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In an advertisement analysis campaign, it was found that “campaigns with purely emotional content performed about twice as well as those with only rational content” (Seitner 2014).

This statistic speaks volumes about the way in which the media gains viewership through evoking emotion. This viral image became the pinacle focus of an election campaign because of the effects it had on the population. 

The media is a powerful vessel, delivering information to people all over the world, but can it ever truly be objective in its deliverance? The media is constantly seeking to gain profit so there is motivation to not always be objective with the facts. Audiences are far more inturiged by controvery and scandals in the media and the world of politics is full of both. Had the leaders of each political party agreed upon how to handle the Syrian refugee crisis, it would not have become a prominent media election issue. 

Syrian Refugees in Canada

 

The role that the media has played in framing the public's feelings toward the Syrian Refugee crisis and in turn, the Canadian elections. 

The Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP disputed about how many refugees to resettle, how quickly to resettle them, how to fund the resettlement, how to screen refugees etc. Some viewpoints were more favourable with Candadian citizens than others. For example, Trudeau was keen to make a difference in the crisis and pledged to take immediate action to get as many Syrians as possible into Canada as quickly as possible. Harper, on the other hand was a bit more reluctant to start accepting mass amounts of refugees and wanted to do as much as he could for the people still on Syrian ground and in refugee camps. Many Canadian citizens were unimpressed with Harper's seemingly cold hearted approach to the issue and sided with Trudeau, despite the fact that once elected, Trudeau had to set a new deadline for his promise to have 25,000 refugees resettled in Canada before the new year. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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