The campaigns’ influence in presidential elections: The role of media

Abstract

The importance of electoral campaigns is due to the fact that they are a privileged moment in the relationship between citizens and politics. It is the moment during which the different political competitors present their proposals, their intended actions, and the main ideas behind them to society. The question is: can campaigns effectively affect the perception of voters? This article investigates the extent of the impact of electoral campaigns on voting decisions. The analysis has been restricted to a single portion of campaigns, the journalistic coverage made by Brazilian newspapers, during the 2002 presidential elections. The article starts with a discussion of the theoretical relationship between voters and the media. It then assesses the impact of coverage on voting decisions according to a criterion that gauges de tone of criticism based on the overall sum of favorable (positive) and unfavorable (negative) pieces published during the campaign. Based on the application of statistical and descriptive methods, it reaches the conclusion that votes for presidential candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who ran for the Workers’ Party (PT), were heavily influenced by newspaper media coverage.