The 2008 election is unlike any other for many, and quite obvious reasons. One issue, that may or may not, seem as important as others, is the issue of celebrity. McCain’s well hyped commercial, comparing Senator Barack Obama to the celebrity juggernauts Britney Spears and Paris Hilton questions this issue. In Hart’s “Seducing America”, it describes the effects of this new turn in political ad campaigns. It states, “In a sample of 803 political commercials, only 134 (less than 17%) addressed policy questions and only 50 of these latter advertisements (6.2% of the 803) ‘contained specific policy positions’” (55). Celebrity powerhouses Britney and Paris may be, but political aficionados, they are not. Though that could be questioned with Paris Hilton’s rather comical response commercial to McCain’s add. ( http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/4178033806 for all those who did not see it).
So what about those Republicans? Sure McCain is a Maverick, but the American public has not seen McCain in an awe inspiring environment surrounded by followers, and fans, like Obama was in his recent tour of Europe and his speech in Germany. As it states in Waterman’s “The Image-Is-Everything Presidency”, “From Franklin Roosevelt’s time onward, it became necessary for presidents to be good public speakers and to have a clear message” (143). That is of course until Sarah Pahlin rolled around. In perhaps the biggest boost of adrenaline ever pumped into a political campaign, McCain picked the relatively unknown Governor of Alaska as his running mate. A self proclaimed “pitbull with lipstick hockey mom” her good looks and tenacity has garnered the celebrity attention that the McCain ad mocked. In a recent New York Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/business/media/08usweekly.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=login, it details the aftermath of the Us Weekly coverage of Sarah Pahlin and the headline of: “Babies, Lies, and Scandals”. This headline is particularly curious since a June issue with Barack and Michelle Obama on the cover where the headline was: “Why She Loves Him”. What right does a magazine like Us Weekly have in questioning someone’s political past when before the Sarah Pahlin story garnered the most hits on the website, the previous topper was Jennifer Love Hewitt’s diet secrets?
With that being said how important is personality in today’s culture as compared to elections past? Are the issues being skewed by the “celebrity” or the popularity prowess the tickets have? As the country’s youth, how are we supposed to grow from past mistakes if we are too superficially stagnant to recognize them as they are present?
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I think that today, personality is more important in elections than ever. Many Americans criticize our elections for being a popularity contest among politicians. I definitely think that the issues are skewed by the idea of popularity amongst the candidates, and I think that celebrity endorsements have a skewing effect as well. To be completely honest, I personally really liked both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at first because they appeared on all of the talk shows, like Ellen, Oprah and Tyra Banks. At first I thought “oh how nice they’re appearing on all of these talk shows to let us know what they’re thinking, how they want to run America..etc”. I then realized quickly that it was merely another political election tactic and that they were attempting to appeal to the masses, the people that don’t necessarily know much about politics, like me. They use their charm, big words and inspirational speeches to create popularity for themselves to garner more votes. However, in this day in age, that is what you have to do to be a successful politician or presidential candidate, you have to be popular enough that people who aren’t political-savvy will like you anyways. Why else would Obama have played basketball with Tyra Banks?
Sources from our readings would agree with this as well. The Handbook of Political Communication Research states that “candidates are also appearing on a number of entertainment talk shows such as late night comedy programs and soft interview programs, including morning news. These venues have become more useful to campaigns, as they provide candidates with direct outlets for communicating with citizens” (Gulati, Just, Crigler 246). Politicians don’t just appear on political news channels anymore, they reach out to the masses through the media that the masses consume on a daily basis.
As far as the young people of America go, I think that we need to be more informed and skeptical of the politicians, and look more deeply into the issues rather than focus on who is more popular than whom. It is difficult, especially since the media that most of us consume is flooded with light political information that we take in, even if it isn’t necessarily the front running issue in an election. It may even be more difficult for young people to divide the popularity contest from the issues because we are flooded with images of these presidential candidates as well. We all seem to form attachments to people who we like. For example, one of the articles we read this week discusses Obama’s stump speech in Ohio, and states that he delivers his speech “from memory at large rallies, walking about the stage with his sleeves rolled up. With fairly modest shifts in volume and pace, he moves the audience to joyous chants one moment, hushed attention the next, and thunderous ovations — and some tears — with his call-to-arms conclusion, which he sometimes has to shout” (Babington). In this instance, I think that it shows that Obama’s personality shines through the issues and takes over the minds of some people. Honestly, I would be more intrigued to watch him give a speech than to listen to what he is saying. I think that the same goes for Sarah Palin, her personality definitely shined through her speech at the GOP convention, we all just need to be careful to watch out for the issues. Politics isn’t a high school- who’s more popular shouldn’t matter at all.
