Hot Topic - Media and Election Campaigns

Radio Channel Slides To The Right, Regulator Blunts Show Host - September 13, 2021
Media proprietors exert undeniable control over their broadcasting and publishing assets. It is the benefit - and sometimes peril - of ownership. Outside of some public broadcasting structures, listeners, viewers and readers either accept what is distributed or, well, not. Most often, though not entirely, private sector media owners seek to monitize the most attractive product offer. There are certain variations.

Politicians Have Temper Tantrum As Social Media Deletes Disinformation - January 13 2021
Elections are intended to bring out the best. All pretence of this ended this century as elections have become disruptive, chaotic and violent as well as indecisive. Villains have been located. It’s the news media. It’s the internet. Authoritarians agree.

Reporters Plan Marathon Coverage Of The Big Game - November 2, 2020
News organizations have borrowed heavily from sports reporting over the years in presenting election coverage. There are scoreboards filled with ever changing poll data. Debates are staged like wrestling matches, occasionally with fake blood. Commentators scream with every goal. It all looks like showbiz. Audiences love it.

As Fears Rise Advertisers Declare Truce With Platforms - September 28, 2020
Brand safety has become a major concern for advertisers in recent years. That concern reached a pinnacle as advertising on digital platforms outstripped all the rest. It is not that radio and television channels, newspapers and magazines are free from objectionable content within which ads can be placed. Advertisers are mostly OK with that stuff, sometimes endorsing the content. They want the ability to choose their space. Bot-placed digital ads on social media platforms have been outside their control.

Dictators Want No Witnesses - August 31, 2020
News agencies and organizations have long sent reporters and crews into journalistic hot spots. It has long been accepted that reporters in conflict zones are civilians, not combatants, and as such are afforded certain protections. These distinctions have blurred in recent years; protests and demonstrations characterized as war zones, reporters as adversaries. Authoritarians and their supporters do not like the photographs splashed in international media.

Reporters, Living Dangerously, Take It Personally - August 17, 2020
Some authoritarian leaders are quite clever, some not so much. The clever ones have learned how to take control of the news flow, often by eliminating the critics. The very clever allow a few outlets of opposing views to remain for largely cosmetic reasons. Cutting off the internet no longer succeeds as the digital savvy know all the tricks. The less clever are even jumping back to centuries past to cut off postal delivery service. But when all else fails, dictators will resort to the tried and true: batons and bullets. It’s an old movie.

News Outlets Prepare For Wild Election Harvest - August 5, 2020
Elections always get attention; from those in power, those seeking such and news outlets assigned to the observational task. All elections are, thus, consequential. As such, candidates and their surrogates craft important messages to persuade and, maybe, excite the electorate. In more recent times those messages have turned to raising anxieties and uncertainties. Hope battles fear, over and over.

In The Campaign’s Last Hours All Dirty Tricks Against News Media Appear - July 9, 2020
Social and political polarization have become a constant theme as much of the world is absorbing one crisis after another. Elections bring out the worst in politicians and their supporters. The divide is often blunt and uncompromising. News media is an easy target.

See also...

The Campaign Is On - Elections and Media

Elections campaigns are big media events. Candidates and issues are presented, analyzed and criticized in broadcast and print. Media is now more of a participant in elections than ever. This ftm Knowledge file reports on news coverage, advertising, endorsements and their effect on democracy at work. 84 pages. PDF (September 2017)

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