Dirty Politics Deception, Distraction, and Democracy

by Jamieson, Kathleen Hall

• ISBN13: 9780195085532
• ISBN10: 0195085531
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1993-10-28
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Americans in recent years have become thoroughly disenchanted with our political campaigns, especially with campaign advertising and speeches. Each year, as November approaches, we are bombarded with visceral appeals that bypass substance, that drape candidates in the American flag but tell us nothing about what they'll do if elected, that flood us with images of PT-109 or Willie Horton, while significant issues--such as Kennedy's Addison's Disease or the looming S&L catastrophe--are left unexamined. And the press--the supposed safeguard of democracy--focuses on campaign strategy over campaign substance, leaving us to decide where the truth lies. In Dirty Politics , campaign analyst Kathleen Hall Jamieson provides an eye-opening look at political ads and speeches, showing us how to read, listen to, and watch political campaigns. Jamieson provides a sophisticated (and often humorous) analysis of advertising technique, describing how television ads use soft focus, slow motion, lyrical or patriotic music (Reagan used "I'm Proud to be an American") to place a candidate in a positive light, or quick cuts, black and white, videotape, and ominous music (for instance, the theme from "Jaws") to portray the opposition. She shows how ads sometimes mimic news spots to add authenticity (Edwin Edwards, in his race against David Duke, actually used former NBC correspondent Peter Hackis, who would begin an ad saying "This is Peter Hackis in Baton Rouge"). And Jamieson points out that consultants create inflammatory ads hoping that the major networks will pick them up and run them as news, giving the ad millions of dollars of free air time. The most striking example would be the Willie Horton ad, which the press aired repeatedly (as an example of negative advertising) long after the ad had ceased running. (In fact, it never ran on the major networks as an ad, only as news.) From a colorful, compact history of negative campaigning from Eisenhower to the present, to an in-depth commentary on the Willie Horton ads, to an up-to-the-minute analysis of the Duke-Edwards campaign in Louisiana, Dirty Politics is both a fascinating look at underhanded campaigning as well as a compelling argument for fair, accurate, and substantive campaigns. It is a book that all voters should read before they vote again.

Author Biography

Kathleen Hall Jamieson is Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and is the author of Packaging the Presidency, Eloquence in an Electronic Age, and other books on political discourse.

Table of Contents

Introduction	3	(12)
I Attack Campaigning
The Role of Drama and Data in Political Decisions	15	(28)
Tactics of Attack	43	(21)
Patriotism and Prejudice: Visceral Responses and Stereotypes That Foil Argument	64	(38)
Countering Attacks: Pitting the Propositional Against the Primal	102	(21)
II Ads and the News
Power of Ads to Shape News	123	(13)
Adbites, Ad Stories, and Newsads	136	(27)
III News Coverage of the Campaign
The News Media as Sounding Board	163	(26)
Solutions or Strategy?	189	(14)
IV Accountability, Engagement, and Democracy
Argument, Engagement, and Accountability in Political Discourse	203	(34)
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: 1960--1988 and Beyond	237	(30)
Appendix I	267	(14)
Appendix II	281	(8)
Notes	289	(21)
Bibliography	310	(19)
Index	329