“This is an election where personality is getting sold, oftentimes far ahead of platform, and that personal interest in the candidates has definitely crossed over into the pop-culture arena. I think that after so many years where people decried the interest in celebrity as a distraction from real issues, I’ve definitely noticed the worlds converging.” This is quoted from the NY Times article Alyssa posted and I think it speaks the truth so much. At one point in time, people probably heard a celebrity’s opinion on politics and laughed. But as of recently, particularly this election, personality and the personal lives of the presidential candidates, as well as which candidate celebrities support, has become almost a necessity within our popular culture. Not only are celebrities becoming involved with the Presidents (such as those who support which candidate and how much money they donated to them), but also the presidents and everything that encompasses their personal lives is completely glorified in our everyday news. In “Seducing America,” Hart talks about “para-social relationships” voters have with politicians, they “think of their leaders as intimates simply because they spend so much time with them” (64). He continues on by saying “Instead of shrinking the public sphere, television expands the private sphere” (65). Television exposes the private lives of the candidates, and I think it just goes to show how much intimacy and closeness our society has with people who are in the limelight, whether it be an actor, a singer, or a presidential candidate. Even though at one time those actors and singers were once completely distinguishable from politicians and presidential candidates, they all are celebrities in one way or another. So essentially, has that line been blurred? Is it the media’s fault for these politician-celebrity portrayals, or has society demanded that due to the technologies and innovations of our time, that our media portray these people like this--that is it inevitable to not feel like you are close friends with Barack, Michelle, John, and Cindy?
In addition, I think that due to television, as well as the internet and tabloid magazines (as Alyssa talked about with the Us Weekly article on Sarah Palin), our mass media is completely developed and intricate, obviously, than it was 200 years ago. I mean, I don’t know if this is going to come off sounding so simple, but there was no television back then. There was no internet. There was no such thing as Us Weekly or The National Enquirer. So essentially, there were no outlets other than newspapers to report the news. And they most certainly did not talk about George Washington and where he likes to vacation. In “The Image-is-Everything,” Waterman talks much about this in the chapter “Presidential Image and the Media” (138). I feel that with the mass amount of media we have today, celebrities are our popular culture. Even though at one time they were, fortunately, separated from politics, popular culture is attached to our society and there is no way to go around that. With that, the young people must learn to adapt to this, as our parents and grandparents did not have to listen to Paris Hilton’s ad campaign (lucky them!) when they voted for their presidents, but since we do, we must learn to adapt to our present culture and strengthen our society to know when to turn a blind eye and learn what to accept what we hear/read/see as we decide who to vote for as our future Commander-in-Chief.
Luckily for me, Jill and Lauren really went at this issue, but I still feel the need to emphasize how essential one's personality and or charisma has become in today's culture - seemingly most important in this year's presidential election. While our texts will support the idea that since the time of the partisan press and George Washington, media management and the concept of image making was integral to a presidential election, it's safe to assume that fact has been amplified with the advent of new technologies.
As Hart would contend, television has changed the face of politics drastically, and now an extension to that evolution can be found in the far reaching influence of the Internet. Individuals have endless access to images, sound bites, even live streaming video of the candidates and it's only a click away. In addition to the Internet, the rise of the 24-hour cable news programs found on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News etc., leaves the American public exposed, or rather overexposed to every little nuance of personality and policy of the available candidates. This of course should come as no surprise in this day in age given the nature of American society. Ours is a society completely dominated by celebrity, so much so that even our "hard" news seems to get lost in translation among the flood of entertainment features and gossip. How could we possibly expect the candidates not to reach celebrity status if the people reporting on them (Olbermann, Matthews, O'Reilly) have so easily managed to. If one spends enough time in the American family's virtual living room, surely they'll reach the status as well.
