发布时间：2020-12-07 热度：
大众媒体，例如电视，广播和社交媒体平台，是政党和候选人在选举活动中向选民提供选举材料和广告的一种常用方法。
每个美国人平均每天在电视，广播和其他在线社交平台上花费超过10个小时。传统大众媒体的影响自1900年代以来就得到了证明，一些研究声称媒体内容将极大地影响公众对政治事件和人物的观点和反应。付费广告和赚钱媒体对于政客树立形象并获得选民认可很重要。
亨特·汤普森（Hunter S. Thompson）在《恐惧与厌恶：72年竞选路线》一书中提到：“唯一真正真正对1972年大选感兴趣的人是实际参与者，包括各种候选人，有薪工作人员，成千上万的人。记者，摄影师和其他与媒体有联系的骗子……”，他强调了媒体参与选举活动的重要性（Thompson，1973）。尽管汤普森是麦格文的坚定支持者，但他一再批评麦格文在媒体面前没有足够的媒体曝光和缺乏感召力（汤普森，1973）。有人说，学习如何利用媒体来谋取自己的优势是变得更加“政治化”的方式。所有这些证据都支持了媒体确实对政治选举产生强大影响的理论。
此外，由于技术的发展和通讯方式的变化，几乎每个人都被链接在一起，并通过各种社交媒体平台定期相互交流。因此，社交媒体在选举广告中变得越来越重要。在选举期间甚至选举开始之前，有数百万美元用于政治广告。在2012年奥巴马总统和雷姆尼之间的总统大选期间，两位候选人都在电视上投放了约20亿美元的政治广告。此外，2012年互联网广告的金额已达到1.59亿美元，因此可以通过每个网站上的弹出广告从政治上了解大多数互联网用户。大众媒体在塑造选民的态度和反应方面有多么有用和强大的影响？由于通过传统媒体平台和互联网社交媒体在政治广告上花费了不可思议的巨额资金，因此在审查媒体在美国政治选举中对舆论的影响力时，必须同时考虑这两个类别。
Mass media, such as television, radio, and social media platforms, is a common approach for political parties and candidates to inform voters with electoral materials and advertisements in election campaigns.
On average, each American spends over 10 hours every day on television, radio, and other online social platforms. The influence of traditional mass media has been proven since 1900s, and several studies claimed that media contents would significantly affect public opinions and responses on political events and figures. Paid advertising and earned media are important for politicians to build images and get recognized by voters.
In the book ‘Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72,’ Hunter S. Thompson mentioned that ‘The only people who seem genuinely interested in the 1972 elections are the actual participants—the various candidates, their paid staff people, the thousands of journalists, cameramen & other media-connected hustlers…,’ and he emphasized the importance of media engagement in the election campaigns (Thompson, 1973). Even though Thompson was a definite McGovern supporter, he repeatedly criticized McGovern for not enough media exposure and lack of charisma before the press (Thompson, 1973). It is told that learning how to use the media to one’s advantage is the way to become more ‘political.’ All of these evidences support the theory that media did have powerful influences on political elections.
In addition, almost everyone is linked and regularly communicates with each other through various social media platforms due to technological development and changes in communication methods. Thus, social media becomes more vital in the election advertisement. Millions of dollars were spent on political advertisement during elections or even before the elections start. During the 2012 presidential election between President Obama and Mr. Remney, both candidates spent approximately 2 billion dollars on political advertisement on television. Also, the amount of Internet advertising had reached 159 million dollars in 2012, so that the majority of Internet users could be informed politically through pop-up advertisements on every website. How useful and powerful influences do mass medias have in shaping voters’ attitudes and responses? With this incredible large amount of money spent on political advertisement through both traditional media platform and internet social media, both two categories need to be considered when examining the power of media on public opinion in U.S. political elections.
