Role of Media in Politics - Free Essay for Students' Use

Media plays a vital role in contemporary politics of the 21st century of Media in Politics. Media is the use of telecommunication and print media to record and broadcast messages of daily occurrences in the day to day activities and events. The media is a conglomerate of companies that specializes in collecting news and transmitting the information to the general public. Media and politics go hand in hand as the politicians need the media companies to broadcast information to the general public or citizens of a state. It has to to be taken into consideration that the information transmitted should not be interpreted but should be reported as is. Any alteration and misinformation of the general public is a violation of media ethics and violation of the rule of law.

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The media industry has off late faced challenges in suits of defamation and slander against certain politicians or the reverse; media has played a role in the transmission of defamatory statements giant certain individual in the political scene. Libel and slander have been transmitted in media coverages for years now. Libel is a written defamatory statement while slander is defamatory oral statements by an individual. Media has been a culprit in capturing these statements, and it changes the direction of politics and the public view of a political leader.

Yellow journalism is a common practice in the media of the 21st century though at the lowest in 2016. This was a sales scheme developed by newspapers to use drawings and exaggeration of stories to cause a stir in the public and hence generating more revenue. It was initially used as a technique to outcompete competition. Politics can be escalated and candidature of an individual whether on a good note or bad light can be exaggerated to uncontrollable limits.

Media plays a major role in coverage of political campaigns. Even politicians tend to find media, that is, televisions media is found as a better campaigning tool. Media plays a role in showing the regions travelled by a certain aspirant in his political rattles. The fact is that citizens are not able to know the qualities of a political candidate unless broadcasted in media. Media bias comes along when there is unfairness in the content transmitted and full coverage of all politicians. Presentation of a balanced story is what is important lest bias is applied which is an offence.

The government of the U.S has setup regulation that governs the media through broadcasted material control and the printed content. The government controls media in order to reduce voices of the people from being heard as it may intern cause political instability in a nation if all slander and grievance would be given attention. Hard news generally refers to real-time news and reporting and on the other end, soft news is the background information or other interesting stories. Hard news states the facts of the occurrence, why where and at what time. On the flip side, soft news entertains the reader or the viewer of certain activities or events. All the content provided by the media industry is controlled by a governing set of rules of media

Media ownership is one part that needs to handle with care, for years conglomerates who own media industry control what is collected to what is published and broadcasted, in smaller terms everything we hear and see is sieved and sifted carefully. In relationship to politics, the media can be used to show the strengths of one candidate while on the other hand show the weakness of the other, it all depends on with whom has a better association with the owners of the media corporations. It brings a message of bias, but it is the way politics are completely controlled by media. There is a need for liberal and say-as-it-is spirit in the media industry in order to encourage free and fair elections.