Media Power and the Ballot: How Mass and Social Media Shaped Voter Turnout in Pakistan’s 2013 General Election

Abstract

This paper is aimed to investigate role of mass media in increasing turnout in general election 2013 in Pakistan that how much mass media put influence on the people through different types (TV, Newspaper and social media etc) in increasing voter turnout general election held in 2013. The objective of the present study was to explore relationship between exposure to Mass Media and voter turnout in General Election. As this time level of turnout was 11% higher than General Election 2008 after the general election1977. For this purpose, one hundred and twenty-five registered voters were selected from two different constituencies which was NA-104 and NA-105 of district Gujrat. The findings of this study reveal that all types of mass media in general and Tv specifically was considered the most influential medium to motivate the people to cast vote. In this paper role of judiciary as well as election commission of Pakistan was also explored that how in which way both these institutions motivated the people to cast vote