The Influence and Relationship of the Media in Politics - Research Paper Example

? In a political world, a number of factors come into play to constitute a viable and health stable government. This paper explores the responses to an array of issues pertaining politics. In doing so, the paper addresses two questions following a certain chronological order given below. Question 1 a) The Influence and Relationship of the Media in Politics, Campaigns and Elections It is an obvious fact that media and politics are inseparable. In an error of timelines and information demand, media take up a major role in information dissemination. In this regard, media has various roles to play as far as politics of the day is concerned. First, the media inform the public about campaigns, elections and politics. However, while there is increasing demand for information, there is cynicism in the world against both the media and politicians for spearheading negative coverage of campaigns and media bias. What failed to be addressed are the influence of the government to the media, as well as, the influence media does on the government. The media influence the way of politics through taking part in nomination processes. It turns the nomination process into a horse race. Through this process, some part of the public get influenced by the politician who seems popular and through the media, the candidates get to sale the policies thereby increasing their chances of going through. Secondly, the media influence issues voters care about in elections and criteria the voters use in evaluating candidates. This it does through issue framing. It makes the voter view it the way it does. There exists a cyclical relationship between the public, media, and the government. Media can shape public opinion, as well as, influence voter through communicating. This is through influencing the voters on the issues that are important and those that are less and thus convince them about the issues to think about. The media play an important role in altering the perceptions of the voters, attitude, and behavior. The media in this case reinforces and shapes voters view point. Thirdly, media places a spotlight on issues they know the public might be concerned with. Existing evidence indicate that what seems to appear in print has substantial impacts on how citizens think. For example, where the media cites as important problems to be addressed is taken up by the public to be the gospel truth. However, the government in a way dictates the media's content where the media regularly uses the public officials as sources of news. A biased media shapes views of the people at election time and the media dictates what should be viewed by the voters. In this case, media influences the voters’ attitude and is very effective while acting as sport light. Since it is the only way to channel campaign information, media influence issues voters consider when evaluating a political candidate and criteria upon which the voters charge the politicians Fourthly, the media can set the political agenda through focusing on certain issues and influence the issues the government and the public ought to be concerned with. In this regard, it influences they way the public makes the decision about voting. For example, through the regular angering of news collected from various parts of the country, the public and the government get to understand certain things of concern. The media focus on the president when things go wrong such as health care and other social amenities. The way the president responds to such issues matters a great deal and it influence the way people vote in the wrong run. This is in the context of belief that media is prone to strong political bias, and that seem true to some extent, and has a significant effect on shaping the views of the voter. The area the newspapers take a firm a stand on, is that to do with editorials. This area largely dictates how people view publications. It is argued that media outlets take up distinctive stand that remain consistent for a period of time. Whether that is true or not, it is debatable but what is distinctively significant is that biased media creates animosity among the voters. Though editorials are but opinion piece, their influenced to the voter is significantly measurable. Therefore, editorials play a central role through all coverage and such editorials often mirror political views. b) Role, functions and activities of political parties Studying roles and functions of political parties help in understanding the place and roles of politics in societal development. Political parties perform are responsible for the following functions. First, political parties take party in elections. In achieving the objective, political parties identify political objectives and accomplish these objectives through the development of programs and ideologies for them as they seek to find the strategies and a way that can help persuade citizens to possible alternative actions. Secondly, the political parties have a role to play as far as public interest is concerned. They are the peoples’ representatives. They express the interest of the public as representative of the people. The party brings people together in a way to directly impact on the decisions made by the central government. Additionally, Political parties take part in governance. In this regard, they emphasize on formulation of policies, political strategies, as well as, shaping social-economic activities. They develop a modern strategy that involves qualified ideological frames. In multiparty democracy where one party fails to win by the majority there by necessitating the formation of coalition partners, political parties, play a major role of forming such coalitions like what happened in Israel and the new deal coalition that existed in 1983 made up of groups from the democratic such as the white southerners, the African American and the Blue collar. The coalitions serve political stability. Political parties are responsible for party nominations. Party official through annual meetings and immediately after major elections come up with names of people to fill certain posts through party