Though most people who follow politics these days don't use actual television broadcasts to stay up on current events, the biggest news companies still control most of the other outlets. When you access news stories and videos through the internet or a smartphone app, it's probably through NBC, CNN, or Fox News. Most people use only one of these three big ones, get attached to certain reporters whose writing style they like, and consider this news provider to be more reliable than the others. But if that's the case, are voting citizens actually choosing who they want to vote for, or are they choosing the candidate their news broadcaster has chosen for them?
Often times, when people read news articles, they pick the ones that further support the beliefs they already hold. They don't usually read something that challenges their current views and makes them reconsider whether they're actually correct in what they think about a topic. It's much more comforting to be told by a professional media specialist that what they've always thought was true is actually true. This is one of the main reasons why people who lean towards the liberal end of the scale prefer to take their news from media outlets like ABC, NBC, CNN or the New York Times, which also usually lean towards the liberal. Those who lean in the conservative direction will prefer Fox News for its more conservatively-inclined news. Many mass media outlets in the United States are also owned by conservative companies like Disney, TimeWarner, and the CBS Corporation. In the face of all of this media bias, it's pretty difficult to figure out which of the many available candidates actually appeals to you.
It's especially difficult when many of the big media outlets ignore all candidates but the big two, the Democratic candidate and the Republican candidate. A CNN news special might show a documentary on the history of Obama as our President and all the wonderful things he's done, while drawing attention to Romney's stint as Governor and all of the things he did to ruin Massachusetts. On the other hand, Fox News may broadcast its own news special documenting how fantastic Romney was as Governor of Massachusetts and how much Obama failed to accomplish while in office. Someone who favors Obama will tune in to CNN's special while someone who favors Romney will watch Fox's. Rarely, if ever, will there be a publicized news special about one of the candidates running as an Independent. You can find a lot of people having political discussions on the internet, through blogs and news stories, who say "I like Romney's stance in this, but he's too extreme for me..." or "I like what Obama says about that, but I don't like the way he views something else.." It's very possible that people with these views will find a candidate more compatible with their government expectations if they look past the big two who get all the publicity. But the media makes it very difficult to find anyone else to vote for when they only grant their coverage to the Democratic and Republican parties.
It's also difficult to find a candidate's stance on a topic if that topic isn't already part of the candidate's agenda. If you, for instance care a lot about animal rights, and neither of the two main candidates addresses animal rights, you won't know what to expect from either if you vote for them. And even if you're invested in one of the two main candidates and want to pick between the two of them, it's difficult to get both sides of an issue. Recently, the Democratic party has been talking a lot about gay rights and abortion and social issues like that. But the Republican party has been talking most about the economy. It's not easy to figure out what sort of action the Democratic candidate will take concerning the economy, should he be elected, and it's not easy to figure out what the Republican candidate will do about gay rights and abortion. You don't get both sides of either issue. Really, the only way to hear two opposing parties argue the same issue is to watch a debate where both candidates answer the same questions. But even then, if the question doesn't touch on the candidate's agenda, he'll usually evade the question and the opposing candidate focus on that instead of answering the question himself. So even in public debates, it's difficult to get enough information to really understand what action each candidate will take in reference to an issue that isn't covered by both their agendas already.
Between competing agendas, selective news coverage, and broadcaster favoritism, it seems unlikely that the average voting citizen fully understands what they're getting when they vote for a candidate. They're not really choosing a candidate based on his stance on issues that are important to them, they're choosing the candidate that their favorite media outlet has chosen for them. In order to get a more complete picture of the possibilities available to them, people should get their news from multiple outlets of different stances. It would also behoove them to get news from less-mainstream sources that mention other candidates. It definitely takes additional digging, but doing so is an invaluable way to get a better idea of what the next four years will be like when you cast your vote.
Additional Sources:
Bettina Fabos, Christopher R. Martin, and Richard Campbell. Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, 8th Edition. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. Print.
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