Air Wars

Television Advertising and Social Media in Election Campaigns, 1952-2016

Darrell M. West

• Publisher: CQ Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781506329857
• Edition: 7
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Campaigns & Elections
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Tracing the evolution of political advertising from 1952 through 2016, Darrell M. West returns with his much anticipated Seventh Edition of Air Wars: Television Advertising and Social Media in Election Campaigns, 1952-2016. Integrating the latest data and key events from the 2016 campaigns—including the most provocative presidential campaign in recent decades and the surprising victory of Donald Trump—West provides in-depth examination and insight into how candidates plan and execute advertising and social media campaigns, how the media covers these campaigns, and how American voters are ultimately influenced by them. This new edition includes coverage of social media campaigning, nano-targeting strategies in a fragmented electorate, and thorough analysis of the 2016 presidential campaign, from the candidates' use of Twitter to concerns over falsehoods and deception, the impact of ads and debates on candidate perceptions, and the risks to democratic elections from new campaign developments. FREE POSTER: Fact or Fiction? Use this checklist to avoid the pitfalls posed by the rise of fake news

Chapter 1 The History of Communications

The 2016 election took place against the backdrop of a recovering economy but a chaotic world scene. Voters faced a stark policy choice between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump. After serving as Secretary of State to President Barack Obama, Clinton sought to frame the campaign as a contest between two radically different temperaments. Through advertisements, social media, and campaign appeals, she portrayed Trump as a divisive man who was too erratic to be president. If elected, she claimed, he would pose tremendous risks for the country and the world.

New communications technologies were a big part of the outreach. The media environment included old channels, such as newspapers, radio, and television, but also a dizzying array of novel options such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, and Google. Campaigners had to blend campaign appeals through various channels to an electorate highly segmented into different niches.

Billionaire Trump meanwhile called his opponent “crooked Hillary” and claimed she was not trustworthy and would not exercise good judgment as president. He promised to repeal Obamacare, build a wall along the southern border with Mexico, cut corporate and individual taxes, and rip up existing trade agreements. The former television reality star had over 12 million followers on Twitter and complained about Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server. In an outcome that shocked the experts, Trump lost the popular vote but defeated Clinton in the Electoral College.

In this as in other years, there were many efforts at campaign mobilization, targeting, turnout, and persuasion. However, not all communications produced the same results. Some ads and social media outreach efforts worked, whereas others did not. To determine which activities are effective, analysts must look at candidate strategies, media responses, and voter reactions. Through detailed studies of campaigns over the past several decades, this book shows how to assess political messages and their impact on the electorate.

From Newspapers and Television to the Internet and Social Media

From the earliest days of the Republic, communications have been essential to political campaigns. During his races, Thomas Jefferson was accused of being the “anti-Christ.” In 1828, handbills distributed by Andrew Jackson’s supporters portrayed John Quincy Adams as “driving off with a horsewhip a crippled old soldier who dared to speak to him, to ask an alms.” A circular distributed by Adams’s forces, meanwhile, attacked Jackson for “ordering other executions, massacring Indians, stabbing a Samuel Jackson in the back, murdering one soldier who disobeyed his commands, and hanging three Indians.”¹

The method, though perhaps not the tone, of communicating with the electorate has changed dramatically since 1828. Handbills have virtually disappeared. Radio became the most popular vehicle in the 1920s and 1930s. After World War II, television emerged as the advertising medium of choice for political candidates. And in the twenty-first century, the media marketplace has fragmented into a bewildering variety of communication options such as talk radio, the World Wide Web, social media, and late-night entertainment shows.

A new digital lexicon has appeared that distinguishes banner ads (large boxes that span the top of a website), interstitial ads (spots that flash while a website is being loaded), pop-up ads (spots that appear after a website is loaded), transactional ads (spots that allow viewers to make a purchase or request information), rich media ads (spots that have audio, video, or motion embedded within them), and vapor ads (spots that disappear quickly after airing).² Somehow, in this multifaceted situation, candidates must figure out how to reach voters who will decide key election contests.

