Mass Media in Politics

Social media is a kind of technology.  Social networks have not only redefined the Internet, they also proven to be a powerful tool in political processes.

In terms of politics, the main function of the media is to provide information, so people can make decisions and get involved in politics. 
Everyone probably has a sense of what we mean by media, but it is a good idea to break it down into types, because of the forms of media works slightly differently, and the role of the different types has changed a lot over the years. The oldest form of media is print, which means newspapers and magazines.Print is not longer the main source of information for modern nations, as it used to be. Especially in the days when some large cities had papers that would put out a morning and afternoon edition. But just because fewer people aren't reading print media does not mean that they are not very important. For one thing, most of the other news media organisations rely on print for their news. Print media also tend to offer more detail and comprehensive news stories, although this is changing quickly. One aspect of print media that is often overlooked is that it's still the main source of news for educated elites, and these are the people whose opinions tend to matter a lot in making policy.

The second oldest, and in some ways still most important source of political information comes from broadcast media. television still reaches more Americans than any other form of media, and remains an important source of political information. Radio is less important at reaching a diverse mass audience, although talk radio, especially conservative talk radio, matters a lot in the political media landscape. But despite it's massive reach, broadcast media has a significant drawback in shaping public opinion: television stories are very short, usually less than two minutes long, and therefore less informative.A third major media force in politics is The Internet. As a news source, the primary advantage of the Internet is that it can update so quickly. This is great for breaking news, although there's an argument that it pushes news organizations towards creating more stories and hot takes.In the early days of the web, Internet news was mostly just online versions of print newspapers, but that landscape has shifted, a lot. First came blogs about politics, and then sites dedicated to politics. The growth of social media provided new avenues for politicians and parties to get their information to the masses, and now every candidate has at least one Twitter profile and Facebook page. This can be great for lots of information about a candidate or their policies. 

Is media important for politicians? For sure! Politicians use media to push their agenda and grant interviews. By press conferences they try to increase public opinion, to put pressure on lawmakers for the things that they want to get done. Media plays such a crucial role in deciding who are drawn through a lacks to lead our country or state/city. The voting public must consider media bias when getting their news. 

Government officials news, what is known a propaganda, as a way of influencing people. Now propaganda is meant to persuade the people to feel or act a certain way and we often see propaganda campaigns during times of war. Government will play on the public's patriotic emotions to get them to accomplish certain things or feel a certain way, like helping the war effort. So, propaganda use messages, images to work on the public's feelings and this is not just from government. There are different propaganda types, for example: Testimonials- candidates use celebrities to show their support. Another one is Plain Folk Appeal- candidates show themselves doing something that makes them look like an 'regular' human. We can see that Mass Media can have both sides : positive- we can be informed what is happening over the world, and be as a part of the world and politics; negative- you can be a target of propaganda.