Candidates and Parties have an explicit right to provide the electorate information regarding their attributes, political agendas, and proposed plans. Besides meeting directly with members of the electorate, candidates and parties accomplish this task through campaigns via media. It is paramount to democratic electoral processes therefore, that all candidates and parties are provided equal access to media for this endeavour.
Candidates and parties use the mass media for campaigning through sponsored direct access spots, paid political advertising, televised debates, use of social media, and other mechanisms. They also hope the media will voluntarily cover them because of the newsworthiness of their campaign activities. Political parties expend vast human and financial resources on planning and executing mass media campaigns. The NDI Political Campaign Planning Manual[i] gives an idea of the extent of organisation involved.
The media have several roles in realising contestants’ right to campaign:
To create a level playing field is the first role. This entails equal access to state broadcasters and other state resources:
Among the most effective, but least analyzed, means of autocratic survival is an uneven playing field. In countries like Botswana, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Malawi, Mozambique, Senegal, Singapore, Tanzania, and Venezuela, democratic competition is undermined less by electoral fraud or repression than by unequal access to state institutions, resources, and the media.
An uneven playing field is less evident to outside observers than is electoral fraud or repression, but it can have a devastating impact on democratic competition.[ii]
Levelling the campaign playing field is one of the main justifications for regulation of media during elections. For more information, see the section on National-level Law and Regulations on Media and Elections.
Another key role of media in campaigning is balanced reporting, ensuring that candidates receive fair coverage. This is one reason why robust media monitoring is so important toward ensuring fair and free elections. Media professionalism and media literacy are also fundamental to this achievement.
[i] Political Campaigning Planning Manual: A Step by Step Guide to Winning Elections (Washington DC: National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, 2009)
[ii] Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, “Why Democracy Needs a Level Playing Field”, Journal of Democracy 21 (Jan 2010): 57
