Abstract:

Elections have the basic function in democracies. The powerful and main actor of the elections is the elector. Political party, candidate and the other partners keep the elector in the center. Political parties and candidates want to reach and receive elector’s vote by influencing him/her. Parties carry out campaign fort his purpose. The goals of political parties and candidates in their selection campaign is to convey their political messages to the elector by using the most appropriate means of communication, through attracting elector’s attention and to come to power by persuading and receiving the vote of the elector. Fort this goal, primarily, the messages given in the election campaign should attract elector’s attention and correspond to elector’s political thought and problems. In this study, we attempt to explain to what degree the campaign applications that attempt to communicate with the elector through using various media, methods and techniques by political parties and candidates, attract the attention of the elector. In this context, we conducted a survey over 429 persons in 2015 legislative general elections, and we analyzed the level of elector’s attention to the messages given, media, methods and techniques used. As the result of the study it is found that the political messages given through television, internet, social media and press, attract elector’s attention more than the other methods. On the contrary, in the campaign activities such as promotions, suitable visits, autocade, meetings, poll and election music cannot be said to be successful in attracting elector’s attention

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