Relationship Between News Media and Voting (Research Proposal Sample)

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NEWS MEDIA AND VOTING
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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NEWS MEDIA AND VOTING
Introduction
Various political parties in the United Kingdom invest heavily in news media to the extent of borrowing loans to finance newsworthy events so as to gain media coverage (Norris 2014 p. 3). Such practices indicate the importance attached to the right public opinion through the news. The voting behaviors have become complicated over time. In the past, the political manifestos of the different parties and candidates were the sole determinants of political success. However, in recent years, election victory is no longer inherent and determined in this way as various resurgent factors play a part in determining the election outcomes (Alotaibi 2013 p. 1). One of the factors thought to influence the election outcome is the media. As a result, an important question on whether news media affects the voting preferences of the electorate has emerged. The effect of news media on the voting behavior is not well known. This research proposal investigates the relationship between news media and voting.
News media is an umbrella term used to refer to all the sources and presentations that provide news coverage and information to the public. News media include sources such as the television, newspapers, radio, magazines, websites and blogs (Brandenburg & Van Egmond 2011 p. 441). Dialogue with the public characterizes news media by connecting with the people and tailoring conversations on various societal issues. As a result, news media enable people from all over the world to share, comment on, and discuss the wide variety of concerns affecting them thus, creating an interactive community (Brandenburg & Van Egmond 2011 p. 441). Voting, on the other hand, expresses a formal decision by the public to elect a particular person to a certain post. It signifies a choice for an individual candidate to hold an office. There are several factors that influence voting choices. News media is the primary source of political information thus playing an important, informative role to the public (Ladd 2006 p. 2). Therefore, news media could change the opinion of the electorate in the general elections.
There are several arguments as to whether or not the news media have an effect on the attitudes of the viewers and voting behavior. Classical studies on voting behavior have identified useful voting patterns among individual voters (Alotaibi 2013 p. 3). Many people have expressed their concerns that political beliefs may be manipulated by news media, therefore, bias voters. However, few studies connect the relationship between news media and voting patterns. The news media outlets provide political information to the public through the slant of detailed reports or the stories that they choose to cover (Aceproject 2015). Nevertheless, it is not well known whether the information provided by news media helps shape knowledge and political opinions of voters in the United Kingdom to influence their voting patterns. Therefore, it is imperative to understand whether the exposure to media news has a sizeable impact in shaping public’s political knowledge, attitudes and voting behavior. This study will identify the relationship between news media and voting preferences in the United Kingdom.
Study Background
Some literature suggests that news media sways the political economy of a given country. Such research shows that the emergence of news media has facilitated the rapid distribution of political information among the population affecting the formation of voters’ opinions and changing the way people vote. Therefore, it is an empirical task to understand the effect of news media on the preference of people when voting (Ladd 2006 p. 5). Various studies explaining this relationship have been conducted and published in different parts of the world. Most of these studies show a positive correlation between news media and voting tendencies. On the other hand, other studies show little effect of news media on voters’ choices. However, most of the existing information focuses more on the potential news media induced bias among the electorate leading to a shift in voting that would otherwise have not been there if the news media was unavailable. This chapter reviews the existing literature and theories on the relationship between news media and voting.
A study conducted by Stefano Della Vigna and Ethan Kaplan in 2007 aimed to unearth the political impact of media bias and its effect on voting preferences for either the Democratic or Republican political party in the United States. They examined the timing and entry of Fox news to the local cable markets and its impact on the voting preferences in the United States. According to Della Vigna and Kaplan (2007), the introduction of Fox News was likely to have a significant effect on the available political information. As a result, an estimated 4 to 7 % of Democratic voters were swayed to vote for the Republicans in States that had Fox News introduced. The key finding was that they detected a substantial impact on voting for the Republican candidates thus confirming that news media bias affects voting through the case of Fox News expansion. Additionally, the study also proved that news media have a positive correlation with voter turn-out (DellaVigna & Kaplan 2007 p. 13). These results apply to other media markets and countries such as the United Kingdom as well.
Pippa Norris examined whether the media mattered in the 2005 British General Election in shaping the choices of the electorate. According to Norris (2005), media coverage has a direct effect on electoral behavior with the capability to prime attitudes towards salient issue agenda. Therefore, news media can persuade the wavering citizens and shape their voting preferences. Media coverage also mobilizes voters to participate in elections and indirectly determines the level of party support by voters and the electoral outcomes (Norris 2005 p. 6). In this way, the media coverage of campaigns can alter voting behavior and political party support. However, the study findings revealed that no single channel was most active in shaping voters’ opinions. The evaluation of policy performance of the various candidates and parties by the media enabled viewers to choose their preferred candidate with ease (Norris 2006 p. 14). The study advocates for a subsequent research to evaluate the effect of party leaders, policies and perceptions evaluation by the media on voting.
There are two major theoretical predictions on news media effect on voting. The first theory captures rational learning and predicts that the exposure to the media have an impact on the beliefs and voting in the short run. A news media that reports more positive news and less negative news about an individual candidate changes the perspective of the public on that candidate (DellaVigna & Kaplan, 2007 p. 4). In such a case, a rational viewer knows the extent of the bias and realizes that the bad news of the candidate gets withheld while the good news gets exaggerated. If the audience knows the source of the bias, it will discount the story about the candidate and will not be persuaded by the biased news in voting. However, if the source of the bias is unknown, the viewer alters his/her beliefs to conform to those presented by the news media. In the short run, the viewer is inclined to vote for the candidate presented in the news media. However, in the long term, the viewer learns about the bias after comparing the new media with other media sources (DellaVigna & Kaplan, 2007 p. 4). Therefore, he/she is no longer influenced by the news media when making his/her voting decision.
The second theory in behavioral in nature and addresses the non-rational persuasion of news media. It implies that news media affect the beliefs and voting patterns of individuals in the long run (Alotaibi, 2013 p. 7). In this case, the non-rational viewer fails to filter out the bias in news media sources. The viewer, therefore, places little weight on the source of the media as being biased. However, he/she places a lot of weight on the news reports but disregards the source (Prior 2005 p. 578). As a result, the behavioral viewer underweights the degree of bias in the reports generated by the news media believing them to be true. Nonetheless, he/she eventually identifies the extent of bias in the news reports of the media source but is nevertheless persuaded in voting because he/she ignores the extent that the media source impacts on the news reports. As a result of this behavioral scenario, the news media has a strong permanent effect on voting that does not reduce over an extended period (DellaVigna & Kaplan 2007 p. 5). An alternative interpretation of this phenomenon is that people choose the media sources that they identify with in terms of politics. Their views match that of the news media that they choose.
The two theories explain the impact of news media bias on voting. The rational and behavioral theory presents similar short-run predictions but different long-term expectations (DellaVigna & Kaplan, 2007 p. 5). The first approach in describes the impact that the introduction of Fox News had on voter bias towards the Republicans. Fox News was a new media source for the Republicans. Therefore, the viewer found that the news about the Republicans in the new channel to be positive contrary to their expectations. As a result, this altered their beliefs and voting patterns for the Republicans. However, the viewer leaves room for the possibility that the news media could be biased (DellaVigna & Kaplan, 2007 p. 4). With time after comparing it the news media with other media sources, the audience sees the new news media as biased...