179 B. Reading: Media and Election Campaigns
Learning Objectives
After reading this section, you should be able to answer the following questions:
- How do candidates present and use political advertising in their campaigns?
- How do candidates manage campaign debates? How do media influence debates?
- What is the nature of campaign media coverage? How do campaigns attempt to influence election coverage?
Campaigns want to influence media coverage in their candidate’s favor. They seek to dominate the election agenda, frame and prime issues, and have the media transmit their message of the day. The proliferation and diversity of modes of communication makes this complicated. Campaigns attempt to control their political advertisements and influence debates. They try to set the news-media agenda, but the relationship is uncertain at best.[1]
Political Advertisements
Television and radio advertisements are essential elements of election campaigns.[2] Ads capitalize on people’s beliefs and values. They are often designed to arouse emotions, such as anxiety and fear, hope and enthusiasm.[3] They attract attention with dramatic visuals, sounds, and slogans. They sometimes exaggerate, even distort, information.
Candidate advertising in the information age has become more complex as campaigns seek to disseminate their ads through multiple platforms. Candidates release ads on candidate and political-party websites and on video-sharing platforms, such as YouTube and Hulu. Ads also are posted or linked on news sites and blogs.
Ad Formats
Ads come in many formats, but even now when glitzy techniques are available, the talking head, in which the candidate speaks directly to the audience, is common. Other formats are testimonials from people enthusiastically supporting the candidate and documentary ads utilizing footage of the candidate campaigning. Ads that utilize a “self-incrimination” of the opponent can be devastating. In 1992, the Clinton campaign ran an effective ad juxtaposing President George H. W. Bush’s positive comments about the economy with data showing its decline.
Ads can use a panoply of visual and sound techniques. Distance (tight close-ups can be unflattering), angles (camera shots that look up make an individual seem more powerful), movement (slow motion suggests criminality), editing (people looking at a candidate with adoration or disgust)—all these techniques influence viewers’ reactions. Color also influences perceptions: blue reassures, red threatens. Candidates often are shown in flattering color while the opponent is depicted in sinister black and white. Morphing, electronically changing and blending photographs and other visuals, can identify candidates with unpopular figures, such as Adolf Hitler.
Attack Ads
Attack ads denounce elements of the opponent’s record, image, and issue positions.[4] They have been criticized as “the crack cocaine of politics” and for being demeaning and misleading. They also have been praised as “political