ROLE OF THE PUBLIC OPINON AND THE MEDIA IN POLICY MAKING AND POLITICS.

According to the political scientist V.O.Key(1961),the public opinion refers to the opinions held by
private persons which governments find prudent to heed. The public opinion plays a great role in politics
as the individuals are the people who vote to elect to power politicians and the policies made by the
congress affect them in their day to day life.
Since America is a democratic system, and the people have their right to join organizations and vote
freely as a means of expressing their opinion, the politicians have to constantly take into account the
public opinion as the individuals who determine who is elected to what position. Therefore, if the
politicians want to maintain their jobs or get elected, they must ensure that they are on good terms with
the public.
Since there are scientific techniques for measuring public opinion, the politicians and modern presidents
use the polls to survey public opinion on key issues. Those who ignore the public opinion do so at their
own peril as they may be at a risk of loosing their jobs.
Americans share a broad consensus on basic political values. The public opinion is however, a times,
influence b y background, education and life experiences.
Since the public opinion is developed as a result of political socialization, it is developed as a result of
attitudes, ideologies and partisan affiliations. Partisan ideologies provide cues that enable individuals to
store previous results or decide the course of action.
Most individuals have no incentive to pay attention to politics and are ignorant to many political issues
and as a result their opinion is bound to keep on changing. The politicians use political campaigns and
the media to sell their manifestos and this in turn influences the criteria the individuals use to evaluate a
political candidate or a particular issue.
In as much as the individual opinion is unstable, the aggregate political opinion is more stable and is
attributed to the opinion leaders who provide cues that make uninformed people to make informed
choices. It is therefore important for the politicians to be in the opinion leaders good books as they may
to values and beliefs accumulated over a long period of time. The individuals core values, ideologies and
party preferences are resistant to change and continue to give shape and stability to the aggregate
political opinion over a long period of time. For instance, the job rating of president Bill Clinton went up
when he was facing the sex scandals since he had done a lot to improve the economy and his rating
therefore did not go down when he was impeached by the house of representatives although he was
later on pardoned.
From the study it is evident that politics depends on the public opinion as they control who is in power
and the policies that are to be passed as they directly affect them.


In the early republic, high unit costs saw to it that news production was limited and these productions
were heavily manipulated by the politicians. The amendment of the constitution however, saw to it that
the government could not censor information even when the disclosed information could have an
impact on the national security.
Politicians can use the media to their advantage to cover their favorable events so as to influence other
politicians and the public as well. The news media therefore gives the people political information.
There is a co-relation between the news the viewers watch and what the public consider being
important therefore, the media can therefore create or destroy a politician or influence the making of
certain policies. This is because the more the media plays a particular story the more it becomes
acceptable to the viewers. The media can therefore determine which issue is important.
The media plays an important role as it contributes to openness and democracy. It can help the people
to know the operations of the government participate in political decisions and hold government
officials accountable.
Since citizens mainly learn get information about politics and the government from the media, they can
influence the public opinion through various articles or by choosing what they want to cover.
The media is therefore so influential that to some extent it controls the political world as most people
make decisions based on what they see on the television or read in the newspapers.
The polls conducted by the media can also tell the likely story that occurs during the poling day. When
the popularity of a candidate keeps going down, the said candidate tries to find a way to get back on the
horse.
The media unlike the public opinion is driven primarily by profit and therefore due to competition in the
media world, they all try to c over news and events that are likely to catch the attention of their
audience. They are therefore more likely to cover scandals revolving around the politicians and this
could greatly dent the image of a said politician. The public a times does not take this into account. For
instance, during the term of Bill Clinton, majority of the voters still supported him despite his affair with
Monica Lewinsky, which was highly publicized.
The politicians a times strategically leak information to the press. They may do this so as a means of
getting publicity especially if they do not have the resources to carry out national wide campaigns.
The politicians tend to lean on framing so as to manipulate the voters especially through the media and
they can rally them to support the.




Having looked at all the factors, it is evident that the media plays both a negative and positive role in the
world of politics.
Its through the media that the politicians accountability is always kept in check and thus making it
easier for the people of America to re-elect leaders with suitable characteristics and get rid of the
politicians who do not have their interests at heart. This also enables the politicians to avoid leading
controversial lives since their lives are always on the spotlight, especially the president.
The media, through the polls enable politicians to know their weaknesses and work on them from the
ratings so as to get the seats they are contesting for. The polls also make it possible to know what the
people want and the factors affecting them and they ca use this to their advantage during their
campaigns.
The media can also help during policy making as they air the peoples concerns and if the politicians want
to keep their jobs, they have to put this into account as they are the people who put them into power.
The media however, can put too much emphasis on a particular candidate since news can be subjected
to bias and therefore lead to people electing a leader not because he has all the desired qualities but
because the media has portrayed him/her as the perfect candidate and since it has n adverse effect on
the minds of the people, it manages to shape this image in their minds.
Since the news media is set for profits first, they may convey news which might not set a good example
to the people since they try to cover the controversial lives of the politicians .