The Importance of Democratic Elections essays

The Importance of Democratic Elections essays The validity of democratic elections in a country depends, to a great deal, on the awareness of common man. The more information available to the common man, the more he (she) tends to become a voter and play his (hers) role that is vital to the electoral process. Identifying the source(s) that provides this information to a prospective voter is, therefore, extremely important. There are two main candidates for this source of information: interpersonal communication and mass communication. In this research, we will use the 2002 national elections held in Pakistan as a use case. Our goal is to identify the sources of information that played a major role in pushing prospective voters to vote on the election day. In particular, we would like to conclude what roles interpersonal, and mass communication played. More specifically, we would attempt to analyze the roles played by the mass media: television, radio, and newspapers. The individual roles played by these different forms of media might affect different classes of voters. It is important to find out which one of these forms of media played the most significant role in helping voters form their opinions. It is also extremely important to find out how these sources affect a voter's decision. Incorrect or misinterpreted representation of information by mass media can result in a major class of voters being misled into making a decision that affects the whole nation. Our goal would be to find out how, in the 2002 national elections in Pakistan, the different presentations of the same information by different forms of media affected voter's decisions differently. To summarize, we would use the 2002 national elections held in Pakistan to answer some very important questions about the influence of media on the electoral process. Our first goal is to compare the effects of different information sources-interpersonal and mass communication-on the knowledge gained by prospective ...