Unit 6: Task 2 Part C

Task 2 Part C
of the assignment is an individual evaluation of our thoughts on the media's role and effect on this years presidential election.

Now that the election campaigns are over for both parties I can safely conclude that I think the media played a huge part in the outcome of the election. This years election was probably the most controversial of all time, with two very opinionated candidates who are either loved or hated and we all know that controversy makes for great news stories and television. Because of all this controversy surrounding the candidates they both got a lot more exposure than any other politicians would have, and they say that not all publicity is bad publicity but is that true for Hillary?

Hillary Clinton lost this years election to Donald Trump, a shock victory in most people's eyes, but how much of a part did the media play in this? A large one I believe, Hillary was painted as a villain due to her email scandal which the media jumped on quicker than you can shout 'delete.' Reports of Hilary illegally deleting her emails in order to hide what she had been doing spread like wildfire, the FBI even got involved and Hillary was investigated. Obviously this caused rumours to start, why did she delete those emails? Was she selling weapons to ISIS? Covering up what happened in Benghazi? Nope, nothing was found and the deleted emails were simply very boring. Being innocent as not as interesting as being guilty in the eyes of the media so no one really cared after the FBI cleared her but it was too late, the impression that Hillary was some sort of evil war monger had already been planted in the minds of the Public, leaving many to believe that Donald Trump was the lesser of two evils.

It wasn't only the news on television reporting on the election, but everyone. It was all social media was focused on a good month leading up to the actual election. Mark Zugerburg himself said that facebook can be partly to blame for the result, as the site has little to no monitoring of fake news stories. Apparently an abundance of fake news stories were posted about both candidates on the site slandering their names and users of facebook had no reason to not believe the stories. As well as this Donald Trump gathered a large following on social media, mainly twitter, due to the controversial things he said on there. His tweets gathered so much attention that they actually became a bigger talking point than the debate itself. People clearly liked how opinionated and honest Trumps twitter came across as in garnered a large following and this incredible use of social media may have played a hand in his victory. Trump managed to be so controversial on twitter that he was literally always in the news, whether that be mainstream news outlets or on social media. Always being in the public eye clearly helped him to victory even though he was in there mainly for the wrong reason.

To conclude yes, I believe the media had an eaffect on the presidential race of 2016, Trumps social media domination clearly earned him enough support from people who shared his views. In a rapidly modernising world I think not only the mainstream media but social media too will continue to grow and continue to influence big political events like these, all over the world. We are all connected now and gives politicians a great platform to interact with their intended audiences and I think Trump did this well. Let see what happens next.