Science: The Times and Party Election Broadcasts Essay

Submitted By usamaahmed69
Words: 307
Pages: 2

The mass media covers television, radio, and, more recently the internet. The impact of the media on voting behaviour and on politics in general is huge. Most of what a voter knows about politics comes from the mass media rather from the candidates and parties. On the whole, coverage by television and by radio is governed by stringent regulations which ensure impartiality. The political parties also strictly monitor television and radio to ensure that they keep to these rules on impartiality. Each party is allocated some broadcasting time in proportion to its voting strength in the last election and the number of constituencies it is contesting. This broadcasting time then be used for party election broadcasts. The neutrality of television is important, since most people get their political information this way.
The area that mass media played the most significant role in deciding the outcome of the recent general election was the area concerning the newspapers as they are privately owned and subject to no rules concerning impartiality. The political parties can place advertisements in the newspapers. But mostly they have to rely on the news coverage of a biased editorial team. Until 1992, most newspapers in Britain were Conservative in their bias, and many people believed because the conservatives were the most successful party in British politics. After 1992, this began to change and a number of newspapers began to criticise the Conservatives and support Labour instead,