Media Effects on Voters’ Political Attention, Preference, and Judgment
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deals with such motivational contingents as interest, relevance, and uncertainty about
political issues (Weaver, 1977). Individuals with more interest and less certainty in
particular issues will pay more attention to media messages to get the related information,
becoming more susceptible to media effects.
What do these effects say about the contribution of mass communication to
democracy? Numerous agenda-setting and priming studies suggest that media effects can
occur in any democratic society in which its political and media systems determine how the
society is operated. In other words, mass communication effects cannot occur when the
citizens do not believe in the media’s independent role in the electoral process. The voters
are more likely to rely on the independent news media as sources of news and political
expression. In this sense, news media’s influence on the voters is not necessarily
undesirable. Democracy is a political system, which is operated by the dynamics and
complex interplay of influences among politicians, the media and the public. Public opinion
does not come from thin air, but is a product of the process of political communication
among these three components of a democratic society. In this process, the news media
should play a constructive role of bringing candidates and voters together as well as the
traditional role of a watchdog.
Convention