Studying the role of the media in the voter turnout: Systematic Review of relevant articles between 2011-2019

Studying the role of the media in the voter turnout: Systematic Review of relevant articles between 2011-2019
Zahra Ojagh[1]
 
 
Abstract
This study is a systematic review of researches in the field of voter turnout and wants to identify the influencing factors on Iranian voter turnout. Four scientific databases were searched using keywords and 125 appropriate articles were recognized. Systematic review was done by specific protocol. The findings from systematic review suggest that research in this area has dealt with three categories that are media consumption, political marketing and advertising. The results show that there is a positive relationship between mass media consumption and political participation in general, but the form or type of media consumption affects it. Most studies focused on social media show that the relationship between social media use and political participation is positive, but the relationship between social media consumption and voter turnout is negative. The positive relationship between the use of newspapers, radio and television with political participation has been reported, but the effect of watching satellite programs on political participation has been assessed as more negative. According to these studies, the use of traditional political marketing tools and critical view to the current situation will increase voter turnout. The results also show the candidates' disregard for socially disadvantaged groups and development programs.
 
Keywords: Political participation, Voter turnout, Media, Systematic review
 
 
 
Introduction
Elections are the most obvious and measurable type of people's participation in the political arena. Since the 1990s, on the one hand, the number of countries that use direct parliamentary elections has increased, and on the other hand, the participation in elections has decreased in all countries (Solijonov, 2016). This issue has raised concerns about the role of the people and their will in the legislation and control of the rulers. However, it should be noted that the decrease in voter turnout does not necessarily mean that people become neutral and passive towards politics, and in many cases it happens quite consciously and as a protest or resistance movement. Iran is one of the countries that had more than 50% participation in most of the elections before 2018, and increasing the voter turnout has always been important for the officials of this country. In the parliamentary elections of 2018, which was said to be the lowest electoral participation of Iranians, the participation rate was 42.57 percent. It seems that the pattern of voter turnout is the same in most countries. However, various factors affect the voter turnout, which are contextual and appear in different ways in different societies. Identifying these factors in Iran can improve our understanding of the factors affecting voter turnout and planning for it. One of these factors is the media.
 
Purpose
Narrative review as a valuable method for research that can provide an image of the state of research trend in a specific field and summarize its findings for decision-making and policy-making, has attracted the attention of researchers in various fields. It is specially placed for medical and social sciences. However, so far, the studies on elections and political participation have not been summarized and integrated with a review method either in a narrative or systematic way. Considering the multitude of Iranian studies about participation in elections and the factors influencing the voter turnout, and considering its importance, identifying the influencing factors on participation in different regions and collecting them can identify both the characteristics of these findings and the lack of studies in this field. The results of this study can be used in policy making and election management. Therefore, the purpose of this study, focusing on media and communication, is to do narrative review the published papers about voter turnout in Iran. This paper is looking for an answer to the question of how much and how the media shape the voting behavior of Iranians.
 
 
Methodology
In this project, we employed a qualitative research method, and narrative review technique was used to collect data. The statistical population of this study, which was conducted in 2018, includes all papers related to the subject, which were conducted with different qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods. To select samples, papers were obtained from four databases i.e., google scholar, SID, Noormags.ir, ensani.ir, using four keywords, i.e. voter turnout, voting behavior, elections, and electoral behavior. The focus is on Persian articles and the used keywords are also written in Persian. Considering that political participation is influenced by background conditions, the focus of this study is on recent studies that have been conducted in the eight-year period (2010-2018). overally 460 papers identified in these databases were matched with each other, so, 168 paper were identified without overlap. Their abstracts were studied and finally, 33 papers related to the research topic were identified, which were published between 2011 and 2017 .
Findings
The findings of the study show that the quantitative approach and the survey method are dominant methodologically,and students, professors and employees of Isfahan University have been studied more. The research studies carried out on voter turnout with a focus on identifying the role of the media on the voting behavior of Iranians can be classified into three general categories:

Media consumption: many papers have addressed this issue and have emphasized more on virtual space, the Internet and internet-based media, and less on satellite and much less on traditional media such as television and newspapers.
Advertisement: This group of studies have paid more attention to the content of advertising posters.
Political marketing: In the last eight years, it has been the focus of Iranian researchers and academics and they are trying to study the concept, strategy and tools of traditional and modern political marketing. Most of these studies are looking for solutions and strategies to present to selected candidates.

 
Conclusion
The results of this study show that one of the expectations in the days close to the elections is that the media should intervene and invite the people to participate as much as possible. This approach comes from the belief in the view of the maximum effect of the media, which assumes a one-way and single-factor relationship between the media and behavior change. The prevalence of this reductionist view in Iranian society is such that, other social and political behaviors of Iranians are also attributed to the media, especially virtual space and satellite. However, the multitude of variables involved in issues such as voter turnout, the amount of voting and its direction is such that, it makes it impossible to establish any definite cause and effect link between the media, including new media, and political action and behavior. The results of the narrative review show that that radio, television and newspapers definitely have a positive effect on political participation, but one cannot have such a definite opinion about other media. It can be said that the content of the media is a determinant variable. In the perspective of how to create and distort facts, traditional media have critical role, and new media are important in the perspective of producing, distributing and spreading rumors which can make problems and issues for elections. Also, they have an effect on the type of participation and development of the public sphere. Other variables such as the feeling of effectiveness, the age of the audience, their social class, the competitiveness of the elections and people's feelings play important role in this regard. In the perspective of marketing, the results indicate the effectiveness of traditional marketing tools, the candidate's communication ability, criticism of the status quo, and emphasis on pole makers, which increase voter turnout. Integrated Political Marketing Communications and branding of electoral candidate have an increasing effect on voter turnout. Studies focusing on advertising posters also show the indifference of election candidates to marginalized social groups. The content of these posters emphasize welfare and are not in line with development. This review shows that the studies conducted regarding the role of the media in increasing or decreasing voter turnout in the last 10 years are not very much. So, on average, 3 researches related to this field have been published yearly. Considering the studies that have been done in the field of political marketing and advertising, as well as the few cities that have been studied; It can be said that the field of political communication with an emphasis on elections requires research focus and conducting more studies.
Novelty
No previous research has been done regarding the narrative review of the relation between media consumption and voter turnout to present an overall image in this field. The advantage of this study is that by using the methodological approach of narrative review, it has tried to uncover the tree mainstream subjects of research in this field that are media consumption, political advertisement and, political marketing.