nomination policy frame work. Political parties create platforms for the public opinion. Political parties socialize and mobilize citizens towards achieving certain demands. This is done through the creation of long term ideological and social, as well as, ideological basis upon which party activities depend. They as well shape the public opinion using the media as a channel. Fourthly, the political parties shape the local authorities, the ruling elite by providing the liaison between the societies and the government authorities. Political parties form the actual composition of the government, and this helps them shape the ruling elite group. They, therefore, provide public administration and government stability through participating in government leadership. c) INTEREST GROUPS Interest groups are the organization of people having policy goals and work in the political process in promoting such goal (Lisa32). Examples of such groups are the N.K.A and the A.A.R.P. The Interest groups attempt to influence policies in leadership, in many ways. First, the interest groups work in lobbying the government by hiring representatives that advocate on behalf of the interest of the groups. Lobbying activities entails contacting congressmen to disseminate information to deal with adverse or positive proposed legislation effects. The interest groups, as well, engage in election activities. This group attempts in influencing elections in order to make people support the issues they advocate for re-elected or elected. The groups participate in electioneering techniques, which include providing money to candidates, endorsement of candidates, as well as contacting grass root activities. In this regard, the interest groups try to convince the senator or the president to change issues and at times give money to the voters to try to influence them on the way to vote Interest groups take part in educating the public. The groups work hard in educating the large public, their members, government officials and the potential interested members of the group. In trying to achieve this, the interest groups give testimonies about affordable health care and other related services. Additionally, interest groups mobilize various publics in order to influence policy making by the government. The groups rely on people’s effort especially those motivated to act on behalf of the groups and their causes. This is what is called grass root activities which include making phone calls, demonstrations, writing letters and contacting the policy makers. The interest groups care about their members. The groups, therefore, push for laws about their members without caring about the welfare of the general public. d) Compare and contrast the parliamentary and presidential system of government. The first distinction between the parliamentary and presidential form of government is that, for the parliamentary system, there is proportional sharing of executive positions after winning elections while, in the presidential system, the winner takes it all. There is the head of government upon which there is many different titles i.e. chancellor, prime minister, and premiers are all depended on legislature confidence. They can be sent home by the legislative vote of ‘no confidence’. On the other hand, in the presidential form of governance, the president gets elected through majority vote either directly or through Electoral College for a certain fixed, constitutional term and cannot be induced of f or forced to resign by the legislature. The prime minster is too elected by the legislature. In parliamentarian system of government, the executive and the legislature are fused together and there is no clear power separation between the executive and parliament branches. This leads to differing in sets of checks and balances relative to those in the presidential system. Contrarily, presidential system which has clear-cut powers in which case the president has more powers than the parliament. In parliamentary systems, there is usually a clear differentiation existing between the head of government who might be the prime minister and the head of state. In the parliamentary system, the head of state is the prime minister or the premier. The head of state is elected either through popularity or through parliament. The actual authority is vested in the head of state but the prime minister and the cabinet exercise power in day to day basis, gives them reserved powers and the executive and the legislature clearly separated. In the presidential system, there are weak parties and the parties have fewer roles to play and lack party discipline while, in the parliamentary system, there are strong parties that always enjoy strong position. In an ideal presidential system, there is one person with non collegial executives. The members that belong to the cabinet are subordinates and mere advisers to the president while, in the parliamentary system, the cabinet members can have independent roles to play and can move a vote of no confidence against the president through the legislature. Presidential system is a system of government that has an executive branch presiding separately from the legislature. The executive arm is not held accountable by the legislature and is not mandated either to be dismissed by the legislature. The parliamentary system of government is distinguished by having the executive arm of government being directly or indirectly depended on the support of the legislature. It is often expressed by the vote of no confidence. Question two a) Factors other than the media that influence people politically There are various factors other than the media that influence the way we think about politics. They include family, race, religion, peers, gender, age and geography or the environment. In view of family, political ideologies are formed during childhood. Parents tent to pass down their political ideologies to their children. In a family where parents are socialist for instance, they will tent to influence the children towards socialism and vice versa. Geography or the environment where an individual lives matters a lot when it comes to political alignment. Those that live in the