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| Photo credit: flickr.com |
2018 has been a significant year
for Pakistan’s democratic transition. In July, general elections took place,
and the country made a historic decision by electing Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf
(PTI), led by Imran Khan for the first time. The PTI’s election campaign
revolved around slogans of ‘accountability for all’ and removal of corruption
with many arguing that we must celebrate the success of democracy and the rise
of a new government.
What are the underlying factors
that help voters choose public representatives and form perceptions about
politicians? What role does the media play in ensuring the functioning of
democracy? How can we, as voters, become more critical evaluators of our representatives?
Within this blog, I will discuss few theories of the media, and will hope that just being aware of these theories themselves will allow us to be more critical in our evaluations of the candidates we vote for and politics in general.
Problems with the media are two
fold. Firstly, there may be an issue with what the media chooses to cover –
the agenda-setting theory of the media. Secondly, there remains an issue with
the information which we choose to expose ourselves to – homophily.
The agenda-setting theory of the
media states, that the “choice of covering an issue, and the amount of coverage
devoted to it, affects viewers’ or readers’ tendency to judge politicians on
the basis of the issues covered”[1].
Anecdotal evidence, for example, suggests that some voters of PTI consider
corruption a salient issue and think of Imran Khan as being morally sound and
thus better than the alternatives. This
is an ideal example of agenda-setting. Imran Khan’s election campaign was
focused around a need for greater accountability and the removal of corrupt
politicians. Agenda-setting may cause us to ignore many salient policy issues
and topics as we narrow down our focus to those that are repeatedly highlighted
by the media (or the politicians themselves). While it is not incorrect to
evaluate how corrupt a politician is, in my opinion, it should not be the sole
factor upon which we must decide who to vote for. Issues such as a monetary
vision (one that is broader than just calling people out for corruption), social
policies, and foreign policy are just a handful of other topics according to
which we may judge the candidacy of our politicians.
Homophily is the tendency of an
individual to interact with like-minded people and content in socially
significant ways[2].
It is found in many networks and societal settings; something which can be
explained intuitively; most people subscribe to beliefs that affirm their point
of views as it saves them the intellectual cost of coming across content they
do not already believe in – a confirmation bias. Homophily may explain the way
we choose which news channels to watch or newspapers to read as well. Perhaps
we expose ourselves to those which are closest to our pre-existing biases. This
in itself is not a problem; however, it becomes a problem when there are so
many belief systems to subscribe to that we take the opportunity to listen only,
or at least mostly, to those points of views we find most agreeable. Through
homophily, our biases are continuously reinstated within our cohorts, one where
we are not exposed to cross-cutting content.
In order to maintain a certain level
of objectivity and thus eventually exercise better choice, it is important to
remove our biases to the best of our abilities. Far too often, we are guilty of
choosing our cohorts in a manner that is ideologically comfortable for us,
harmful maybe, but comfortable certainly. Being aware of homophily will not
only help us attain greater objectivity but also enable us to decipher between
news that is accurate and that which is not – but which we may believe anyways
because it confirms our biases.
The media remains the primary
instrument through which we assess the performance of all political parties. The
media itself, however, is susceptible to highlighting certain policy issues
more than others, and also portraying these issues in a certain light. Being
aware of the agenda-setting theory of the media and our vulnerability to
homophily will help us become better-informed, and thus become better voters.
While it is not possible to completely remove our biases, we must make a
conscious effort to interact with content which we do not already believe in;
however content which actually shifts our priors should ideally be backed by
intellect, rationale, and facts. An informed electorate is perhaps the most
significant prerequisite to the functioning of a successful democracy.
[1] Ferrera,
Eliana La. “Media as a Tool for Institutional Change in Development.” Economic
Development & Institutions, 2016: 9.
[2] Bisgin,
Halil, and Nitin Agarwal. “A study of homophily on social media.” World Wide
Web, 2012:214
