THE ROLE OF MASS MEDIA IN SHAPING PUBLIC OPINION AND VOTER BEHAVIOR

A necessary condition for democracy to function properly is that information is available that allows citizens to make decisions and behave in a manner that maintains accountability and popular sovereignty. For decades, researchers viewed the media as having a minimal effect on opinion and behavior. Political communication has an outstanding need for new theories and methods able to capture the ongoing shift from mass media communication to mass self-communication. There seems to be little question that the media matter in politics in general and in elections in particular. Despite what seems to be this accepted truism, researchers have been hard pressed to demonstrate without question that media influence political attitudes and behaviors. Given the importance of understanding the content of media messages in political communication, it is unsurprising that considerable effort has been made to understand the ways in which news coverage shapes elections.