The Alienated American Voter: Are the News Media to Blame?

The Alienated American Voter The Alienated American Voter: Are the News Media to Blame? Student’s Name Institution’s Name Instructor’s Name Course Name Abstract The American voter has alienated himself from politics and the voters turn out is decreasing with every election. Millions of dollars were spent on the electoral campaigns in 1992 and 1996 yet the voters turn out was not even 20%. What has caused the American voter to feel so alienated towards politics? In light of Harwood’s views the reasons, symptoms and measure of this alienation are explored. Further more what role the media has played in aggravating this alienation and what other factors have played their respective roles, is discussed. The Alienated American Voter: Are the News Media to Blame? The American voter feels alienated because he does not understand what is going on and Richard Harwood (1996) suggests that this is so because the newspapers fail to speak his language. He is more like Lippmann’s back row deaf spectator who though, has a vague sense of being attached to a system, but does not actually understand the working of that system. The fact which is clear enough for the average man and woman is that political power is as unevenly distributed as wealth in our democracy and this further alienates them from politics. This alienation can easily be measured by observing the numbers of people who can’t even name their representatives in the congress and fail to identify even the chief justice of the United States of America (Harwood, 1996, p.32). The numbers of people who do not vote in the local or presidential elections also show the measure of alienation that has developed towards politics. Harwood quotes the fact that when concepts like self government and citizen legislator were being implemented politics was considered to be the office of a very few privileged men and even voting was entitled to those who held some position. But with time and the hard work of reformers and “muckrackers” who in dream of a “clean” government and “clean” elections trie...