The Function of Media in Political Campaigns
The media exercises its greatest influence during elections. Every aspect of a political campaign, from fundraising and press announcements to staged events and major speeches, is planned with an eye toward garnering media coverage. Political candidates need television, newspapers, radio, magazines, and the Internet to reach voters with their message. Candidates who lack an effective media strategy are likely to be destined for failure.
Political Advertising
The vast majority of media coverage during political campaigns comes in the form of paid political advertising. With the cost of television advertising skyrocketing, candidates are forced to spend an inordinate amount of time fundraising. One senatorial candidate estimated that time to be five hours per day.
Candidates routinely spend 80 percent of their “war chests” on television and radio advertising. In larger states such as California, Texas, and New York, television advertising is the only way for candidates to reach the tens of millions of voters. In 2000, political novice John Corzine spent a mind-numbing $60–80 million of his own money — most of it on television commercials — to win a Senate seat in New Jersey.
One of the most effective negative ads in political history was the “Daisy ad,” which Lyndon Johnson ran against Senator Barry Gold-water during the 1964 presidential election. The ad depicted a little girl picking the petals off a daisy as she counted to herself. It ended with a mushroom cloud filling up the screen. The clear implication was that Goldwater would lead Americans to nuclear war.
Most television advertising comes in the form of thirty-second commercials. Increasingly, the trend has been toward negative advertising (or “contrast” ads, as political pros refer to them), mostly because they have proved to be highly effective — even though voters claim to be turned off by them. Political professionals have learned that it is easier to be critical of an opponent during a thirty-second commercial than it is to lay out a positive agenda.
Spinning the News
All candidates supplement their paid media with free (or earned) media. Free media is another way of saying news coverage, and it's invaluable in establishing the reputation and credibility of a candidate. Lawmakers and candidates can shape the news coverage in several ways. The most obvious is by planning campaign events at photogenic or interesting backdrops (known as photo-ops) — something that President Reagan's handlers mastered very well.
Astute politicians also develop close relationships with particular reporters by granting them exclusive interviews, sharing campaign information, and coming up with fresh campaign stories on a daily basis. All of these are things that make reporters' jobs easier. And of course, all candidates and their staffs are adept at “spinning” the news, a process by which they try to convince reporters that their interpretation of the news is the correct one. “Spin doctor” is a derisive term used to describe campaign staffers whose sole responsibility is to spin the media.
On May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush pulled off one of the most memorable photo-ops in recent years when he co-piloted an S-3B Viking jet onto the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier anchored off the shore of California. The president spent hours greeting hundreds of seamen on the runway, and later delivered the Operation Iraqi Freedom victory speech to a national audience from the flight deck.
