Download civics_23_02 Influencing Your Vote

Voting and Elections
Section 2: Influencing Your Vote
Section Reading Support Transparency
Section Outline
I. Messages From the Candidates
II. Messages From Interest Groups
III. Recognizing Propaganda Techniques
IV. How News Media Report Elections
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Voting and Elections
Section 2: Influencing Your Vote
Main Idea
Key Terms
Candidates use many different methods to
•Direct mail
influence voters, including advertising, direct
•Media
mail, bumper stickers, and personal
•Propaganda
appearances. Interest groups also campaign for
•Bias
candidates and issues they favor. The media
also influences voters by the way it covers
elections.
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Voting and Elections
Section 2: Influencing Your Vote
Messages From the Candidates
•Posters, Bumper Stickers, and Leaflets
•Personal Appearances and Debates
•Direct Mail
—
A way of sending messages to large groups of people through the mail
•The Internet
•Advertisements and the Media
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Media includes: Television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and the Internet
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Voting and Elections
Section 2: Influencing Your Vote
Messages from Interest Groups
•Interest Groups put out their share of direct mail and media.
•Interest Groups endorse candidates and/or donate money to
campaign funds.
—
Political Action Committees (PACs)
•
Part of an interest group that carries out election activities
•
PACs also give large amounts of money to campaigns for state and
national office.
•
U.S. senators running for reelection in 2002 received an average of
$860,000 from some of the 4,000 PACs.
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Voting and Elections
Section 2: Influencing Your Vote
Recognizing Propaganda Techniques
•Propaganda
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—
—
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A message that is meant to influence people’s ideas, opinions, or actions in a
certain way
Propaganda can include lies, half-truths, information meant to appeal to the
voter’s emotions, and information that is distorted.
Messages from candidates and PACs make use of many kinds of propaganda.
BE AWARE of these techniques; recognizing them will help you decide how to act
on the messages.
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Voting and Elections: Section 2
Analyze Diagrams: Propaganda Techniques
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Voting and Elections
Section 2: Influencing Your Vote
How News Media Report Elections
•Election News
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For the most part, the news media usually try not to show bias, or a favoring of
one point of view.
•Opinion Polls
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Polls can show which candidate voters favor at a certain time, why they like the
candidate, and what issues they think are most important.
•The Impact of Television
—
—
Many voters receive their information from television; thus television has
changed the way candidates run for office.
The “television candidate” must look good and be calm in front of the camera.
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Voting and Elections: Section 2
Section Reading Support Transparency
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