|
Com 450: Senior Seminar -- Politics and Media |
Dr. Janet McMullen
|
Campaign Strategy: Part II |
Last Updated: 10/07/2002
Primary Sources:
Powell, Larry and Joseph Cowart (2003) Political Campaign Communication: Inside and Out. Allyn and Bacon: New York. Chapters 5-15
Carvelle, James and Paul Begala (2002) Buck Up, Suck Up...and come back when you Foul Up: 12 Winning Secrets from the War Room. Simon and Schuster: New York.
Obviously time constraints are not going to allow for complete class discussion of every concept in this book. However, you will be responsible for having read and processed ALL of it.
Chapter 5 deals with the Mass Com Theory part of campaigns and surveys the key theories. We're not going to go through all of that again here, but we do want to point out some key concepts unique to this subject which we have not discussed in Com 314:
1. Many campaigns are basically propaganda campaigns. If we accept the definition of propaganda which is persuasive communication designed to further the interests of the propagandist, then campaign ads fit the bill automatically.
The Institute for Propaganda Analysis developed some key types of propaganda techniques: (know these...)
(See page 71 for more details)
Exercise:
|
2. Limited Effects Theories
Certainly the earliest and one of the most significant political communication study was the Erie County Project conducted in 1940 by Lazarsefled, Berelson, and Gaudet (1948).
Findings: Most people know who they'll vote for weeks before the campaign. Opinion leaders more important than media messages in changing the minds of those who make up their minds later. Foundation for limited effects model and the concept two-step flow.
Klapper's Reinforcement Theory emerged in 1960, establishing the concepts of selective exposure, selective attention, selective perception, and selective retention.
But while these theories made sense in some ways, there were some serious problems with them:
The authors point out that these theories have some important implications for campaigns:
A. Start a campaign by solidifying your base. Never take them for granted because if you build a good base, you'll keep it, and they're easier to "sew up" than undecided voters or those who tend to oppose you.
B. Media may help, but inter-personal communication can over ride it. Therefore, go after the opinion leaders and win them to your side.
3. Agenda Setting:
When so many elections are won or lost by under 3 percentage points, what ever influence media can have can be significant. But even more important is how media shape what the issues are -- what voters think about.
When media start to pay attention to an issue it becomes part of the public agenda. The issue's placement and retention on the agenda falls into three clear stages:
Audiences just don't let anything on to their agendas. There has to be a salience -- or a reason to connect to the issue. As a result of years of study, there are three key theories of agenda setting:
Awareness Model: If the public can only be aware of that which media practitioners let through the "gate" then the importance of those gatekeepers and their decisions about what gets on the news or in the press become much more significant. Key concepts:
Priorities Model: Audiences rank issues in the same order on the same agenda as the media. (First story, most important)
Salience Model: A model that falls between the two -- Media attention may move audience's ranking of the issue closer to the media ranking of the issue through repetitive coverage of the issue.
These effects don't happen automatically. Research indicates that some criteria are necessary for agenda setting to be powerful:
Implications for campaigns:
Agenda setting is very important for campaigns and you find that it drives a good deal of what campaign managers and consultants do...
1. Get on the news: Know the "30-30 Rule" Half a minute on the news is more valuable to a candidate than a 30 second spot. This is because ads are seen as biased (as they are) and news is not biased (or not supposed to be). Create ways to get on the news so audience will be primed to think about your candidate in the way you want them to:
2. Pick issues carefully:
The books didn't discuss a couple of other theories that I believe are important:
Priming: "You tend to think about what you've thought about..."
Framing: Ways of looking a information; mind-set; perspective
We'll talk about these in a bit more depth later, but they both have to do with inoculating audiences against criticism and spinning issues and situations to your best advantage.
3. Uses and Gratifications:
Be sure you understand the five assumptions about Uses and Gratifications theory on page 82. We've discussed those pretty thoroughly in Com 314. Be sure you know and can discuss the following gratifications and uses:
People avoid media for various important reasons as well:
As we've discussed before, the problems with Uses and Gratifications Theory are that self-report isn't always accurate and people don't always know what they want from media. Further, the gratification sought is not always the gratification gained. See Com 314 notes on the web for more information.
Applications to Campaigns:
(Had Bob Dole considered what people wanted from television experiences, he might have done his David Letterman interview before the election instead of after it. He was witty and relaxed and made a much more positive impression because he fit into the television format better -- he entertained as well as informed. He didn't do that before, and appeared stiff and stodgy, blown away by a saxophone-playing Clinton on the Arsenio Hall Show.)
Relational Theories:
Friendship Theories: Candidate as good buddy. Goal here is to develop a para-social relationship with the candidate much as one sees Ross and Rachel as people they know.
Political Relationships: Media make national campaigns possible (macro level) and that individuals, most often elites have powerful relationships that affect policy (micro level).
Additional Theories which apply that are not addressed in the book are:
Spiral of Silence Theories: The less an issue is discussed, the less likely it is to be discussed because its proponents believe themselves to be in the minority.
Media Systems Dependency Theory: The more dependent a person is on media for their political information, the more likely they are to be influenced by it.
Accommodation Theory: The context and circumstances in which a political message or issue takes place affects the impact of the message on both the macro and the micro level. If there is massive unemployment, then political ads about unemployment are going to resonate. If my kids just knocked over a lamp in the living room, I'm not likely to be paying a lot of attention to your political ad. Or if my husband says, "I can't stand that guy..." every time your candidate's face appears on the screen, I'm going to be less likely to take your commercial seriously or be influenced by it.
