Obama has got many supporters and i believe that media has an important hand in this. I could see how media has favoured Obama. Dont you think so?

I am not sure but the reason for this seems to be, that media has hyped the fact that Obama has been a traitor to his birth religion. This gives rise to curiosity amongst most of the sects, the ones belonging to the sect, he follows and the ones whom he belongs by birth.

The media target those that they think is media worthy and Obama has been doing more of these than McCain has. If McCain did more travelling the way Obama did, he'd have had more media attention.

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"Have you crashed your Windows today?"

yes i think that the media really gave a big support to Obama. Media plays a big role to many politicians and Obama's really lucky.

Studies are done from time to time in the United States regarding the media and whether it is biased towards the political left (liberal) viewpoint.

It appears that time after time, the result is that the media has a strongly liberal slant and as such, it shouldn't be surprising that the media would like to spend more time with those who share the same viewpoint. In the current United States election cycle, that would be Mr. Obama.

It appears, however, that the United States public doesn't really follow the media's opinion on these matters. While Obama certainly has the media's attention, he isn't up in the polls. Further, the same liberal slant has existed for decades and yet three of the past four United States presidents were somewhat conservative while only one was liberal.

It seems that the U.S. public understands the liberal slant and accepts it, but doesn't really care. Actually, to be more precise, there is a large segment of the United States population that simply ignores the media.

One of the major surprises in the 2004 election was that John Kerry was viewed as having a comfortable lead going into election day and yet he lost the election by a large margin. I suspect that the segment of the population that ignores the media's liberal slant, also doesn't take political polls because they distrust them. As such, any polling prior to election day will favor the liberal candidate. The fact that polls are showing Mr. Obama to be down 1-2 percent, might be understating the situation somewhat. I suspect that he may be down by more than than.

-- Jeff

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"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." --Ronald Reagan

I'm sorry to say but those of us who do out research know that the 2004 election was stolen by the republicans by the means of the electronic voting machines. I'm not going to waste an hour trying to convince you of this, do your own research, its not hard to find.

As for the majority of the public in the USA not paying any attention to media. What a load of crap. Do you believe that every company in America who pays hundreds of billions a year for advertising would spend this money if they did not have scientific proof of the effects of media on peoples opinions and thoughts? And the fact is that Obama stands with the 95% of us who are not doing well under republican or should I say neocon leadership. The 5 percenters are going bankrupt. Capitalism has taken a bad blow and will never recover to what it was a year ago and I say good riddance.
Don't worry, there are those of us who have something in mind to step in and give you something to believe in that will be much fairer to all of those involved.

Wow, Taki,

They stole the election by using electronic voting machines. Actually there were a few court cases brought with these charges. They were all thrown out due to lack of evidence. Certainly there are those who still believe the charges, just as there are those who believe that Dick Cheney piloted cruise missiles into the World Trade Center buildings and that WTC7 was dropped by demolition charges. There isn't any evidence to support those claims either, but nonetheless, that is where some people put their faith.

Just consider that the Republican party, in order to do so, and to do so without leaving any evidence, would have to had a nationwide conspiracy that included literally hundreds of thousands of people who ran voting booths, who ran election departments, etc. in every city in the United States. Such a conspiracy would have to have included many people who were not Republicans because many of the election departments are run by non-Republicans. Yet with all of these hundreds of thousands of people involved in such a conspiracy, there has yet to emerge any credible evidence that the conspiracy took place even though many of the people that must have been involved are opposed to the current administration. It just doesn't seem likely.

As to the media impact. I will say that there are two problems with your assumption. First, until recently, all media slanted the same way (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, etc.). When the viewing public has limited options, they will watch whatever is on, even if they disagree with it. As such, advertisers had a safe bet that their ads would be watched even though the public might disagree with the opinions presented on the shows. Once some alternative viewpoints (most notably Fox News which is still slanted left although not to the extreme of the others) came onto the scene, there was a huge shift towards those alternative stations which is why Fox News has the highest ratings of all television news channels. Secondly, there is the nature of advertising in general. Businesses are going to place advertisements wherever they can get viewed by enough people. Very few products have a political slant (both liberals and conservatives drive cars, drink coffee, use computers, etc.). Businesses are apolitical and with good reason. They exist to make money and thus cannot afford to alienate half of their potential consumers. They will advertise wherever they believe they can get a return on their advertising money, regardless of the political leanings of the medium. A viewer, regardless of whether or not they agree with a network's leanings, may still purchase an advertised product on that network (if they are watching it at all). Note that today Fox News, having the highest ratings, commands higher prices for advertisements and businesses are paying it because they reach a larger audience with that investment. So it doesn't necessarily follow that people are largely going to be influenced by the media, they are simply going to seek out media that they can agree with and filter out what they don't.
It is also generally acknowledged that in any given election, 80-90% of the nation will vote along party lines (about half Democrat and half Republican), and the election is decided by the remaining 10-20%. That suggests that the media cannot sway 80-90% of the population with their leanings. Doesn't sound like the majority of the United States is swayed by the media then. Only a small majority (generally less than 20%) are swayed by the combination of the leanings of the media, the candidates' own statements, their friends and relatives, etc. As such, my statement that there is a large segment of the United States public that simply ignores the media slant is true.

Your use of the term 'neocon' as a derogative term really states my position well. By using that term, you identify yourself as one of those 80-90% of the nation that cannot be swayed by the media. You have made up your mind and even if the media suddenly gave 100% of its attention to Mr. McCain, you would still support Mr. Obama. That is fine, but it also proves my point that the media doesn't really have much impact on people's thinking.

-- Jeff

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"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." --Ronald Reagan