Media is [more than] a major component of the average American's day-to-day life. This 'fact' is hard to dispute. However, recently I have come to realize how much of a role the media plays in internal politics. Anyone would agree that the media has positively and negatively influenced people- from pressuring girls to want to be skinny and guys to be built, to empowering people to get off the couch and call ITT Tech- but I feel that the media's higher power exists in the way that it influences the American public, voters, in political matters.
The commercials, or should I say the montage infomercials, that have been suffocating my television screen for the past month about the race for the Senate seat are a great example of the power that media has. Between Scott Brown's "I drive a truck" commercials and Martha Coakley's "but is his truck going in reverse?" commercials, it is clear to me that the media has too heavy a hand in important political decisions. In other words, in a [sad] world where people depend solely on the television and political commercials for their voting information, a good commercial could literally change the political path of a country. Call me crazy but I propose that political commercials should be outlawed during elections. The only purpose political coracles fill is to slant the opponents perspective, name bash, and misinform. I do not recall one Senate race commercial in the past month that supplied the audience with cold hard facts about the issues that matter most to the state of Massachusetts.
I happened to like the neighborhood Coakley used to film her commercials in. I live in it.
I also happen to dislike trucks.
Does this mean I should vote for the commercial I like better?
No.
But I do believe that, consciously or subconsciously, people do vote for the guy with the same truck as them and for the woman who lives down the street.
Effective media can change the political direction of a state, and in the case of this week's Senatorial race, can change the political direction of an entire country.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I myself was not a big fan of the political commercials either. Martha Coakley would just talk trash about Scott Brown to make him look bad on her commercial then Scott Brown would come on his commercial just to say that what Martha said was a lie. These commercials seem to be childish in my opinion with the he said she said stuff. Just like you said neither party got a message across of what they really were standind for in the whole election. I was also not a big fan of how they kept calling my house with recordings like 15 times a day got to be JUST a little bit annoying.
ReplyDelete