Page 254 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Med a and Electoral Campa gns |

nomination. Now, both political parties pick their candidate before they ever
hit the convention floor. In recent years, editors, journalists, and TV hosts
have complained that the national party conventions have become little more
than carefully choreographed infomercials, selling candidates and parties in
nationally televised feel-good events where balloons drop amid sparkling at-
mospheres, red, white and blue banners, and sounds of patriotic pop songs.
Throughout convention week, media time is filled with highly produced docu-
videos, carefully crafted rhetoric, and image-enhanced candidates. With so few
delegates willing to enter into on-camera debate in the name of party unity,
members of the news media have begun to ask what is left to cover. Some
networks now say they will no longer carry national presidential conventions
during prime time.

visuaL LanguagE
Election campaigns, ideally, should inform voters about the candidate’s past
political actions and current policy formulations in order to understand their
divergent visions of democracy and how their leadership will affect the country.
Yet viewers are often expected to judge candidates’ personal attributes, and even
qualities of character, such as integrity and trustworthiness, through pictures.
Television images of some candidates fail to convey those qualities. For example,
negative opinions of Michael Dukakis were evoked by images that seemed to
make his head appear too large, and his shoulders too small. He was labeled “a
wimp” during the presidential race against George H. W. Bush in 1988, a nega-
tive attribute based solely on appearance, not substance. Many credited much of
the success of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton to their ability to appear sincere
and humane on camera.

raCiaLLy CoDED visuaL mEssagEs in ThE
1988 PrEsiDEnTiaL CamPaign
Negative advertisements are able to create powerful impressions of candi-
dates and their positions, often using questionable visual strategies that evoke
anxiety and fear. The most historically significant example of such a campaign is
the racially charged presidential campaign of 1988 in which George H. W. Bush
defeated Michael Dukakis.
The 1988 Bush campaign, headed by Lee Atwater, exploited white fears of
black criminals by featuring Willie Horton in advertisements. After the Dem-
ocratic convention early in the race, Dukakis enjoyed high poll numbers, but the
Bush campaign conducted focus groups and found that the Horton incident
would be a damaging issue for Dukakis. Horton, in jail for murder, had raped
a white woman and assaulted her fiancé while on furlough from a Massachu-
setts prison. Three other white inmates had also escaped the furlough program,
one a police officer who committed murder while on leave. But the Republican
campaign focused on Horton. One ad designed by Bush supporters featured a
criminal mug shot of Horton, and the official campaign spot made it seem like