Voters don’t like pre-campaigning: study
Written by Jesus F. Llanto
Saturday, 14 March 2009
Here’s a reminder to politicians aspiring for national positions in the 2010 elections: increased exposure on television and other forms of media may not make them desirable to voters.
A study presented on Saturday by University of the Philippines students on perceptions of media presence of possible presidential and vice presidential candidates showed that high visibility in the media of personalities aspiring for the top two positions for the 2010 elections does not equate to desirability of potential candidates.
The study, IMPRESS10N: Importance of Media Presence on the Bid for the 2010 National Elections, by students of the University of the Philippines Communication Research Department, showed that increasing exposure of potential candidates through the media may not improve their desirability since most voters draw a connection between media visibility and pre-campaigning.
“In the last couple of months, certain public officials have appeared in daily newscasts and newspaper front pages more than they used to, while some have become endorsers of commercial products or spokesperson in public service advertisements. Interestingly, this increased appearance of politicians in the media becomes even more suspicious as we draw closer to the 2010 national elections,” the study noted.
Eighty-three percent of the respondents, the study said, believed that “name recall, publicity, popularity and media mileage, or simply put, pre-campaigning was the motivation behind the potential candidates’ media presence,” the study said. Meanwhile, only 16 percent believed that their presence in the media was work-related.