The 1952 presidential campaign was the first one to feature television ads. In that year, each party ran television and print ads evoking World War II memories. Republicans, in an effort to support Gen. Dwight Eisenhower and break two decades of Democratic control, reminded voters in a New York Times ad that “one party rule made slaves out of the German people until Hitler was conquered by Ike.” Not to be outdone, Democratic ads informed voters that “General Hindenburg, the professional soldier and national hero, [was] also ignorant of domestic and political affairs. . . . The net result was his appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor.”³

In the 1960s, television spots highlighted differences in candidates’ personal traits. The 1964 presidential campaign with Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater was one of the most negative races since the advent of television. Johnson’s campaign characterized Goldwater as an extremist not to be trusted with America’s future. One five-minute ad, “Confession of a Republican,” proclaimed, “This man scares me. . . . So many men with strange ideas are working for Goldwater.”⁴ Johnson’s “Daisy” ad made a similar point in a more graphic manner. Along with speeches and news coverage, the visual image of a mushroom cloud rising behind a little girl picking daisies in a meadow helped raise doubts about Goldwater’s fitness for office in the nuclear age, even though a firestorm of protest forced the ad off the air after only one showing.

Ads in the 1970s and 1980s took advantage of public fear about the economy. When the United States started to experience the twin ills of inflation and unemployment, a phenomenon that led experts to coin a new word, stagflation, campaign commercials emphasized economic themes. In 1980, Republican challenger Ronald Reagan effectively used ads to criticize economic performance under President Jimmy Carter. When the economy came roaring back in 1984, Reagan’s serene “Morning in America” ad communicated the simple message that prosperity abounded and the United States was at peace.

The 1988 presidential contest was the zenith of attack politics in the post–World War II period. This campaign illustrated the powerful ability of ads to alter impressions of a candidate who was not well known nationally. Early in the summer of 1988, Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis held a 17 percentage-point lead over his Republican rival, then vice president George H. W. Bush. Women preferred Dukakis over Bush by a large margin, and the governor was doing well among blacks, elderly citizens, and Democrats who previously had supported Reagan.

Meanwhile, Republicans were test marketing new advertising material. Over Memorial Day weekend in Paramus, New Jersey, Bush aides Jim Baker, Lee Atwater, Roger Ailes, Robert Teeter, and Nicholas Brady stood behind a one-way mirror observing a small group of so-called Reagan Democrats. Information concerning Willie Horton, a convicted black man who—while on furlough from a Massachusetts prison—brutally raped a white woman, was being presented, and the audience was quite disturbed. Atwater later boasted to party operatives, “By the time this election is over, Willie Horton will be a household name.”⁵ Bush went on to beat Dukakis 53 percent to 46 percent.

The 1992 campaign represented the dangers of becoming overly reliant on attack ads and the power of thirty-minute “infomercials” by Reform Party candidate Ross Perot. Throughout the race, Bush used ads to attack Democratic nominee Bill Clinton’s character and his record as governor of Arkansas. But unlike in his 1988 race, Bush did not prevail. The poor economy, the backlash that developed against Bush’s advertising attacks, and Clinton’s quick responses to criticisms led to Clinton beating Bush 43 percent to 38 percent. Perot finished in third place with 19 percent, the best showing for a third-party candidate since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912.

In 1996, President Clinton coasted to reelection through the help of ads broadcast more than a year before the election. With the advice of political strategist Dick Morris, Clinton defied the conventional wisdom arguing against early advertising. He ran ads both on television and over the Internet that positioned him as the bulwark against GOP extremism. Linking Republican nominee Bob Dole to unpopular House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Clinton portrayed the Republican Party as insensitive to women, children, and minorities and not to be trusted with important issues such as Social Security, Medicare, and education.

In 2000, Al Gore and George W. Bush ran in the closest presidential election in decades. Featuring advertising and websites that played to undecided voters, each candidate, along with outside groups, ran commercials that challenged the integrity and experience of the other. Bush emphasized education reform and what he called “compassionate conservatism,” whereas Gore focused on health care and Social Security. One Bush ad, popularly known as “RATS,” featured the use of a subliminal message when the word RATS was superimposed over a few frames criticizing Gore’s prescription drug plan.⁶ The election even saw a remake of the infamous 1964 “Daisy” ad (“Daisy II”), when a group of Texans paid for an ad with an image of a girl plucking petals off a daisy while an announcer complained that because of Clinton-Gore deals with “communist Red China” in return for campaign contributions, Democrats had compromised the country’s security and made the nation vulnerable to Chinese missile attacks.

