(Dimtrova et al., 2011). Since the discovery of social media, for example, many political parties have ventured in them to reach as many people as possible. The parties run accounts in social media like Facebook, twitter, blogs, and also the other social media sites for popularity. They also use these sites to popularize and campaign for their candidates. Due to this high level mobilization, participation in the elections has increased. When people are mobilized from different angles by the different media houses involved, an increase in voter participation is realized.

However, the proliferation of the media has come up with challenges to the political parties. Commercialization of the media has seen the political parties part with a lot of money in order to be covered (Puhringer et al., 2008). Also, some media houses tend to be biased, and contribute greatly in undermining the efforts of a political party. This applies mostly to the media houses that are owned by individuals.In regard to media bias, some questions can be used to determine a biased content by a media house. For example, a media house that reports about only one side of the political divide always, tends to be biased. Additionally, a close scrutiny of the content of the media house can tell whether it is inclining on one side of the divide.

References

Dimitrova, V. D., Shehata, A., Stromback, J., & Nord, W.L. (2011). The effects of digital media on a political knowledge and participation on political campaigns: Evidence from panel data. Communication Research, 41(1), 95-118.

Puhringer, K., Dahinden, U., Rademacher, M.G., & Siegert, G. (2008). Challenges to the political campaigns in the media: the commercialization, framing and personalization. National Center for Competence in Research.