Audiovisual media in political activity

Abstract

In this paper a problem of using audiovisual mass media in political activity is investigated. The authors focus on the advantages of audiovisual media over print one: easier accessibility for consumers, a impact on their subconscious, much faster delivery of information messages to the public. These features of audiovisual media have led to their widespread use in politics, which has made political activity more effective.
 The main conclusions of this paper are that audiovisual media began to be used in politics shortly after their emergence. In accordance with the main stages of development of audiovisual media: cinema, television, the Internet — there was an improvement in technology for their use in politics. At the stage of cinema, anti-democratic (totalitarian) forces acquired a leading role in the use of audiovisual media, which began to use them as an effective means of political propaganda. At the stage of television, the primacy shifts to democracy, which was due to the pluralistic nature of democratic systems, in which the acquisition of power is due to free and competitive elections. At the stage of the Internet, when a large mass of ordinary citizens have the opportunity to publish their political views, opinions, projects in the electronic network, there are two mutually exclusive trends: autocratic regimes limit their citizens' access to the world information space, but at the same time try to destructive influence on the democratic world.
 The authors emphasize that this article is only their first attempt to outline the main directions of research on the impact of audiovisual media on the development of political activity. Due to the limited volume of this publication, some aspects of the problem were not reflected, which are planned to be covered in future publications.