Page 119 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

AN INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

information about policy. Rather, the fears, anxieties, and deep-rooted
desires of a culture should be uncovered and tapped into, and then
associated with a particular candidate.
In 1964 Schwarz pioneered this method with the ‘Daisy’
advertisement, made for Lyndon Johnson’s presidential campaign
against right-wing republican Barry Goldwater. The advertisement
began with the image of a little all-American girl, sitting in a field
and plucking the petals from a daisy. As she does so, she counts ‘one,
two, three’, etc. Then, this idyllic image of American childhood is
shattered by the rude intervention of another, male voice, counting
down ‘ten, nine, eight’ to zero, at which point the screen is filled
with the dramatic image of a thermonuclear explosion. A voiceover
then tells the viewer that to avoid this scenario he or she should vote
for Johnson and not Goldwater.
The advertisement works by surfacing the widespread anxiety of
the American people (at the height of the Cold War), about the
dangers of nuclear annihilation in conflict with the Soviet Union,
and linking that danger with the policies of the Republican candidate.
Goldwater was vulnerable in this respect because of his openly
hawkish attitude to the Soviets, and a tendency to make jokes about
‘dropping atom bombs in the men’s room at the Kremlin’. Schwarz’s
spot exploited Goldwater’s reputation and made it work on behalf
of the Democratic candidate.
The manifest emotionality of the ad’s construction generated
controversy at the time, and indeed such was the feeling of outrage
at the use of such manipulative tactics that it was shown only once
during the campaign (and once in the context of a news item).
Subsequently, however, the emotional appeal has become a routinely
deployed tactic, if not always in such dramatic fashion. In 1984 the
Reagan re-election campaign produced a ‘Morning for America’ spot,
depicting in glossy rustic tints an America of hard-working, God-
fearing pioneers. The advertisement tapped into what the campaign’s
researchers had established was a deep longing amongst many
Americans for a past and a country like the one depicted in the film.
The ‘American dream’, or myth, was then attached to the concept of
the Reagan presidency.
The same strategy was applied by the Reagan campaign team to
foreign policy. In one spot a deep, soothing voice warned viewers
that ‘there’s a bear in the woods’. Here, the Reagan campaign was
manipulating the fear of communism and the ‘Russian bear’.
Demonising the Soviets was of course a central feature of Reagan’s
presidency, and this ad sought to identify him with the defence against

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