American culture is built around the mass media. My intent for this project was to explore the relationship between the influences of the media on the election process. Throughout the ages people have been fearful of government control or media control of the population. Fears of the masses being controlled by subliminal messages have had advertisers in ecstasy and consumers in frenzy. In modern times these fears are mostly put to rest but the fear of our voting habits being influence by the media is still strong.
How does what people see and hear affect their voting habits?
does affect. The media is successful in controlling what makes it into our consciousness although this is only the first step. This initial step has only a minute influence on the voting habits of the consumer. The information gleamed from the mass media is only really taken into account and morphs when it is discussed in conversation and/or kicked around in hyperspace. The gatekeeping of the media does not directly impact the thoughts and views of the populace. Scholars have argued about the ability of conglomerates to influence consumers. Some believe that people are oneThe media certainly is the gate-keeper to a majority of our news. We are not this gullible to simply except what we see and hear. So this leads us back to our original question how does the media affect the democratic process. I came to several conclusions first the impact of the media is varied there are several different areas the media dimensional enough to ingest information straight from the news and simply except it.
1 comment:
Your research topic has alot to do with the agenda-setting theory of media which states that the media doesn't influence what we think, but it influences we think about. (Wait, aren't those interconnected, anyway?) I think that alot of the time society does simply accept what we are told by the media. When I read something from what I view as a credible source, most of the time I will accept it as a truth. For example, if I read something about the election from the New York Times, I am very likely to believe that the article is true. Alot of the time, I don't have a huge choice in the matter. I can't personally interview Obama or McCain, and I can't fly to the middle East to see what is happening with my own eyes. So, I have to trust the media to a certain extent. This ties into what I researched which relates agenda-setting to social control. The media tells us what to think about, and we place associate these issues with a high level of importance because the media did so. As we have seen in the past, there can be horrible things going on in the world, like genocide, which are not highly publicized by the American media. If the media doesn't assign a high level of salience to something, how are we supposed to know about it?
I think this point applies to mass media and elections as well. I also think that politicians use the mass media as their platform which is often times used to negatively control our society.
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