In 2004, Bush used images of firefighters carrying victims away from the World Trade Center to explain how he was a “tested” individual who could provide steady leadership in turbulent times. At the same time, he characterized his opponent, Democrat John Kerry, as an unprincipled and untrustworthy “flip-flopper.” The campaign produced a commercial showing Senator Kerry windsurfing while a narrator intoned, “In which direction would John Kerry lead? Kerry voted for the Iraq War, opposed it, supported it, and now opposes it again. . . . John Kerry: Whichever way the wind blows.”⁷ Kerry, meanwhile, attacked Bush’s economic record and complained about Bush’s foreign policy. One advertisement said, “Only Herbert Hoover had a worse record on jobs.” Another spot showed a picture of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah and suggested that “the Saudi royal family gets special favors, while our gas prices skyrocket.”⁸

The 2008 presidential campaign represented one of the most wide-open races in decades. There was no incumbent or heir apparent on the ballot of either major party. The result was that eight Democrats and nine Republicans sought their party’s nomination. These included a woman (Hillary Clinton), an African American (Barack Obama), a Hispanic (Bill Richardson), a Mormon (Mitt Romney), and a former prisoner of war (John McCain).

Candidate Barack Obama pioneered several innovative uses of digital technology. With the help of the Internet, he raised $745 million. He made use of social media platforms such as Facebook and MySpace to identify and communicate with supporters around the country. And through Meetup.com, he launched virtual get-togethers with voters in many different locales simultaneously.⁹

Obama said McCain represented “Bush’s third term” and that his GOP rival was not the party maverick he claimed to be. Noting that the country was mired in a financial meltdown and engulfed in controversial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama broadcast advertisements explaining that he represented “Change We Can Believe In.” His commercials linked McCain to unpopular GOP president George W. Bush with the slogan “More of the Same.” Employing McCain’s own words from the nominating process, Obama criticized the Arizona senator for supporting Bush 90 percent of the time.

For his part, McCain ran a scorched-earth strategy that characterized Obama as a tax-and-spend liberal whose philosophy bordered on socialism. One ad hammered Obama with the attack of “Higher Taxes. More Spending. Not Ready.” In the end, though, people’s fears about the national economy led Obama to a win over his Republican rival and thereby allowed him to become America’s first African American president.

The 2012 election took place against the backdrop of high unemployment, polarized rhetoric, and a stark policy choice between incumbent president Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney. After winning a historic victory in 2008, Obama’s party lost control of the House of Representatives in 2010 and faced a dismal economy in the run-up to the general election. Obama sought to frame the race as a choice between two radically different policy visions. Through advertisements, social media, and campaign appeals, he portrayed Republicans as “Social Darwinists” who wanted to dismantle programs protecting the middle class in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy.

Romney meanwhile claimed that Obama was not up to the job and failed to deliver on the changes he had promised. Government deficits were too high, and Obama’s policies on taxes, the budget, health care, and energy were stifling economic growth and innovation. The GOP nominee built on a very successful first debate against Obama to position himself as a calm, experienced, and reasonable alternative. But in the end, Obama won a second term.

Broadcasting Strategies

In the modern era, advertising has evolved through four types of strategies: broadcasting, narrowcasting, microcasting, and nanocasting. A broadcasting approach seeks to reach millions of voters through television networks. It was most common in the 1950s and 1960s, when television was the dominant medium and the three major networks reached 95 percent of the news audience.¹⁰ This was the heyday of the networks due to the control over content and the television airwaves.

Candidates interested in reaching voters needed to target broad audiences, and they did so by concentrating the vast bulk of their ad dollars on the three TV networks. They would buy time on leading network news shows and around entertainment segments featuring large audiences. Because commercials were designed to persuade broad swaths of the electorate, messages often focused on basic values and widely held beliefs. This helped candidates make compelling advertisements and win support.

An example of this approach took place in 1960 between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. The race was very competitive, and each candidate focused his ad buys on the television networks. Between the first-ever televised presidential debates and the network advertisements, 1960 was considered the first television-oriented campaign. When Kennedy did well in the debates and won with ads highlighting his youthful energy and interest in “getting the country going again,” it reinforced reliance on a broad-based strategy.

Narrowcasting

In the 1970s and 1980s, technological and operations changes led to a focus on narrowcasting. Rather than target broad parts of the electorate through network commercials, candidates made use of newly em...