Mass media's influence on presidental elections Research Paper

Mass media's influence on presidental elections - Research Paper Example During the first debate Nixon was not well prepared and had little make up while his rival Kennedy was well dressed and prepared for the interview. During the debate there were huge signs of nervousness and panic on Nixon’s face which led the people to believe that Nixon was not ready to lead the nation while people who were listening to the match on the radio believed that Nixon had won, as they could not see the face of any of the candidates. This was the first time that TV was used as a political tool by political candidates. Media has had tremendous effect on presidential elections but their way of influencing is not without controversy. Media will sometimes provide stories dealing with the personal lives of presidential candidates which is very harmful to the candidate and not useful even to the undecided voter. Influencing these undecided voters has a huge impact on American politics. America basically has two big news channels that are very important to the American pub lic; one is Fox news and the other is CNN. Both the channels have huge impact regarding the painting of the picture of the presidential candidate. Regarding the impact of Fox news on American public, Stefano Della Vigna and Ethan Kaplan have conducted a study on the ultraconservative Rupert Murdoch’s channel. Fox was launched in 1996 and by 2000 it was available in more than 20% of American households. They conducted a study in which they compared the change in republican vote bank between 1996 and 2000, and they came to the conclusion that Fox news had increased the vote bank of Republican Party in the areas which received Fox news by 0.5% or 200,000 votes; this number was enough to change the result of 2000 presidential elections. Fox news is also known for its right wing and Christian agenda which appealed to the most of the voters who had access to it. (Does Fox News Change Votes?) On the other hand, CNN is a relatively liberal news channel with agenda that is mostly neit her left wing nor right wing but more to the center in the political arena although it has been claimed that it has favored Democratic Party most of the times. During the elections of 2008, in which Barack Obama became victorious, it was clear that CNN favored a democratic candidate while Fox preferred Republican, and most important of them, all Fox was not biased against Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska who was the running mate of John McCain, while CNN did everything in its power to portray Sarah Palin in a way that can only be described as negative because of her affiliation with causes that can be classified as far-right. Talk Show hosts who are normally seen as a form entertainment by the Americans also influenced voters to an unimaginable degree. A prime example of this was Barack Obama’s fundraiser hosted by Oprah Winfrey which gathered a total of $3 million for the future president. (Ingraham 71) Between 1996 and 2000, before the election during which Clinton was f acing the Lewinsky Trial, any news meant bad news for Clinton and the Democrats and their prospects of winning the election of 2000 which they lost, (Alterman 186). After 2005 any

Compare two databases dealing with CPI by major expenditure categories Essay

Compare two databases dealing with CPI by major expenditure categories i.e. from the indices starting with U.S. All Items (1982 - Essay Example However, this essay aims at analyzing these effects from the purchases made frequently from many items with relatively stable prices. In most cases, the CPI is often applied in adjusting the income, retirement benefits, lease payments, and school lunch benefits. Other included items in this category include alimony and the tax brackets. Notably, the mode of CPI application in the United States affects nearly all Americans since it is based on buying habits of average consumers (Strawser and Ryan, 2010). However, it may not be a perfect reaction of an individual price experiences. Nonetheless, the CPI is fundamentally feasible economical method for statistical provision in its appropriate applications. Numerous or nearly all the nation CPI results usually differ from individual’s price expenditure, a vital factor to be considered in this statistical application is how a person spends his/her money/income. The consumer expenditure survey estimates revealed that each consumer ser vice or good produces CPI expenditure weights that are equally significant relative to all other market bracket good and services (Strawser and Ryan, 2012). ... The same effect will increase the consumer average significantly. The CPI usually divides the consumer bracket market into groups of goods and services and each of the brackets can be estimated approximately using expenditure pattern. This can only be done using an expenditure pattern that can be used us1ed to compare different but significant data sets. From the data sets below, the approximate weights for all the Urban Consumers (CPI-U) are as per the columns data set. It should be noted that some data sets show a sharp difference from the CPI average (Schuldes, 2011). This is an indication of difference changes in price measures in the total market bracket. For instance, the expenditure pattern with high medical care expenditure appears may be tabulated for the month of October 2001 (Strawser and Ryan, 2010). Relative Importance Table 1: individual expenditure Increment in the prices of food and beverages by five percent and medical care costs by ten percent with no changes in the prices of other commodities will still change the overall CPI within the price index by nearly 1.4 percent. Table 2: National CPI-U Average Notably, the same changes can affect CPI on yearly basis and the same effect can be analyzed from the statistical data presented in the table below. Table 3: different databases dealing with CPI by major expenditure categories on an yearly basis Graph 1: expenditure per year on the reflection on annual inflation Graph 2: annual inflation trend. The graph 1 & 2 above are obtained from the table 3 above. There indicate that increase in the average level of prices increase leads to Inflation that increases the CPI thereby affecting the spending habit of consumers within