in the political arena although it has been claimed that it has favored Democratic Party most of the times. During the elections of 2008, in which Barack Obama became victorious, it was clear that CNN favored a democratic candidate while Fox preferred Republican, and most important of them, all Fox was not biased against Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska who was the running mate of John McCain, while CNN did everything in its power to portray Sarah Palin in a way that can only be described as negative because of her affiliation with causes that can be classified as far-right. Talk Show hosts who are normally seen as a form entertainment by the Americans also influenced voters to an unimaginable degree. A prime example of this was Barack Obama’s fundraiser hosted by Oprah Winfrey which gathered a total of $3 million for the future president. (Ingraham 71) Between 1996 and 2000, before the election during which Clinton was facing the Lewinsky Trial, any news meant bad news for Clinton and the Democrats and their prospects of winning the election of 2000 which they lost, (Alterman 186). After 2005 any news regarding George W. Bush meant bad news for the republicans which would seriously hamper any of their chances of winning the 2008 election which they in fact lost (Newport 421). This was done by Fox and CNN to a great extent as after the Lewinsky scandal came into light Fox compared Al-Gore to Clinton and same was done by CNN and NBC, and CBS and NBC who assigned the legacy of George Bush with McCain. This led to negative publicity for Clinton during Gore in 2000 and for McCain during the 2008 elections. There can be no other credible proof regarding Fox news being heavily biased in favor of republican candidates, which is the appointment of John Ellis, a first cousin of George W. Bush, as an in charge of Fox news for the election night in 2000. Fox news was the last channel to report that Al-Gore had won Florida when reports came in that Bush had actually won Florida. Instead of Al-Gore it was the first to report such a development and when the elections concluded, the talk show host keep on chatting as to how Bush had won the election, not mentioning that he had won through electoral vote rather than popular vote and his joy was not the win of George Bush but more about the loss of Al-Gore the previous vice-president, under whose leadership, according to Fox, America had lost its moral compass. When it comes to print media, there is a huge rivalry between Wall Street Journal and New York Times, the reason of which is the owners of these publications. Wall Street has a right bias against democratic candidates, along with heavily favoring candidates with strong Christian values; it is owned by non other than the chairman of Fox news, Rupert Murdoch. On the other hand, The New York Times was originally started by Adolph Ochs, a Jew with heavy liberal leanings and throughout the New York Times he has been kept under the control of his totally Jew family and were naturally more inclined toward the Democrats as compared to the Republicans. During the elections of 2008, John McCain claimed that the media was much more favorable to his rival Barack Osama than him, with CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN openly tapping into racial fervor and Obama’s liberal agenda which was appealing to viewers. The impact of social media is also very crucial to the election of presidential outcomes, which at least we saw in the elections of 2008. The song “Yes we Can” was uploaded on YouTube in which several celebrities performed and was seen by many as a Hollywood endorsing liberal candidate. (Smith 175) The role of celebrities is also very important in influencing voters as the voters also tend to listen to their ideals; the public will vote for the candidate that the celebrities vote for. The celebrities inform their fans about their voting choice through Twitter and Facebook or by coming directly. only the news like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Selleck came on television to declare their choice of candidates as John McCain, while Britney Spears and Paris Hilton announced on Twitter that they will be voting for Barack Obama in the upcoming elections. (Mattera 83) Another example of social media is the money bomb of Ron Paul who, through his enthusiastic internet supports, gathered a total of $4.2 million in a single day. what is important here is that Ron Paul was not seen as a major candidate but his financial donations were rising in such a pace that it even worried the republican establishment, and that was the reason why in one of the Republican debates hosted by Fox News, Ron Paul was not invited even though he himself is a Republican but differed greatly from the official viewpoint of his party’s established line of policies. What has to be comprehended regarding the presidential elections is that no candidate, no matter how big his grassroots following is, can win an election if he does not have the backing of every kind of mass media. That was the thing that probably worked out for Obama despite him being an outsider in Washington. In conclusion, the role of media during the elections is to give information to the public that is basically in line with the owners of the channels. Their job is to manipulate the audience to which their information is being received by. It is done through reporting and paid advertisement. As media is their only source of information about candidates, they have to trust one channel or the other in voting for the best candidates possible. The next election as already seen by this will be decided though social media as currently it is the most popular form of communication by the candidates with their target audience. Works Cited Alterman, Eric. What liberal media?: the truth about bias and the news. New York: Basic Books, 2003. Does Fox News Change Votes? 23 April 2006. 5 April 2011 . Ingraham, Laura. The Obama Diaries. New York: Simon and Schuster Inc., 2010. Mattera, Jason. Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation. New York: Simon and Schuster Inc., 2010. Newport, Frank. Winning the White House 2008: the Gallup poll, public opinion, and the presidency. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009. Smith, Craig Allen. Presidential Campaign Communication: The Quest for the White House. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010. Read More