Communicating Politics Online

Chapman Rackaway

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781137441508
• eBook ISBN: 9781137437976
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The world of political communication is morphing almost constantly into new areas and realities. Online-only news, Web 2.0 user-created content, hyperlocal news, and the rise of the Twittersphere have all contributed to an ever-changing media environment. Communicating Politics Online captures the constant change of new online media.

1

What Is the Media?

Abstract: The concept of media as a communications and cultural resource is introduced in this chapter, discussing the background of media. It will feature further examination of what the mass media are and their role in American politics. The important functions of the media and their impact on a changing American society conclude the chapter. Introduction of ideas for following sections, including the following questions: Why are citizens dependent on media for political information in a democracy? What is the political role of the media in America today? How much influence do the media have on the citizen in a democracy? Why is media literacy important for a citizen?

Keywords: George Allen; imagery; media; symbolic politics; viral video

Rackaway, Chapman. Communicating Politics Online. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. DOI: 10.1057/9781137437976.0003.

Trying to understand the media and its role in politics is a bit like trying to capture fog in a box. The media are everywhere and are completely intertwined with our society, our politics, and our lives. Separating out the media from our own belief systems, attitudes, and perceptions is very difficult. To make it even more difficult, the American media environment is changing so fast and constantly that by the time we understand something about today’s media that knowledge might be obsolete.

One enduring truth about the American media, though, is that the greatest power of the media is its ability to transport us to anywhere in the world and beyond. As we have become part of a truly global society, we rely on the media to provide us the most vital form of currency in the world today: information. The study of political communication is really the study of how we seek and process information. Mostly, we seek our information today from the Internet. For half a century, though, television was our main source of that information. And before that, radio and newspapers dominated. Each medium that we seek information from changes the way we get the information and what we take away from it. We can view the same story on television that we read in a newspaper, and get completely different messages despite the fact the two media are covering the same story. The Internet has changed political communication profoundly, in three primary ways that will be the theme of this book. The shift to online political communication has (1) accelerated the speed of news production and consumption, (2) made news more social and interpersonally connected, and (3) made the news mobile for both producers and consumers.

From the above anecdote alone, we can say that the media have at least a minimal influence on us in society. So it is important to understand what the American media are, as well as how and why we seek out the information we do through them. The delivery of an image has become the most important part of our mediated information search, and images do have power.

Newspapers and early Internet relied only on words. Reading is an in-depth and immersive experience. To take in information in written form, you must focus your attention and commit the words to memory or at least develop a summary of what was written in your mind. When other distractions arise, you must process them and return to reading to pick up all the information that has been communicated. The reader’s own mind makes pictures of the situations, so the imagination is actively involved in reading.

Pictures take the attention and imagination out of collecting information. Photos and video show exactly what is happening and provide large amounts of information in short order. The old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” is very relevant here. A viewer can look at a picture or video and take in massive amounts of information quickly. Or you can passively consume photos or video and not take in the information at all. Photos and video can also distort the news we consume.

Let’s use an example here. Imagine yourself watching television news broadcast about a protest. The camera shot shows about 20 people in the frame, but because the focus is tightly on the group those 20 protesters fill the screen. You can see 20 people, but you might think that their dominance of the screen space means there could be dozens, hundreds, or even thousands more protesting. Filling the screen with people makes the scene seem more significant than it is. Now imagine that the reporter pans back to show 20 people, but they are clustered in the middle of the shot. Less than half of the frame is filled with people. By showing the context the group is in, you will be able to see if the group is gaining attention or if they are largely ignored. The wide shot will show if the group is organized and unified or if the group is scattered and unfocused. The context gives even more information and can change the information that a viewer takes away from watching.

Pictures have an impact. Reading that protestors in the Middle East were killed does not carry the same emotional impact that seeing video of the violence does. The emotional weight of seeing someone killed by the military or police takes the event from something imagined in the mind to something very real and immediate. Some scholars theorize that seeing video images of violence and other excesses lead to more responsive citizen action because there is no mistaking the brutality of the images.

Television has certainly brought powerful images into peoples’ homes, and public policy can change as a result. In the 1980s, cameras brought the Ethiopian famine into American homes with sharp and tragic clarity. Tiny malnourished children appeared on television screens during many peoples’ dinner time, and the result was a desire to help. Congress very quickly passed a famine relief bill pledging $40 million in aid that would not have emerged without public demand. Popular entities such as We Are the World, a benefit organized with 20 of the biggest music stars of the day (including Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, and Prince among many others), performed an all-star benefit single with proceeds going to Ethiopian famine relief. Without video bringing those images from halfway across the world, the public demand for assistance might never have come.¹

Images carry other messages, as well. Images of national flags or capitol buildings carry with them a message of authority and power that citizens use as cues. Flags are often even more impactful than national anthems, because seeing a flag introduces an immediate and visceral response in the viewer. National anthems take more time, and require more intensive listening to take in the message.

The way images are presented matter. Look at a direct mail piece of campaign literature. Many direct mail pieces feature a combination of promoting the sponsored candidate and comparing that candidate with an opponent. The piece will almost always feature a picture of the sponsoring candidate: smiling, professionally shot and staged, quietly confident, and the very picture of trust and integrity. No campaign would let the candidate’s child take a picture with a point-and-shoot camera and put the picture into a brochure. The picture sends a message, the same one of integrity, trust, and intelligence. The picture means something.

