{"id":12539,"date":"2020-09-10T08:00:39","date_gmt":"2020-09-10T08:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.openbusinesscouncil.org\/?p=12539"},"modified":"2021-01-22T13:44:05","modified_gmt":"2021-01-22T13:44:05","slug":"media-as-an-influencer-three-media-sources-that-can-impact-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.footballthink.com\/media-as-an-influencer-three-media-sources-that-can-impact-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Media As An Influencer; Three Media Sources That Can Impact Elections"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n
Since the First Amendment established freedom of the press as a keystone to American democracy, the media has increasingly played an integral and defining role on the political landscape.<\/p>\n
Knowledge is power, so goes the old adage. Voters rely on educated guessing a great deal in an election cycle and the media\u2019s job, in principle, is to serve up objective information in aid of the selection process.<\/p>\n
However, practice and reality don\u2019t always meet amicably. Even in principle, objectivity is a lofty goal at the best of times but never more so today. When many journalists, news anchors, opinionated talk-show hosts \u2013 all those that dominate airwaves barely bother to conceal glaring bias; and when largely unregulated social media platforms act as disrupters in society by allowing filtered and unverified news to slip in between the cracks, creating echo chambers wherein political discourse and diversity of opinions cease to exist.<\/p>\n
Is it any wonder, therefore, that trust in the media is at an all-time low? That social media companies have come under fire for the unconscionable disregard of their social responsibility.<\/p>\n
In the debate whether media can influence the elections, there\u2019s plenty of evidence that it most certainly can.<\/p>\n
Coverage of mainstream media is one of the first ways media has influenced elections in the past and still continues to do so. Coverage is key, specifically which candidate it chooses to cover predominantly irrespective of whether that coverage is positive or negative. And no candidate, arguably, has understood how to better manipulate this dynamic than president Donald Trump. Taking advantage of it in 2016 and continuing to do so ahead of the 2020 US Elections.<\/p>\n
Regina Lawrence, executive director of the SOJC\u2019s Agora Journalism Centre and author of Hillary Clinton\u2019s Race for the White House: Gender Politics and the Media on the Campaign Trail,<\/em> puts it quite simply down to name recognition.<\/p>\n \u201cAs hard as it is to believe, the biggest thing that drives elections is simple name recognition,\u201d said Lawrence. Adding that \u201cresearch has shown that some candidates can be left literally invisible because they can\u2019t win enough interest from the media.\u201d<\/p>\n Lawrence notes this effect as being most noticeable during the 2016 Republican primaries, when Trump generated the lion\u2019s share of media coverage<\/a>, which in reality is the equivalent of massive advertising buys without actually investing money directly into any advertising.<\/p>\n One can argue whether coverage is inherently motivated by bias or economics, the latter of which encompasses TV ratings and viewership that is intrinsically fundamental in a networks\u2019 business model. But an undercurrent to that debate is the obvious rise of partisan media, making sweeping in-roads in recent years with polarising political bias in its coverage.<\/p>\n Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden<\/a>, who\u2019s recently slipped in the race to the White House according to the oddsmakers, is repeatedly being portrayed as \u201csenile\u201d and \u201cincompetent\u201d with media outlets favorable to the Trump administration. Some are going so far as to float the idea he\u2019s a radical \u201cleftist\u201d that will destroy America and the principles it stands for.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n