The media plays a large role in determining the outcome in an election

As the 40^th provincial election in British Columbia is fast approaching it is hard to miss any stories on the news, internet or newspaper. As any election approaches it is expected that there will be at least one or more stories on the news or in the newspaper each day. For this particular election I have personally learnt the most through news stories for which parties are running to become the new provincial government. In the 2013 provincial election there are four parties in the running which include the Conservatives, the Liberals, the New Democratic Party and the BC Vision Party. Each media story presented about this year’s election has played a large role in influencing my perspective on the parties.

Media stories can either cover positive or negative aspects on an electoral party or their candidates. They also can cover simple facts about the candidates that are running just as Squire Barnes from Global News has done for this current election. For the four electoral parties in the 2013 BC election Squire has interviewed all four party leaders simply about their life and briefly about the election. (http://globalnews.ca/news/537511/political-playoffs-squire-and-the-four-party-leaders/.) There are also many news stories that cover the events that lead up to the elections as well as the few candidate debates that go on. These news stories can provide information to the public about these candidates and greatly influence their perspective on the parties.

Along with there being stories on the news, in the newspaper and on the internet, recently there has also been a lot about the elections, parties and candidates on social media websites. This is one way that party leaders can campaign in a non-traditional way. This type of media is a great way to allow party leaders to get in touch with the public and maybe even get their vote. As parties put out Facebook and twitter pages or sometimes even collect e-mails to send out newsletters, the amount of people that sign-up or like a page may be deceiving. “All [of this information is] traceable, measurable and useful [to each party but] it's not directly linked to actual votes.” CBC News (http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/05/03/f-vp-misener-social-media-canadian-election.html) Even though this type of media doesn’t have confirmation on playing a large role in the election, I believe it does because of my personal experiences of using social media over the past weeks. Global News presented an excellent story earlier in April of this year that demonstrated how social media can be used in a way to reach out to the public, grab their attention and votes. (http://globalnews.ca/news/467855/how-will-social-media-affect-b-c-elections/)

As media can help promote parties and candidates it can also report on the negative aspects and events of these parties and candidates. I believe that these negative news stories are stronger influences on the public than the positive. These negative news stories on the news, in the newspaper or online are more eye-opening and appealing to the public which therefore have a greater influence on them. For example, for this year’s election Global News had reported about the Liberal video released against the NDP leader Adrian Dix. (http://globalnews.ca/news/545570/b-c-liberals-launch-new-youtube-ad-attacking-ndps-adrian-dix-with-video/). If this video wouldn’t have been reported on there would had been a less amount of people knowing about it. Then with this particular incident there was a follow up story about the NDP asking to take the video down. (http://globalnews.ca/news/546730/b-c-liberals-refuse-to-remove-youtube-video-attacking-ndps-adrian-dix/). With both of these news stories on Global there were negative aspects for both of the parties. This could have been a large influence on the public and their views about each of these parties.

            In conclusion it doesn’t matter what the media reports about the candidate, party leader or actually party itself it will always have a large influence on the public. Either positive or negative the media will be informing the public with their news coverage and most likely put a new perspective into some of the public’s minds. As I have mentioned previously I believe that the media in the present day does have a big influence in determining the outcome in an election because of the fact that it is present everywhere in our communities. Media coverage about the elections around this time of the year is certainly something you can’t avoid.