Western Europe are more likely to incline towards socialism and soccer since Western Europe is characterized by such activities and ideologies. Those found in the U. S. A, where there is no socialism, shortage of labor and baseball is the common game they are likely to adopt a different political dimension. The schools and colleges are also political, influential agents. Exposure of an individual to varied political beliefs such as teachers and students are information sources for students. This information source tends to influence a student towards a certain independent thinking. School tend to teach h patriotism, and like the American mythology, Early grades, which builds on reinforcing positive learning, might provide a new dimension in students view about politics. Religion just like schools and colleges can have a very strong effect on ones political views. For instance, Protestants seem to be more conservative especially in countries where Protestants are not the majority. Moving like Catholics can also have a heavy vote on a certain party. Churches and religious rights as well can influence an individual towards a certain political alignment. At time members of the Muslim group might influence an individual to follow the religious alignment. Political Parties, political leaders, and institutions, as well, have the direct impact in shaping an individual’s political view. Scholars such as Campbell (1960) argue out that political parties have little direct influence on a child because of contrast of social factors likes age, context and power. Work places and peers also play an important role in shaping people’s thinking about politics. This is limited in its effect due to self-selected peer groups especially in youth’s affects lifestyle issues and hence political influence. B) Party systems. And political parties There are three types of parties in the world. They are mass or coalition, ideological and devolution. Mass parties or coalition parties are formed in cases of political crisis especially in multiparty system. Ideological parties are formed a long lines of ideological beliefs. Party system basically means the way the political parties interact with one another in the politically competitive nature (Lisa 43). There are various party systems identified. They include no party system, one-party system, two-party system, multiparty system and the dominant party system. One-party system occurs in authoritative or dictatorial political countries. Believing that a ruling party is all important to a state emanated from Lenin, who lived to believe that only a single party could take workers to achieving their destiny and other parties’ involvement would prohibit this progress. The common feature of one-party system is that the position of the ruling party is assured within the constitution, and any form of opposition is completely banned by law. In such states, the ruling party has a control on every aspect of life. Countries with such system include China among others Two-party system indicates a state of only two dominating political parties. There might be other political parties in existence, but the parties lack political importance. In this party system, the winner takes it all. America represents such countries with two-party system. These dominating parties are the Republican and the Democrats. This system works only where one party obtains a sufficient working majority during an election and be in position to lead without necessarily obtaining support from the other party. This system allows the voter a simple choice. It also promotes political moderation since the incumbent party has to appeal to the undecided voters’ in the country. However, the system results in policy rehearsal especially for the losing party. Such rehearsal might fail to benefit the state. The third political system is the multi-party system. As the name suggests, this system involves more than two parties having an impact in a political life of a state. In this party system, no one party guarantees absolute majority. Though one has a healthy majority, its power is reasonably well balanced by the power of other parties. This is common in Britain, Germany, and Israel among others. Multi-party system might cause formation of coalition governments as experienced in Italy and in Germany. In cases where the leading party leads by over 50% then the leader of that party becomes the prime minister. It becomes unstable all the parties do not attain 50% of the votes and this necessitates creation of coalitions. It will be a stable multi –party system when the leading party attains 50% of the total votes cast. The fourth party system is the dominant-party system which is different from the one-party system. In some states, a party might be dominant in such an extent that a win in an election is considered to be a formality. Example occurred in Mexico dominant election cycle known as P.R.I in 1915 and 1990 and Japanese politias L.D.P c) Advantages and disadvantages of parliamentary and presidential system of government. There are various advantages and disadvantages of Parliamentary and presidential systems of governments. For the parliamentary system, the various advantages are as follows. The parliamentary systems are the most impressed system in the world especially in countries that impress two-party system and at time multi-party system. This system places more emphasis on the power of parliament with the main emphasis on the centre power which allows the formation of strong parties that fosters democratization. In Parliamentary system, members are more responsive than in presidential systems. This is because there are existing checks and balances in which case the executive is closely monitored by the legislature. This system as well allows a vote of no confident against the premier in case of a mishap. In parliamentary systems, cabinets are drawn from elected members of the legislature. This in effect, creates more representation of the people. The parliamentary government gives room for the inclusion of varied political elements to be represented in the parliament, and it includes the minorities in the executive. In this system, the cabinet