Politics and the Mass Media:

Studies of the impact of mass media on political attitudes and behavior have generally concluded that the mass media do little more than reinforce prior preferences. These studies have painted a simplistic picture of how the mass media influences the electorate. Using the 1990 Australian National Election as a test case, results show that while the mass media have a significant impact on political attitudes and voting behavior, especially among respondents who viewed the political debates, this effect is specifically restricted to males. Thus, the mass media do have a direct effect on political outcomes, and this process appears to be an exclusively male phenomenon. Several explanations are discussed to account for this finding.