The Role of Media in Delivering the Narratives to the Electorates

The media provide a significant avenue by making a way of delivering the narratives
used by the political candidates to the voters. Media in the form of newspapers,
television, radio, and through social media, as defined by Aronson (2012) as the New
Media, like facebook, twitter, instagram and the like have been a useful tool to magnify
the persona that a political candidate portrays which could attract many electorates to
vote for that certain candidate. Acknowledging the benefits of media for the campaign,
according to Faraon et al (2014), politicians and their team use the media to shape a
positive view of their candidates on traits such as honesty, credibility, and judgment and
also use [black propaganda or] negative advertisements against the opponents,
believing that media contributed to the voting behavior or the perception of voters to the
candidates which cannot be explained by party affiliation (Pillai, Williams, Lowe, and
Jung, 2003; as cited by Faraon et al, 2014). Beside the traditional media, social media
are also targeted by these political candidates for the campaign. According to the
studies, the internet and other online sources where non-journalistic blogs are included
in which composed mostly of the opinion of the author are perceived as credible and
nearly equals to journalistic media (Qing and Oyedeji, 2011 as cited by Faraon et al,
2014) or even surpassed the journalistic media (Johnson and Kaye, 1998; Johnson et
al, 2007; Mackay and Lowrey, 2007 as cited by Faraon et al, 2014). Due to this, political
candidates and their team are much eager to exploit non-journalistic resources from
the internet like facebook, twitter, and other social networking sites to reach the voters
during their campaign (Gil de Zuniga et al, 2009; Utz, 2009; Zhang et al, 2010 as cited
by Faraon et al, 2014). Mirandilla (2009), also provided several advantages of the
utilization of social media during campaign: (1) interaction between political candidates
and voters; (2) expansion of viewership through viral distribution of material, and lastly;
(3) the distribution of news and perspectives unable to or disregarded by traditional
media outlets. To further define what social media were, Aronson (2012), citing Williams
et al (2007), quoted that, social media or the new media are internet technologies
connecting people[which] allows users to contribute and control content as well as to
initiate contact with other users. Technologies like these in a liberalist term are products
of globalization in which according to Cohn (2012) that technological advances in

transportation and communications are rapidly shrinking time and space. It links people
quickly and information are quickly received. The results of these technologies can be
summed up in the statement of Kevin Merida, The Washington Post editor, that The
world wants information quickly and instantly. In our business, you have to
accommodate that. And if readers dont get what they want where theyre looking, theyll
go someplace else and look. In short in able to keep up their business they must adjust
to the wants of the readers as quickly as possible. Due to the social medias ability to
spread information and to connect people quick, Aronson, agreeing to the statements of
Julia Woolley and Anthony Limperos, both Political Scientists, argued that campaigning
on Facebook gave a leverage to the success of the political candidate to won the
election. Platforms and information about the candidates are easily spread through the
internet and able to access or reach millions of people around the world. Most of these
people are the youths whose age are 18 years old to 35 years old (Gotinga, 2015). In
the Philippines, according to Comelec Education and Information Director James
Jimenez, 37 percent or 20 million of registered voters are young people which according
to him are social media savvy. He also emphasized the increasing numbers of
participation in Comelecs social media accounts and some candidates planned to have
their campaign via internet only (Gotinga, 2015). Moreover, in the United States,
Americans acknowledge a new way to participate in political matters and that is by
being a digital citizen. Digital Citizenship according to Ginsberg et al (2011), is the
ability to join in a society in the cyberspace and engage in participation with them
[Digital citizens] are more likely to participate in political matters therefore increasing
their political knowledge and the ability to influence the government. Candidates and
their teams, together with their supporters which composed of both ordinary citizens and
public opinion leaders who are actively participating in social media, helped in spreading
the narratives about the character and personality of the political candidates and what
activities they involved in. So websites wrote in support for a political candidate using
the issues known by people like crimes, drugs, womens rights and the like captured the
attention of the people and because it captured the attention of the people, the
mainstream media intended to write about it---both the issues and the platforms of a
political candidate. This was agreed upon by Kali Schmuitz of Fairfax Times in which

the reporter stated that whenever someone likes a candidate on Facebook, follows him
or her on Twitter or signs up for an e-mail newsletter, that gives campaign more
opportunities to turn a voter into a donor or volunteer, local campaign staffersIt also
makes it easier for supporters to voice their support of a candidate with friends. In
terms of Opinion Leaders, according to the Washington Posts 2008 media kit entitled
Opinion Leaders: Circle of Influence, Opinion leaders are individuals whose opinions
are respected by people and they can be an expert in any field like business,
government, politics, culture and etc. These ideas of the opinion leaders are found
around the internet and discussed by most people actively participating in the internet.
As these ideas and opinions are being passed from one person to another at a fast rate,
these provide an environment for exchange of ideas and debate (Washington Post,
2008).
Through the evolution from traditional media to social media, the process of campaign
adjust to this evolution. According to Winter et al (2016), social media or social
networking sites provide an environment to express opinions in politics and public
affairs and to disseminate information to a large circle of people with a purpose of
convincing others. Studies by Kumpel et al (2015) and Valeriani et al (2015), as cited by
Winter et al (2016), argued that social media are now evolving from its original purpose
of a private social connection to a more public connection by including profiles of
politicians and news media and the rise of the utilization of this kind of media to further
spread information with public content. In the last Philippine Presidential Elections
campaign, the use of social media are very evident. Buenaobra (2016) of the Asia
Foundation wrote an article entitled, Social Media: A Game Changer in Philippine
elections quoted as to why and how politicians use social media in the campaign,
Social media can provide free advertisement, highlight important advocacy work, make
speeches and statements readily available, and help candidates promote their
campaign messages widely and freely. In that sense, it can be seen as democratizing
the electoral process. Except, thats not what always happens. For better or for worse,
social media can also create an obsessive focus on one or two issues, magnify
candidates warts and pores, poke fun at their looks or voices, amplify a misstep, an
insensitive remark, expose a prejudice or bias and all for all the world to see and hear

in real time without delay. Besides that, Buenaobra stated and emphasized that Social
media changed the dynamics of the elections in the Philippinespolarizing the nation
with its posts, tweets, and viral videos.
The Mass Media and the New Media or Social Media are great avenues for politicians
to publicized their platforms, their profiles, and the activities they engaged in, therefore
the information that a political candidate wants the public and the voters to know are
now easily disseminate at a fast rate and low cost. Supporters of the Political
candidates---whether ordinary citizens or popular people who actively participating in
the internet or who have access to different media can easily voice out their support and
try to convince others to support the same by a simple like, comment, and share in
Facebook and a simple tweet in Twitter among many others. These new technologies
also set a stage for engagement in a debate or discussion by a simple post of any
person expressing his or her opinion regarding the matter introduced by another person
which can be a celebrity, a well-known businessman, a model, or anyone who has an
expertise in a certain field like a political analyst, etc. These debates and discussions
can divide the voters but at the same time can help undecided voters to decide which
candidate they would choose depending on how convincing or influencing the
information would be.

References:

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effectiveness of websites and social networking sites as campaign platforms for
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Cohn, T. H. (2012). Global political economy. Boston: Pearson Longman.
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