How Does Television Affect Presidential Elections

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Since the 1960’s, the television has been influential in the United States presidential elections. Visuals shown on television tend to have a negative impact on who is selected during elections. For instance, Television affects who is elected by moving candidates from pursuing issues to pursuing images. In other words, television causes people to look more on a candidate’s physical features and social status other than the literal issues they plan to fix as President. Consequently, this is caused because television restores the feeling of direct contact within our society which causes people to feel like they know their Presidents and therefore cause elections to be in favor of the candidate with the most admiration from the community. Additionally, due to television, elections are now based on what we see and not what we hear. Undoubtedly, the television brings us closer as a community. In brief, television continues to inform us of what happens in our society which was not available to us in the past. According to…show more content…
In other words, elections are usually dependent on what the people see and not what they hear. For instance, in Source C, it states, “Our national politics has become a competition for images or between images, rather than between ideals.” This quote explains that politics is more based on a candidate’s image rather then what they support. Pursuing this further, Theodore H. White in Source C says, “Nixon’s---light-colored suit, wrong makeup, bad posture--- was ‘fuzzed’.” This is a direct example of how an election can depend on a person’s characteristics. Nixon, having a bad representation of him-self, caused people to favor him less whether or not he had strong ideals that they agree with. To sum up, television causes people to approve the candidate’s that give more pleasure to the eye than those that give better
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