The Role of Media in Choosing Our Candidates for National Office: Student Projects

Results that Correlate with Work/Employment

"What role does the media play in your decision for the Presidential election? This was the first of two questions asked in the recent verbal survey I conducted at my father's place of business. The workers were white collar and in the sample there were eight females and twelve males surveyed. The results varied from person to person and not according to a particular sex.

In response to the first question, the people surveyed at first said the media did not influence their decision. They were speaking of the paid media, this being the commercials that the politicians ran, rather than (free) media coverage. After further examination, 90% of the people surveyed admitted the free media did in fact influence their decision.

The free media includes, but is not limited to, newscasts, election coverage, and a new addition this year, talk shows. These forms of media are what mainly influenced these peoples' decisions. . . The interesting part is the paid media that the candidates spend over half of their campaign money on did so little to improve their support . . . The people surveyed felt the candidates were not always honest in these commercials, and the information could not always be trusted. . .

The second question asked was what role should the media play in choosing your candidate for president? This question was not so easily answered as the first, and the opinion was more closely divided. About forty percent said the media should present the facts unbiasedly and let the people decide. Thirty percent felt the media was entitled to their opinion and the remaining thirty percent had no opinion as to what role they felt the media should play. The forty percent who said the media should stay out were adamant in their answers.

They all felt strongly that this is a very important issue, and they should not be influenced in any way to vote one way or another.

The thirty percent who said the media was entitled to its opinion were somewhat shaky in their view. They seemed to feel everyone (is) entitled to their opinion. It seemed they did not care that the media's opinion could and obviously did not have an impact on their's. It seemed to not be an important issue that someone else's opinion changed or enhanced theirs.

This was the most shocking data recovered from the survey. It seemed a certain percentage of the population, no matter how small, does not seem to care that the people who are supposed to present facts, slip in personal opinions as well. The fact that these opinions are personal and should not be introduced does not bother (them)." FL