The result of the presidential election in the USA is too well known to repeat here; but I think that a few comments on the media coverage during this US$2.4 billion campaign would not be amiss.
TV loves a dream
There is no doubt that TV was the main medium used by all the candidates in the election. TV can make you or break you. The better one translates oneself on TV the better one’s chance to be elected.
Barack Obama had a better TV campaign. He could do it because he had more money than McCain; much more money. TV sucks money more than dry soil sucks water. Money alone would not have been enough. Greater TV exposure could kill a candidate who is not suitable for TV. It didn’t kill Obama because Obama fulfilled one of the basic requirements of TV: format.
Everyone was promising change. This was the buzz word of the Obama and the McCain camps. But who did personify change? Obama was younger than McCain; and change is more associated with the young than with the old. McCain, whatever he said, had to be associated with tradition. Obama is black. The US have never had an Afro-American president. Is there a more powerful symbol of change than doing something which had never been done before? Obama personified change.
On top of format Obama had content which he translated into a dream and a vision. TV loved that. People loved that it as well.
Research done by the Centre for Media and Public Affairs and the Pew Research Centre analysed TV news bulletins on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. Their research showed the different stages that the campaign.
Obama had a positive first stage during the pre-convention phase. At this time he was being compared Hillary Clinton. Things changed after the convention. McCain, probably because of the positive initial effect of Sarah Palin, had more positive mentions than over Obama) till July. At the same time Joe Biden, Obama’s running mate hardly featured in the news bulletins. Since August the tide turned positive for Obama and remained positive. On the other hand Fox, the more conservative of the networks, continued featuring McCain in a more positive light than Obama.
TV tends to the superficial
There are also a number of minus point associated to TV campaigning. It tends to reduce the coverage of the campaign to a form of entertainment. It tends to glorify the superficial. It can turn series events into a show. Truman used to say that it would be a sad day for America if the president is chosen for the colour of his tie. Perhaps we are close.
Research done throughout the campaign shows that only an average of 36% of news items about the campaign dealt with questions of substance. Average on Fox is less. More than in other elections. Centre for media and Public Affairs.
Just gender stereotyping?
Females contesting the campaign complained of a lot of gender stereotyping. Hillary Clinton while contesting Obama complained that the media were not fair to her. She was often nicknamed “Billary” as if she is not valid for her own merits. She needed her husband Bill.
A number of commentators criticised the media for stereotyping Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain. One such commentator said: “We should be holding the media accountable for perpetuating stereotypes. If a white woman is strong, she's considered cold -- as the coverage of Cindy McCain has shown. If a black woman is strong, she's obviously angry -- so go the accusations about Michelle Obama.”
The Palin effect was very interesting. She immediately hit a high. A younger and more beautiful face was to accompany McCain. Format was ok; in fact it was very good. Content failed to match format, although an amount of unfair treatment can be alleged. I saw her interview with the veteran Charles Gibson on ABC. He grilled her; and in my opinion the interview was fair. Then I read the question Gibson asked Obama a few days later. That interview was nowhere near being as hard hitting as Palin’s was. Was it an anti female or anti Republican bias?
As I just noted: format did not match content in the case of Palin. Her performance in her third interview, with Katie Couric of CBS News, was widely criticized, prompting a decline in her poll numbers and concern among Republicans that she was becoming a political liability
The Year of the Internet
You Tube, social networks and other aspects of the Internet were used a lot by the Obama people. Obama collected a substantial amount of his campaign money through the Internet. The number of hits registered after one types Obama on You Tube is much more that those of McCain; though the number of hits for Palin were much more that those for Biden.
All sorts of video and messages were circulating. Some was funny stuff. Other pictures or videos were anything but funny.
Sarah Palin was paraded around in bikinis while holding rifles. She was pictured as a cover of Playboy. A photo of her young daughter showing someone the middle finger was circulated. An interview with a coloured person saying that he was the father of Palin’s unmarried daughter could also be seen. All these pictures and videos were manipulations. None of them showed the truth.
Obama was also a victim of several attacks. A video was doing the rounds giving one the impression that Obama himself had said that he was a Muslim. It was an example of manipulative editing. The smear that he is not a natural-born citizen of the United States was repeated several times. On June 12, 2008, the Obama campaign launched a website to counter what it described as smears by his opponents.
The Obama infomercial
On October 29th at 8:00 PM EST, Obama aired a 30-minute ad entitled "American Stories, American Solutions" that was simulcast on NBC, CBS, Fox, Univision, MSNBC, BET and TV One, focusing on a wide range of issues. Game Six of the 2008 World Series was due to be broadcast at the same time. Fox asked for a 15 minute postponement and it was granted. ABC was the only major US network not to show the ad after being indecisive during the initial approach and the Obama campaign later declined the offer.
The infomercial was the audience puller on that evening. Its collective audience was over 30 million while ABC managed just over 6 million viewers.
The last presidential candidate to put out half-hour long ads was the millionaire H. Ross Perot who ran as an independent candidate in 1992.
Obama used this ad to target middle and working class white Americans. He effectively did so during a fantastic TV production. He was shown in an office which evoked the President’s Oval office communicating the feeling that he was already the President. During the ad he was continuously seen with white working folks together with black and Latino Americans. He projected himself as "one of us" within the minds of those voters.
Obama won mainly because the he himself was the message that the people wanted to see and listen too in this particular point in history. His verbal content consistently synchronised with the visual message. Together they created a movement too strong to stop.