HOW CAMPAIGNS ARE STRUCTURED:
You will find this information in Part II of your text. Be sure you are familiar with the following:
Roles and Organization of the campaign:
public involvement:
What is the role of the media consultant?
James Carvelle and Paul Begala offer valuable insight in their book. They ran Bill Clinton's successful campaigns in 1992 and 1996 from campaign headquarters which became known as "the War Room."
They have a list of twelve rules for success in campaigns and for leadership in general:
From the beginning they say three attributes are necessary in campaigns:
And they insist that you have to be willing to take risks or you'll never succeed. One chapter has a heading which states "You're note as big a loser as Lincoln was..." and on page 20, they list some of those failures....Mr. Lincoln failed
"If you show us a successful person, we'll show you some one who's failed." (Carvelle, p.23)
Carvelle and Begala know what they're talking about because the first several candidates they consulted lost their races. But they learned from that to admit when they're wrong (though it may be hard to recognize that watching Mr. Carvelle on CNN.....) They write:
"Even if you don't know, don't pass the buck. People can forgive a mistake, but they hate a weasel who tries to shift blame." (p. 24)
One of the best chapters has to do with getting along with other people. C&B call this "Kissing A_ _ ", but they're really talking about affirming other people, treating them with respect, and really listening to them, but they make the discussion a little more colorful....
"No one get to the top without learning how to deal with people you can't stand. And usually the best way is to deal with them is to pretend you can stand them." (p. 34)
"Any time someone says to you, 'That guy was charming,' what he really says is, 'That guy kissed my ass. I liked it. Therefore I like him.' " (p 35)
Engaging people and connecting with them involves connecting with them
Bill Clinton had a knack of making "people think they were the only person in the world at that moment." (p. 35) and that helped him get elected.
If you treat people that way, you that kind of treatment back. If you respect and care for them, they will (usually) respect and care for you.
Another tactic he describes is "Turning Fools into Tools". After commenting that there will always be fools around, by not belittling them and making them feel valuable, you can win them to your side. Time and attention are the keys.
That's one of the techniques of motivation. It's easy to know what to do. The hard thing is getting a whole bunch of people to actually DO it. Carvelle says to "create a culture...that makes people feel as though they're part of something important -- and that they themselves are important." (p. 39) At one point in the campaign, Carvell actually stuck gold stars on staffers foreheads and they worked like crazy to get the stars!!!
For a list and examples of some who did this well, see "The Ass-Kisser's Hall of Fame" on page 44 followed by "The Ass-Kisser's Hall of Shame" featuring Neville Chamberlain who tried to appease Hitler.
Rule 3 ("Kick Ass") gets back to the heart of campaign strategy....
See p. 49 for an example of what the cola wars would be like if they were run like a political campaign.
In this chapter, the authors stress the need for power and speed. They use a bicycle analogy. The faster you go on a bike, the harder it is to knock you over; the slower you go, the easier it is. Campaigns are the same way, and so they emphasize quickness and aggression.
Part of the reason for this is that, according to Carvelle and Begala, news media only cover four things:
To illustrate the point, they cites Roger Ailes' (George Bush's campaign manager and News Director of Fox News) "Orchestra Pit Theory of Press Coverage."
"If a politician called the media to announce he'd found a cure for cancer and then he fell into an orchestra pit at the press conference, the headline would read POLITICIAN FALLS INTO ORCHESTRA PIT. "
What are the best attack strategies:
They also point out that you need to know the difference between strategy and tactics (Rule #5)
objective = broad goal
strategy = plan for achieving the goal
tactics = steps necessary for executing the plan
Most campaigns are in two parts:
Campaign planners have to realize this and plan time and resources appropriately. How do you manage messages, money, time? The people you have to please to get the primary win might not like what you have to promise to get the general election win.....etc. That's why it's important to have clear-cut goals. They can keep you on track in both places and help you make decisions that won't shoot you in the foot later.
Goals need to be high.
A lot of people confuse tactics and strategy. Tactics are easy, but strategy is more difficult.
Clinton's goal was: Get the nomination and beat George Bush in the general election.
His strategy was: "New ideas for the economy" That's where the famous sign came from. It was specifying the strategy:
"CHANGE VERSUS MORE OF THE SAME
IT'S THE ECONOMY STUPID
AND DON'T FORGET HEALTH CARE"
Or as the authors write, "Change was the message, and positioning Clinton as the candidate of change was the strategy." (p. 85)
But to execute that strategy, the campaign has to have focus, and that's sometimes harder. What is the BIG picture? What are we doing? Why are we doing it? Does it communicate our main message? The day to day stuff you and your candidate do have to support the main strategy. It's that concept of unity!
"We're saying that you have to think on several levels at once. Far too many people fail because they are good tacticians but lousy strategists. They can get through the day, and the next, and the next. But one day they look up and see they're further away from their goal than they were on the day they began.
"You have to keep your ultimate objective in mind at all times, design a multi-step strategy for getting there and then--within that strategy and in pursuit of that objective--have the flexibility to tack one way or another as circumstances dictate moment by moment." (p. 93)
We'll discuss more about the book
when we talk about a campaign communication.
Dr. Janet McMullen
Return to Com 450 page
Return to Dr. Mc's Home Page