FREE ESSAY ON DO THE PRINT MEDIA HAVE POWER IN THE BRITISH POLITICAL SYSTEM, OR

DO THE PRINT MEDIA HAVE POWER IN THE BRITISH POLITICAL SYSTEM, OR

The influence of the mass media on the electoral process in the western democracies,
specially the television in the last years, can get to crush the daily life during the
electoral period. Some maintain that the selection are won or are lost based on the
performance of a party in the television and print media and, to a lesser extent, in the
radio. Since the media nowadays dominates the selections in some countries, he is
surprising that the regulation of the information has a low profile in the electoral
legislations of the world.
In the democracies of Western Europe and the East, the television is the main means so
that the parties spread their messages. The average forms also have a high impact in
these areas, as it has the radio to a lesser extent. In other countries, particularly of
Africa, the radio plays a very important role in the electoral process. The newspapers
tend to be partidized, whereas the television networks and national radio are accused to
favor to the government in functions. Three types of media cover exist basically: free
access for candidates and political parties; access paid for both groups and publishing
cover through radio, television, newspapers and magazines.
The media have an irreplaceable paper on the actual society, because the democracy it's a
system based on the public opinion, the confrontation and the coexist of them. The
creation of that we call "public opinion" depends in a very big way in the work of the
media. 
It is interesting to compare the approaches of the media cover in the United States and
Great Britain. In the United States exists a system of access paid to the publicity and
little regulation. In the United Kingdom the paid access to electronic media strictly is
prohibited, although the newspaper publicity is allowed and widely is used that's why the
print media is more widely used in the UK. Also in the United Kingdom the political
parties have gratuitous access to the average ones sources to make transmissions of
between five and ten minutes that virtually flood the screens when the selections are
coming. The political debate, so used in the United States and considered so popular in
the democracies developing, never has been successful in the United Kingdom. It is not
unusual that an electoral organism has regulatory attributions on such debates, although
in recent years in the United States some candidates has refused to them and the
participation in certain debates have taken the case before the courts.
In nowadays, a politic formula or candidate who wants to make a good electoral campaign,
not only cannot live without the media participation, also, it cannot go to offer a
political platform to the electorate without an intelligent and equilibrate media
campaign. In another case, his performance will be a political suicide, an also a waste
of time, energy and money.