Media in Campaigns

Living in a house where someone is running for a political office has opened my eyes to so many issues. Unlike my father I'm not a good debater and although I'm not dumb, I'm not the first to voice my opinions on what I think needs to be done. However, about a year ago when my dad decided to run for mayor, a match was lit inside of my soul. Throughout these past few months this match has grown to become a fire; its not quite the cozy Christmas fire place type of fire, more like a forest fire that doesn't really know where to go.  Now, to shift gears a little bit I'd really like to talk about the politics and the media. I realize that I don't have an article to go along with my post, only pure first hand experience, but I'll take the grade deduction, for this is a subject I have become passionate about and it's been on my mind a lot lately. 

The majority of the population receives their news through Television, papers, mail, internet, etc... Every once in a while I'll open my morning paper to find a nice post about my dad and Steve Clark. My first thoughts are "Cool, thats my dad." and then I continue to think, "I wish I was in the paper!" (Haha but no really, it's a secret dream of mine). At first the articles were on something irrelevant to the issues like my dad's opponent bribing someone or using his email for campaigning. To be honest I thought the articles were weak, luckily it wasn't my dad they were targeting or I would have been furious. Even with our last presidential race the media had an effect on the voters. It is sometimes obvious to tell which news channels are democratic and which are republican. Now we have to ask: do these news channels have a power in persuading the public to vote a certain way? My answer: yes! 

Another place we find media in elections is on facebook and websites. I know that my dad has a facebook page just for his campaign, and most candidates have a website for voters to go to. In my opinion, this is the best place for voters to go if they want to truly figure out who the best candidate would be for the job. 

Overall, the media has a huge effect on who gets a elected for a position; we just have to remember that we form our own foundation or opinion before we let the media swallow us up.