Literature Review on Elections, Political Campaigning and Democracy

Citizens in a democracy participate in a mediated environment. We cannot have personal conversations with all candidates nor first-hand experience of different policy issues and areas. Instead, we rely on the transmission of information through different media and by various actors to receive political messages. These include the values and actions of parties and candidates and the effects these values and actions have on society and the planet. This is a literature review which answers the following research question: ‘How have past and recent scholars theorized how the digital influences elections?’ Each text was chosen either because it was requested by the OxTEC committee or because the author felt that it would help readers to develop an understanding of influence in elections. Many other texts and subtopics were considered for analysis.