Essay, Research Paper
The American Political Procedure
The Role of the Media in Democracy
How much does your ballot truly number? As a elector, does your pick truly matter? How much influence does the media have on your ballot? How many picks does the media really make when it comes to our state s leading? These are inquiries pondered by both political scientists and the mean American citizen each twelvemonth as the 2nd Tuesday in November attacks. Though we know that the framers founded this state on the rules of stand foring it s citizens, and on the ideals of a state for the people and by the people ; it is obvious that the people feel that their ballot doesn T ever count. In this paper I plan to spread out on these inquiries and the justifications behind inquiring them, and I plan to follow up with a specific illustration in which the media played a extremely important function in the pick of high authorities functionaries.
How much does your ballot truly number? Does your pick truly matter? Harmonizing to the framers, your pick does affair. They say that one adult male equals one ballot. Congress besides seems to believe that the American ballot should number. They have passed Amendments to the Constitution in order to give more people the opportunity to vote and the opportunity to do a pick of their representatives. But why so does the people really straight elect so few functionaries? Possibly they agree with the thoughts of Converse and Lane and are utilizing voting merely as a manner to try to acquire the citizens out of the voting slack they seem to be in. Converse stated that electors are minimally informed, minimally capable, and hence incompetent of vote. Lane claims that this is non the job, but that alternatively, electors are merely lazy in their political orientation. ( Muraca, July 13, 1999 ) I tend to hold with both, but I don t feel that the mistake lies on the shoulders of the people. Rather, I feel that the load of elector incompetency lies on the shoulders of the media. Voters are non uninformed perse, but they are limited in the sum in information that they posses. The ground that this information is limited is because of the media. Media makes the pick everyday what they do and make non desire the populace to cognize. The power to do the pick of our cognition remainders in their custodies. Without the information they pass on from twenty-four hours to twenty-four hours, we, as electors know nil about the occurrences of our authorities. Yet on more than one juncture the media has held back information that could be important to determinations we make about our democracy. A premier illustration occurred during the Gulf War. Thousands of our state s work forces and adult females were contending for their state, yet the media limited the sum of information that they chose to go through on to the populace. Each twenty-four hours the media is faced with the pick of doing determinations of what intelligence to go through on, when that intelligence could do a important difference in person s life, or in the destiny of our state.
How much does the media consequence your picks in voting? When we foremost inquire this inquiry, we think of the obvious. The media informs us of canidates, their personal backgrounds, their political orientation, their stances on issues, things they do in the community they represent, and the platform on which they plan to run. However, one time they get past the initial debut, they tend to be extremely critical of politicians ; they consider it their occupation to happen inaccuracies in fact and failing in statement. ( Janda et al. , 192 ) They force the mistakes of politicians on us, rarely talking of the positive facets from that point on. This, in bend, gives the electors a negative vision of their representatives as leaders. If mistakes are invariably being pointed out, electors begin to believe that all politicians are unqualified and unable, and hence see no demand to vote. The media does non deliberately force these negative positions upon the mass populace ; instead they point out the mistakes because it makes a better narrative. Although the media does non straight create or change sentiments, it tells the public what to believe about. By utilizing priming techniques, we can see the media straight rocking the way of the electors picks. By looking merely at these facts we can see that the media is rather perchance the most influential tool available to modulate elector pick.
How many picks does the media really make when it comes to picks in leading? The media
doesn T halt with doing efforts to rock voter pick. Occasionally we see a rare illustration that goes in the history books because of its alone features and powerful influence on the state. A premier illustration of a instance of powerful media influence can be found in the recent activities of Larry Flynt. Flynt, of Hustler Magazine, used his power and influence to bring out the lip service lying deep beneath the surface of the Republican Party. He placed an $ 85,000 full page ad in the Washington Post, offering up to $ 1,000,000 ( Shepard, March 1999, 2 ) for grounds of illicit sexual dealingss affecting high ranking members of Congress or upper flat authorities functionaries. His program was that if anyone could give solid cogent evidence that person high in the rankings of the impeachment test were found to hold committed the same acts as the President himself committed, he could acquire this individual removed from office besides. The responses flooded Flynt s desk, and he narrowed them down from 2,000 to 12. He hired two full clip research workers for $ 100,000 a piece, and sent them to look into the allegations. These research workers dug up the infidelity of the Speaker of the House-elect, Bob Livingston. However, before Flynt even had the opportunity to print the mistakes of the Representative, Livingston resigned. By vacating, he indirectly admitted that the allegations were true and proved that there was lip service in the House Majority party, and even among those they choose as their leaders.
Flynt didn T halt with the probe of Livingston nevertheless, alternatively he continued on good into the impeachment test of the President. Not merely could the Republicans non happen a member that had non had some signifier of sexual infidelity, which forced them to elect the most conservative of their party to stand for them, but they besides had jobs with their prosecution for the impeachment test. This clip the focal point was on Bob Barr, one of the 13 members of the Senate chosen to move as prosecuting lawyers on the impeachment of the President. Not merely had Barr been unfaithful to his married woman, but he besides refused to acknowledge so when he was placed on the base. To do affairs worse, Barr had at one point stood on the House floor and said that abortion was tantamount to slay, yet subsequently, he admitted to taking his ain married woman to hold an abortion. ( Shepard, March 1999, 2 ) In the head of Flynt and many others, these actions were Acts of the Apostless of pure lip service and Barr should hold no right taking the destiny of our President on a moral footing. Finally, Barr resigned and Flynt had another triumph under his belt. If a adult male like Larry Flynt can find the people that step on to the House Floor, and those who represent the prosecution of the President of the United States of America, evidently the media plays an of import function in the democratic society in which we live. Basically, Larry Flynt proved that with adequate power, money, and promotion, and undertaking could be accomplished, even if it is evicting the representatives that the people elected.
All in all we have learned that no affair what manner we look at it, the media is one of the most influential and of import tools that enters our democratic state. It is a state founded on free address and freedom of the imperativeness, and the media uses these freedoms to act upon some of the most of import determinations that may of all time happen in our state. It is slightly chilling that the destiny of our state could be put in the custodies of the King of Porn, but at the same clip it is slightly invigorating. As citizens, the framers entrusted mundane citizens with the right to act upon the actions and destiny of our authorities, even if merely through a little article in the newspaper. Even though they did give the media this right, and we as citizens the right to utilize it, they still found mistake with the state as a whole. Otherwise, citizens would hold been given the opportunity to straight elect those they feel stand for them the best. The inquiry of why they did this remains, but the mistake lies at the pess of the media for maintaining the citizens left uninformed and unable to project a sensible ballot.
Plants Cited
Janda, Berry, Goldman. The Challenge of Democracy. Sixth Edition. Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
Muraca, Stephanie, T.. In-class-notes. July 13, 1999.
Shepard, Alicia, C.. Gatekeepers Without Gates, American Journalism News Link. March 1999.
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