Having said this, OF COURSE the issues and points of policy are being skewed by the "popularity prowess" of the respective tickets. Look no further than the bang up job McCain has done in taking a seemingly invisible ticket and turning it into a celebrity crazed headliner by simply picking his VP nom. Sarah Palin, despite the attempts of the liberal media and the Democrats to take her on, has become a rock star with all this coverage she's received. If we are to look at early polls as early indication, Palin's personality is enough to make the walking corpse seem pretty popular among American voters. Where are the issues? I don't think anybody knows - because deep down inside noone knows enough to care. Hart says that the television tells us not what to think, but "tells us what to think about" - and surely the media has demonstrated that they want us thinking about the intimate and personal details of the presidential candidates and not what's most important (Hart 63). In a way it's disgusting. This election is too pivotal to the country's future to let the substance-less nature of personality politics determine our next Commander in Chief. It is up to the youth to be even more active in their media consumption and seek out sources that will give us the information that is required to make the right decision. We are already well aware of the state of the media as media students, and we must extend our knowledge to the general public in attempt to lessen its effects. Aside from that, if religion is your thing, start praying...
-Steve
Personality is extremely important in today’s culture, especially with the Internet serving as an all-access pass to the lives of politicians. A certain emphasis is rightfully placed on if a candidate would represent the United States in a positive way. Because of the Internet and television, the public gets to examine the appearance and the character of each of the candidates until their hearts are content. In part because of the unpopularity of the Bush Administration, I think that personality is more important in this election than in elections past, while the issues are unfortunately lost in the bright lights of scrutiny constantly shining on Obama and McCain.
I argue that it’s not that people don’t care about the issues, it’s that they feel they, as Hart Chapter 3 says, “trust their own eyes” (53). Americans thrive on being individuals; they do not want to be forced to rely on what news people and analysts say to make a decision. So as the Hart reading says, “Why trust party hacks instead of one’s intuitions?” (53). In other words, television and Internet coverage gives people a chance to judge personality and develop their own ideas about the person, without having to be a political mastermind.
As far as celebrity endorsements are concerned, we don’t need to look any further than the MTV Video Music Awards this past Sunday. The first award of the night had not even been given out when host Russell Brand pleaded with Americans to vote for Barack Obama, and went to extremes about how awful President Bush has been (a tirade you can see here if you missed it:
http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?id=1594254&vid=272743 ).
Now it can be argued that it isn’t really Brand’s endorsement that will sell people on Obama ’08, but you do see plenty of famous teen-idol-type faces in the crowd clapping in agreement. This type of unexpected celebrity support is probably more influential than an ad that most people tune out on, that teens in particular see their favorite music stars getting genuinely excited. Does the “celebrity” in this case skew the focus on issues? Yes. However, if it means that my generation starts to even care a little about the election because Chris Brown does, I’m okay with that.
It's crazy that we have to consider a magazine right to question anything on the basis of how many hits their website garnered from the story...
Personality is very important in today's culture and election. As explained in The Image_Is_Everything Presidency, "Sadly, deliberation and intelligence, once highly respected qualities, are not rewarded as much as a steady voice or a compelling appearance" (Waterman et al. 144). And with that being the case, some issue skewing must be taking place because it no longer becomes about what you say but more about how you say it.
The good thing is that 'us youth' aren't too superficially stagnant to recognize nonsense, glitz, and hype as it presents itself. We are questioning Obama's "I can save the world bit," and Palin's "Look at, but you don't touch my family scheme.' And when we aren't questioning, the media is.
Another point to consider is whether we're too emotionally wrapped up in everything to HEAR answers and respond accordingly.
There is nothing wrong with being addicted to gossip or gossipy magazines. Nobody should ever have to be penalized doing so. Everywhere is guilty of flipping through a gossipy magazine every now and again to see who the new "it" person is. However, there is something wrong with sticking strictly to gossip and failing to educate yourself.
The problem with today's youth is that their balance beam is uneven. They are taking in too much gossip and not enough legitimate information. People can look at flashy pictures and cute love stories, but they should also look at policies as well. By using their "balance beam", the youth of today can get a good snapshot of the potential president's personality and get a snapshot of their policies and beliefs as well. It wouldn't hurt every once in a while after flipping through an issue of US Weekly to quickly go on the internet to visit both candidate's websites to see their viewpoints.
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