In the documentary Almost President: Losing the White House, interviewees suggested that candidates have become drastically more vague, and are less able to voice their own opinions. This is all a result of advancement in technology and media in American culture, where everything they say is recorded and can be publicized at any moment. Additionally, candidates are no longer able to hide anything. In the past, we saw that John F. Kennedy was able to sweep his serious health condition under the rug and deny that he was ill in any way because it would most likely kick him out of the running for president. If this had occurred in the modern-day, the probability is that JFK wouldn’t have been able to sweep this issue under the rug, and word would have spread fast. Some would argue that because of the amount of media coverage involved in campaigning, candidates are no longer open about their intentions as president, fearing that whatever they say can be used against them with certain demographics. This is not to say that candidates have become dishonest, but rather they explain their plans in a clearly vague manner that can sometimes be problematic in the election process.
In an article written by the University of Oregon’s school of journalism, they mention various ways in which the media’s bias can influence voters around the country. First, there’s the amount of time spent on each candidate, the more media time the candidates have, the more attention from voters they have as well. The article states that candidates can be “left invisible because they can’t win enough interest from the media.” In addition, the specific words in phrases can also have a surprising amount of impact when it comes to how the voters perceive a single candidate. As we were taught in class, candidates often hire specialists in order to swing more voters in their direction using this wording technique.
In conclusion, social media and advertising have large amounts of influence over voters like ourselves, whether or not we like it. Presidential candidates can be misperceived, or even ignored altogether as a result of media bias. Many of us are willing to do our own personal research in order to avoid being persuaded with false information, but there are also thousands who aren’t aware of the media’s influence altogether.
Sources: https://journalism.uoregon.edu/news/six-ways-media-influences-elections
While I do agree that traditional media definitely makes it harder for presidential candidates to succeed, there are also some positive aspects of increased technology for presidential candidates. As the article https://www.thebalancecareers.com/presidential-hopefuls-social-media-3987492 states, many presidential candidates are turning to social media instead of traditional media to gain supporters. The benefits of social media include being able to send out opinions and plans instantaneously, being able to have the benefit of thinking out something before posting something (unlike in live presidential debates), and being able to reach thousands and possibly millions of people to gain support without ever leaving one's home. Thus, media seems to be more like a double-edged sword where it can both harm and benefit a candidate; whether the media is more harmful or more beneficial to a candidate depends on how savvy a presidential candidate is with media and their appearance on media (both on traditional and social media).
ReplyDeleteI think that the media, as it is today, can enable a unique form of connection for candidates. As independent media grows, like podcasts and the like, the ability for candidates to really be specific is enabled. These independent media outlets can account for media bias stemming from the ties that larger corporations have. However, I do agree that since these organizations are quite large, they hold great importance to the populace of voters. I think that independent media is growing, and may soon be a formidable opponent to CNN and Fox News-like entities.
ReplyDeleteI think that while the media definitely has its downfalls when it comes to presidential elections, it does help keep everything fair. With everything we talked about in class with companies that data mine and sell out your data, sometimes it can be good to know that the message you are hearing is going out to everyone. We learned about how a while ago people would go door to door and show a different campaigning video to each community based off of what they were passionate about. With the technology now, I can't even imagine how direct campaigns can be. With the media, the nominees can't preach something to one person and preach something completely different to another. While this may cause more vague wording, at least it isn't targeted wording.
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