The Influence Of Mass Media On Politics

The media industries provide information and entertainment, but media can affect political, social and cultural institutions. It is important to understand the role that mass media plays in political aspects of the society.
The mass media has a powerful influence on political reality, as it shapes public opinion and lays the foundations of political beliefs. Sometimes referred to as the fourth branch of government in democratic countries the media plays a crucial role during elections and in times of change. Therefore, politicians and political parties are particularly sensitive towards their media presence and the media coverage of their public appearances.
The relationship between politics and the mass media is closely related to the debate about freedom of speech. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted

NEWS YOU CAN CHOOSE: Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, recently told the New Yorker magazine, "With the Internet, with YouTube, with TiVo, with cable TV, people are selective viewers now. People approach their news consumption the way they approach their iPod: You download the songs you like and listen to them when you want to listen to them." That affects the way reporters spend their days and the way campaigns craft their message.
2. SHARE THIS: Sharing is emerging as a way of distributing the news—tweets from the streets of Iran and from the rubble of Haiti have been retweeted hundreds of times in a new, virtual form of word of mouth. The White House's Facebook page has nearly half a million fans; its Twitter feed has 1.7 million followers. That's no surprise: President Obama was the first candidate to announce his White House run via Web video and his vice presidential pick by text message. Don't forget that Sarah Palin began the whole "death panels" discussion not by giving an interview but by posting the idea on her Facebook page, which then got shared with thousands of