Media has had a positive effect on politics. Things such as youtube help politicians get their ideas out to the public in a very easy efficient way, and just about everyone has access to the internet so it is a great way to capture people's attention. And this gives people the chance to develop their own ideas and beliefs. Also, media has helped the general public have knowledge of what is going on in the political world and in the government. For example, many people in the media such as journalists and people who write for newspapers or write articles online or anywhere have the ability to let the general public know what is going on in the government, which informs people about what is going on. This makes it difficult for the government to try to cover things up or sort of stretch the truth to something that may have happened differently. With more and more people in the media writing about the government, it is much more likely that there is someone somewhere that will know the truth which will cause the government to be very truthful in any statement they make.

I think that the media has ultimately had a negative impact on the political system. Rather than properly informing voters about political issues, media has allowed for a lot of biased or incorrect ideas to be spread through television, radio, or internet. Spoofs and parodies pinpoint certain flaws of each candidates, causing voters to base their decisions on images of candidates that might not be completely accurate. I think that media tends to be a distraction from real politics, because the primary purpose of political media is entertainment, not necessarily information. Media also changes the way that politicians campaign, and it leads to candidates caring more about creating a perfect image than actually backing that image up.