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The power of short-term factors: How do media and election issues influence your voting choice?
In political science, theories of political behavior seek to quantify and explain factors that influence individual political views, ideology, and willingness to participate in politics, especially with regard to politicians and their roles in public opinion.These theories cover all aspects from long-term factors to short-term factors, which such as media reports and election issues often have a decisive impact on voting behavior.
The impact of short-term factors has become more obvious especially during the election period. The issues highlighted by the media, debates among candidates and advertisements may quickly change voters' views and behaviors about the election.The key to affecting these short-term factors lies in the original political stance of an individual, which is often shaped by long-term factors, such as family background, education and social circles.
"In the current political environment, the media plays an extremely important role. Whether in the democratic transition in the old or new world, the media is an important battlefield."
For example, media reports often push certain issues into the public's attention, which will affect the public's emotions and cognition, and directly affect voting behavior.Certain election issues such as economic development, health care or immigration policies may have a short-term impact before the election. As media reports and public opinion change, voters' final voting decisions may also change.
The influence of social groups is equally important.The behavior of social groups such as age, gender and ethnicity will directly affect the political outcome.In the United States, for example, Latino Americans’ voting habits show that they are becoming a politically important force.In the 2000 presidential election, although not all shared political views, Latino votes played an important role in the political outcome.
"Latin Americans showed strong social influence in the 2000 elections, not only the fastest growing group of voters, but also the obvious emerging players of political power."
However, despite the gradual increase in Latino votes in multiple elections, its turnout rate was only 47.6% in 2016.This shows that even with a huge potential influence, social and political structures may still pose obstacles to their participation.This also reflects how short-term factors such as changes in political issues affect the direction of votes.
In addition to media and social groups, the research on biological factors has gradually entered the field of political science.The so-called genetic politics attempts to explore the association between genes and political behavior, revealing how biology affects individual choices and ideology.But old social or environmental factors cannot be ignored because they work together with individual political behavior in many cases.
"The influence of biological factors does not mean that the role of the social environment is ignored, but that the two may jointly influence a person's political tendencies."
These studies make us think that behavioral psychology’s explanation of voting behavior is equally indispensable.Even in voting theory, the voting paradox points out that a single vote cannot change the outcome, yet people still choose to vote, which is not only based on rational calculations, but more because of social and psychological factors, such as seeing friends votes or encouragement from family members.
In summary, the power of short-term factors seems to be increasingly prominent in elections. Whether it is media reports or immediate election issues, they will have an immediate and significant impact on voters' voting behavior.This not only shows the interaction between short-term and long-term factors, but also raises the fundamental question about democratic participation: In the ever-changing political environment, how should we view the motivation behind our own voting choices and behaviors?
