Can the media influence politics?

bay window the media influence administration?Can the media influence government activity? If so, how? If non, why non?There are numerous academic theories as to the blood amid politics and the media, and whether or not iodine is a dominant furnish greatly influencing the bulgeput of the other. Some purport that the media hold extraordinary amounts of spring in the governmental arena, however many other believe that the world-beater they wield is in fact minimal (Newton Van Deth, 2009). What behindnot be dispute is the idea that the media and its audience are interdependently connected the media pass on alter their center to suit a specific audience, while the world are more(prenominal) than likely to invest in media which reflects their view denominates. oecumenicalisation is something which should be avoided when discussing the medias relationship with politics, as while the term media traditionally may develop been utilize in reference to freshlyspapers and radio or television programmes, (Newton Van Deth, 2009) it instanter encapsulates neighborly networks much(prenominal) as peep and Facebook. There are those who may argue that media obviously re fork overs the political views of the public, and while that may be sure in the cases of social networks, many may challenge its truth in relation to mass media news outlets. In this essay I give attempt to conclude myself as to the extent of influence media has on politics, and essay how I have come to that conclusion.In the UK, the link between media and politics is undeniable. For a major newspaper to alter its political allegiance is a sizeable change, which would be expected to dominate all forms of media. For example the decision of The Sun, Britains most widely circulated newspaper and therefore the focus of my study, to stumble its 12 year support for ride in 2009 created national news, and at last forecast the downfall of the Labour g e genuinelyplacenance. It is w orth noting that The Sun has supported the companionship that eventually forms the next government in the last 7 General Elections something which suggests that The Sun hold great influence over the political thinkings of their readers. However, in 1997, 2001 and 2005, the Conservative vote was not as effected as one may imagine, with an average32% of Sun readers saying they would vote Conservative through that level (Ipsos MORI, 2010). While this research may suggest that The Sun is a newspaper which volition ruth littlely alter its allegiance in order to be on the winning side of an election, I would argue that this is not needs the case. In the 1992 General Election for example, The Sun had been consistently anti-Labour and Kinnock, including their infamous If Kinnock wins immediately will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights headline, despite the polls suggesting either a minority Labour government or a very slim Labour Majority. The attacks on Kinno ck in the final days of the 1992 campaign were widely regarded as responsible for Labours unexpected defeat (McKee, 1995), and even Neil Kinnock himself announced in his departing actors line that the Conservative-supporting press has enabled the Tory society to win yet again when the Conservative Party could not have secured victory for itself on the basis of its record (Whitney, 1992). This would be employ as an example for the theory of agenda-setting, whereby a media outlet has an opinion which it pushes upon its viewership, and attempts to influence which issues are considered important. Agenda setting is achieved by attaching priority to indisputable stories which may reflect the opinion which the media outlet wishes to push in this face the opinion that a Labour government would have been bad for Britain. some other example of how the mass media have exerted a great influence over British politics, and politics in public is the growth in the upshot of malicious goss ip within Westminster. Prior to the Profumo Affair in 1963, the media and the public very much stuck to the idea that the private lives of politicians should be exactly that private. The great public interest in this story however, meant that this affair was the watershed of political scandal, with journalists fetching ever further measures in order to reveal the next risky scoop. Albeit not immediately followed by a huge stream of revelations, the boundaries of concealment in the lives of politicians had been broken by the media and have not been the same since (Stanyer, 2012). This could be said to be an example of priming with, in the 1990s especially, the exam over the dealings of Conservative politicians from the left-wing press leading to an purlieu whereby Majors administration was seen to be one full of sleaze and mistrust. This was achieved with revelations such as the Cash for Questions scandal and the backfiring of John Majors screen to Basics campaign. This is prim ing as rather than straightway stating the conservative ministers were untrustworthy, the media simply dripped out stories to highlight this way of thinking (Newton Van Deth, 2009).The mistrust of Conservatives created by the media environment of the 1990s is perhaps best characterised in the result of the 1997 general election in the historically safe Conservative seat of Tatton, in which the Cash for Questions tainted MP Neil Hamilton lost out to an independent, Martin Bell, standing on an anti-sleaze ticket (Mann, 1999).The coverage of scandal can also be used in an argument to suggest that the media has little influence over political thinking. Those who believe in the reinforcement theory which states that mass media can moreover reflect and reinforce public opinion, not create or roam it, (Newton Van Deth, 2009, p. 196) would point to the relatively new-made shifts in what journalists publicise in relation to scandal in politics. While prior to the millennium scandal was often focused on the private lives and sexual misdemeanours of the political class, as such behaviour has become normalised in open society, the media has taken less of an interest in it. The public have at rest(p) from being floor by behaviour that may be considered immoral, or not Christian, to now being shocked by primarily criminal activities. This has directly led to the kind of journalistic research which resulted in the Expenses scandal in 2009. The enormity of this story reflects the moral leanings of the British people in the twenty-first century, and was a story picked up by media outlets nationwide all of which will have held different agendas. Some may say that this proves to an extent that the media cannot come across or influence, but merely just publish information which will reinforce public opinion.On a more international scale, it is concentrated to ignore the way in which social media forms and transmutation have gone hand in hand, specifically in the Arab Spring. It is not a recent idea that the new media of the late 20th and 21st centuries would create new dimensions from which politics can be influenced (Poster, 1995). In Egypt, cyberactivism first came to existence in2004, and offered an alternate to the state- check intoled media allowing people to express opinion unpopular with the government. From 2008 onwards, in the specter of a global economic crisis and an increasingly repressive government, there was a growing number of protests in which a key role has been compete by new media forms (Khondker, 2011). It cannot be questioned that social networking was a pivotal actor in the organisation and publicising of the protests across the region. One reason for this was the state control of traditional media, which left social media as almost the last utter of the people. On a ground level Facebook was used to schedule the protests and Twitter to coordinate (Khondker, 2011), and then following on from this traditional media was utilised to present the uprisings to an international audience who in turn supported the uprising. In this case, and standardised ones across North Africa, new media held great influence over politics. It mobilised underground groups, allowing them to build a group identity as well as coherence.The influence that such new media can exert over politics in times of revolution and uprising should not, however, be overstated. It is important to point out that for such events to unfold, certain revolutionary conditions and the inability of the state to fight back to the actions of the people must be present. In this sense the media is merely a tool of the revolution, not a predetermined necessity for a revolution to occur (Khondker, 2011). Personally I believe that the media, both new and old, does not have a monopoly over the thoughts of the people and instead just provides them with a voice from which their ideas can be spread. The fact that revolutions have occurred throughout tal e in times before social media, such as the cut and Cuban Revolutions, tells me that new media is more of an enabler than a driving force empennage such events (Himelfarb, 2011).To conclude, I believe that the influence of the media over politics depends greatly upon the political situation in the region that it is being published. In more politically stable areas, such as the UK, while the media may have a certain agenda their consumers are likely to only feeler and take note of media that reflects their personal views. Mass media must cater to a certain readership in order to be sustainable as a business, and therefore cannot obviously attempt to mould public opinion. This is evidenced by the fact that in all post war elections but 1, the party with the greatest media support has formed the next government (Butler Butler, 2010). Despite this, the media can play a vital role in influencing politics, as displayed in the aforementioned Arab Spring. I believe this is a sign of the future, in which constituted media will play a comparatively small role to that of social media, in Africa and beyond.