Sometimes, those mail pieces include pictures of the opponent. In my days working in political campaigns in the 1990s, one thing I tasked myself with was finding a photo of my candidate’s opponent in the most unflattering light possible. I pored through newspaper archives and magazines, trying to find a photo of the opponent doing something that made them look like a poor choice to trust. The opponent pointing his or her finger or having a scowl on his or her face was the primary goal. Anything unflattering, to contrast the positive image we tried to put forward of our candidate, was going to help. If the photo of the opponent was in black and white, all the better. The trick is a simple one but done for important reasons.

When dealing with other people, we look to their physical appearance first. Eye contact, a person’s posture, how well his or her hair is kept, his or her choice of clothing, all of those elements combine in a snap judgment that most people make toward others. Sometimes, as Malcolm Gladwell points out in his book Blink, those spot judgments are a combination of all our accumulated subconscious knowledge and very accurate. Other times, those decisions can be stereotyping and inaccurate. Regardless of their propriety, we make those decisions and the image we first receive often determines that reaction. So we can say pictures do tell much of the story, whenever and however they are presented.²

At first, the public did not realize how powerful images were. As television began to rise to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s, more political content moved its way. But the content was the same for television as it had been for radio. The very first campaign ad, “I Like Ike,” was a campaign jingle that would play on the radio run under a cartoon. Without the cartoon, the ad was just a radio spot.³ It would take another ten years before campaigns would learn how to better utilize television and not simply add matching visuals to audio they produced for the radio.

A significant lesson was learned in 1960. For the first time, television would carry a presidential debate live. The broadcast played into the hands of Democratic nominee John Kennedy, whose young campaign staff understood that television cameras did not simply present a realistic and positive picture without makeup. Kennedy was made up properly, spoke directly into the camera, and used facial expressions to punctuate the points he made. Republican nominee Richard Nixon, by contrast, showed up without makeup and sweat profusely under the hot studio lights. Nixon rarely made eye contact with the camera, almost ignoring the presence of television entirely.⁴ As a result, depending on which medium a citizen used to access the debate, he or she got a different story.

Radio listeners who were later polled said they believed Nixon gave better, more reasoned, and more complete answers. When asked to assign a winner, radio listeners chose Nixon. Television viewers, though, thought Nixon looked uncomfortable compared to Kennedy, who engaged with the audience on television better and looked more presidential. Television viewers thought Kennedy won the debate. Since the debate was carried live, the only difference between radio listeners and television viewers was how they consumed the debate. Based on which medium they used, citizens emerged from the debate with two very different views of who performed well and eventually won the debate.

If pictures didn’t matter, the White House press pool photographers would never have created an unwritten rule during the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt that they would not take a photo of the president while in his wheelchair. Roosevelt was wheelchair bound since getting polio as a child, but most photos of him show either a standing Roosevelt or him sitting at a desk in a normal chair. The photographers believed that showing Roosevelt in his wheelchair would send a message of weakness in the Oval Office, and so the unwritten rule was enforced by photographers in the pool all throughout FDR’s presidency.⁵

One of the most powerful moments in American history was not communicated in words, but a single picture. Known commonly as Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, the photo of six American servicemen hoisting an American flag during the battle on Mount Suribachi is one of the enduring images of all time. Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal took two photographs: one in action and one posed. The action photo, which happened spontaneously immediately after Suribachi was secured by Allied forces, won the Pulitzer Prize. As a symbol of American triumph, the Iwo Jima photograph still endures as one of the most memorable pictures ever taken. As Iwo Jima was part of Tokyo Prefecture, it was well-defended and a point of pride for the Japanese. Taking Iwo Jima was a turning point in the war and signaled that the Allied forces would succeed in the Asian theater. Iwo Jima’s capture was a strategic gain for the Allied forces and a defeat of massive proportions for the Japanese.⁶

Recently, the ubiquity of video has made a big impact on American politics and news. Gary Hart’s dare to reporters to follow him around with their cameras led to the exposure of his affair and the end of his 1988 presidential campaign. George H. W. Bush’s promise during the Republican National Convention of that year, “Read my lips. No new taxes,” would come back to haunt him when he approved a tax increase two years later and would lose the presidency in another two years, becoming the only president in the past 25 years to not win a second term in office.

The Internet has made imagery even more immediate, ubiquitous, and available. Campaigns commonly put iPhones or video cameras in the hands of interns and ask them to follow opposing candidates around and record their every word hoping to catch a gaffe that can be used against them. In 2006’s campaign for the US Senate from Virginia, Democratic nominee Jim Webb assigned S. R. Siddarth to record all of Republican incumbent George Allen’s campaign speeches. Allen, famed for having the ability to recognize people and remember their names after meeting them only once, saw Siddarth following him on the trail an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  What Is the Media?
• 2  A Brief History of the Media
• 3  Regulation and Oversight
• 4  Reporting and News Gathering
• 5  The Digital Shift
• 6  Online News Consumption
• 7  Campaigning in the Media
• 8  Governing through the Media
• 9  Bias
• 10  The Future of Media
• Index