Page 255 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

| Med a and Electoral Campa gns

many dangerous murderers had escaped while on furlough. Though untrue,
the grainy black and white images of dark criminals walking though prison
gates raised fears about the program, and misrepresented the facts. Viewers
were not told the program was actually started by a previous Republican gover-
nor. After the election, critics pointed out that the metaphor of a white woman
being raped by a black man has long been associated with white fear toward
African Americans, and the coded visual language of the attack ads excited
those fears.
Negative attack ads have become features of most media campaigns, and
while some say they contain useful information for the electorate, others argue
that the visual manipulation of pictures and graphic imagery create implied
meanings hard for candidates to address in issues debates. Voters now regularly
assert that they do not like it when candidates “go negative,” and would like to
hear more about issues, but polling data shows ironically that negative adver-
tisements are often effective tools in winning elections.

CanDiDaTEs anD PoPuLar mEDia
During the 1990s, political candidates broke out of the confines of serious
news programming and began to visit shows across the media spectrum. From
Bill Clinton playing the saxophone on Arsenio Hall, to George W. Bush talk-
ing to Regis and Kathy Lee, presidential candidates now make appearances on
Saturday Night Live and other late-night venues as well. Viewers want to see the
candidates in casual, unscripted settings where they can be themselves, and such
appearances bring the democratic process into the daily lives of millions of di-
verse potential voters. Oftentimes, however, the potential for serious discussion
is overshadowed by more trivial fare that has come to be known as “politics lite.”
Many serious topics could be discussed and debated on talk shows, but hosts
such as Oprah mostly ask candidates questions about what they ate for breakfast
and which is their favorite color. Such personal trivial pursuits of the candidates
led one MTV viewer to ask Bill Clinton if he wore “boxers or briefs?”
When George W. Bush appeared with Regis Philbin during the 2000 election,
he opened his jacket for viewers to see what he was wearing. Governor Bush
was dressed like the celebrity host, wearing the dark matching signature tie and
shirt, the Regis line of clothes. By doing so, the candidate was using celebrity as-
sociation, a marketing strategy that seeks to transfer the popularity of the host
onto the politician. In this way, candidates now sell an image of themselves to
media audiences and associate themselves with the popularity already enjoyed
by celebrities, hoping to turn that recognition into votes without having to elab-
orate their political views. In contemporary media-driven campaigns, voters are
often entertained as audiences and addressed as consumers, not informed as
citizens or provided with political positions.
News figures have criticized the candidates for doing what they call feel-good
interviews on talk shows like Regis, Oprah, and Rosie O’Donnell, allowing them
to avoid the serious press with their tough questions. But the “serious” press has
also been criticized for not asking issue-oriented questions during campaigns.