The Role of the Media

The Role of the Media

How does traditional media and social media have an impact on a voter’s image of candidates and their campaign?

Traditional media has an immense impact on both a voter’s image of candidates and their campaign. It is essentially the “book cover” of which voters will immediately get their ideas from what the candidates are all about (but not really) and may even judge them just from that! Examples of traditional media are magazines, news networks, TV, radio, and direct mail. These are what many voters are easily exposed to regardless if they are not even interested in the political world. Things like outrageous headlines can smear a candidate’s image, but the power from traditional media is the amount of exposure a candidate gets from it. Exposure, regardless if it’s bad or good is immensely powerful. This has worked out for Donald Trump as he has garnered continuous exposure from the media. People may have already knew his name, but he managed to make it surely known even in the once “boring” world of politics for others. A candidate presence in the media, good or bad in that sense is generally a positive thing (unless it’s really THAT BAD). What is known is that traditional media is the trigger that leads to social media, the hub where many people from all walks of life come together in the connection of their ideas and support. Social media may be even more powerful than traditional media once it gets started. For example, despite Trump’s heinous remarks to certain categories of people, he managed to succeed in getting support because of the power of social media, people came together and collectively gave power to his campaign. I don’t like Trump, but you can see how the media has even made him more prevalent in being spoken about, even in this response. In another way of saying it, traditional media labels and brings attention to the image of candidates, and social media is what basically provides the details and the juicy information through the power of social groups and collective peers. They are the providers of information and usually the only providers of information to many voters; and yet, people still underestimate the power of the media.