comprises a coalition of many different parties representing various well-established parliamentary democracies. In most countries that impress parliamentary system, they are more efficiency because of allowing critics from the opposition. This can change in the house without having any resource to a general election. This reflects flexibility and the capacity to allow adoption of the changing circumstances for the parliamentary system. Parliamentary systems foster accountability to the government in place for the representative of the people. This is accomplished through making the executive arm depended on legislature. There is public control over the process of making policies, as well as, increased transparency in the manner in which decisions are made. However, the parliamentary system has its own shortcomings. First, this system is fragile. It provides room for removal of the president in case an issue arises. This on many occasions has often caused instabilities because of political selfish gains. In many countries that apply this system, they have had coalitions before. Secondly, most strong parties often represent individual gains rather than represent the public interest. Just like parliamentary system of government, presidential system of government too has its merits and demerits too considering advantages First, for the presidential system there are no real checks on the executive because of separation of powers between the executive and legislation. The legislature has almost no real check on the executive arm and becomes more of glorified debating chamber. Another criticism of presidential system is that there is the lack of representation. It is difficult to sustain democratic practices in the presidential system of government, and there is like hood of authoritarianism. In this system of government, there is slowness in efficiency. After winning the election, the President is a winner, and he is not pushed by the legislature. The president’s party can rule without the legislature and is not threatened by sensor motion. The danger that this system poses is the rigidity of the fixed term of office for the President with office winners and losers well defined for the whole period of the Presidential mandate. This allows the government of the day to seat back and rule without any sort of threat. People’s personally play a major role in the way they get influenced or influences others on the political front.. Authoritarian people such as Adolf Hitler as a person in charge gives out orders and the orders have to be taken as they are. To a larger extent, those who receive such commands get influenced irrespective of their wishes. Racial grounds are also significant when it comes to political influence. People have varied feelings about those they vote in depending on the candidate’s racial background. For example, racial factor had an impact in voting in America where the majority of the African Americans voted for the Democratic Party on racial grounds. This was also demonstrated in the Hispanic vote. Considering the disadvantage In presidential government, there are weak parties. This creates dictatorship in the political arena. Executive stability depends on the president?s term of office. The political parties are manned by the president who manipulates them according to his own interest. Secondly, in the presidential system, the office of the president can easily be held directly accountable for all the decision taken. The president is directly elected by regular vote and he is the chief executive held responsible for all the action taken. It is, therefore, easier for the electorate to punish or reward a president through voting him out or into the office. While choosing the cabinet members, the president is not limited to the members of Parliament. This gives him the liberty to make the choice and allow him to choose persons with outstanding competences and intellectual integrity to help in countries administration. The country stands to benefit for such persons of integrity. The Presidential system allows the cabinet ministers a chance to be devoted fully in the service of the nation. Instead of wasting most of their time in endless politicking, Presidential system helps cure the cancers of defection which is a common property of legislators. d) How power of the executive has increased at the expense of the legislature. First, the executive order gives direction to everything from the United States Flag Code to single-handedly declared Martial Law. These executive orders are used by the president in emergence times in overriding the United States congress and the constitution. For example, President Woodrow Wilson in 1917 failed to convince Congress in helping United States vessels that was plying hostile German waters. When Congress refused to back him up, he invoked the executive order policy to force everything through. The president has the powers that enable him transfer a whole population from a certain part of the country to any part of the country without seeking the legislature approval. For example, President Andrew Jackson executed such powers in forcing the law-abiding Cherokee Nation to move from their ancestral lands The president has the powers that enable him suspends the press and force registrations of persons nationwide without the congress approval. For instance, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt using the presidential powers without consulting the congress, issued Executive in 1941 December 1941. This order forced 100,000 residents of Japan living in U.S.A to be rounded up. They were placed in concentration camps. The life struggle that was associated with these actions provided argumentations that favored their implementation at a time of war. Any president faced with a situation that is similar to what Roosevelt experienced during Great depression period has powers to take extraordinary measures. In this case, the president can assume dictatorial powers that do not require him to seek legislative approval. Work cited Lisa, Jane. The tyranny of the two-party system. Columbia University Press.2002. Web. 2nd may 2012, < www.historylearningsite.co> Read More