Essay 18- Election media

(1999_1)In the 1990’s presidential election campaigns have become more candidate centered and less focused on issues and party labels. The change has been attributed both to how the media cover presidential campaigns and to how candidates use the media. Identify and explain two ways in which the media have contributed to candidate-centered presidential campaigns. Identify and explain two ways in which presidential candidates’ use of the media has contributed to candidate-centered campaigns.

In today's election systems, the media plays an important role in shaping the public perception of a presidential candidate. As the media covers an election, their coverage becomes centered around the candidate. They cover their candidate's past and discuss how the candidate's past mistakes will impact their future. They create scandals involving the candidates just to stir up some media attention. Also during election seasons, the media runs nothing but coverage of the election making a difficult event to avoid. The media will also cover candidates at the conventions for each political party.

When it comes to media attention, the presidential candidates have also been known to stroke the fire a bit to promote their campaign. For example a presidential candidate will buy airtime to show an ad  that not only endorses their own campaign, but also dirties their opponents. Also candidates will seek campaign funding while promoting their campaign. This contributes to a very candidate centric area of election coverage by the media.

The candidate centric election coverage is due to the self promotion of their campaigns by the candidates and by the media covering the election.

Scoring Rubric: http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/members/repository/sg_gov_pol_us_99.up_7047.pdf