ABSTRACT

In western society，media is compared as the “forth right”, the connotation of metaphor is that mass media constitute a kind of social power which is totally different from another three political powers (legislation, administration, judiciary). In fact, TV debate is a production of the development of mass media and American democracy.

The United States is considered as a country with high degree of democracy. TV debate in the U.S. presidential election was initiated in 1960s. It is the time that mass media developed rapidly in the United State. With the development of the media technology, TV was used by the candidates for spreading their policy, as it can combine both visual and auditory senses, and disseminate a wide range of audience. TV debates provided the candidates for the presidency a platform to show themselves, therefore, the candidates did not only pay attention to their publicity of political ideas, they began to pay much more attention to their personal images in the screen as well, for it makes people to have a more comprehensive understanding of the presidential candidates, thus it makes the election fair and transparent. The government political issues raised by the candidates in the debate, to some extent, improved the transparency of the U.S. government, thus promoting the process of democracy in the United States. However, some problems also existed in the process of television debate, such as the candidates excessively emphasized on personal images, such kind of problems exposed the limitation of TV debate.

Key words: democracy; media; American presidential election; TV debates

CONTENTS

摘要

ABSTRACT

I. Introduction-5

II.the background of TV debate-6

1.-The reasons for the development of TV debates-6

1.1 The development of Election system-6

1.2 The relationship between mass media and politics-6

2. The development of TV debates-7

III.The influence of TV debates-8

1. Establish good images for candidates-8

2. Detailed informations of candidates-9

3. Promoting government transparency-10

4. Promoting the development of democracy:-10

IV. limitation of TV debates-11

1.-Candidate’s attention being drawn to appearance-11

2. Not inevitable-11

3.-Does it pay?:-12

4. Problems created on candidate’s moral quality-12

V. Conclusion-12

References..13