Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Election campaigns are among the most important events in the lives of democracies and societies in transition. Campaigns often constitute the high points in public debate about political issues (→  Political Discourse ). Election campaign communication takes different forms in different national and regional contexts. It is shaped by both party and media systems and by the regulatory environment governing the campaign process (→  Political Communication Systems ). Election communication is also influenced by the balance of party and media forces in shaping the news agenda, and that balance has been tipped by the increasing role played by citizens and interest groups in generating messages and news about parties, leaders, and issues. Television continues to be the main source of information for most people at election time (→  Political Media Use ). Television news is the most common vehicle through which particularly the undecided voters and people who are politically uninterested get information about campaign events (→  Television News ). That said, market pressures have come to affect the availability of main evening television news in many countries. One glaring consequence in the UK, for example, has been the complete evacuation of news from prime time on what were traditionally the flagship television news channels, BBC1 and ITV1 (→  United Kingdom: Media System ; BBC ). ... log in or subscribe to read full text