Media and Politics | Introduction
“Why, after more than three decades of steadily increasing apathy and hostility toward the electoral process, did Americans in electing Bill Clinton and denying George Bush a second term post the largest percentage turnout since the election of John F. Kennedy?” This is the question posed by Jack W. Germond and Jules Witcover in Mad As Hell: Revolt at the Ballot Box, 1992, their account of the presidential election. In fact, an estimated 55.24 percent of the voting age population (including 11 million first-time voters) participated in the 1992 election, according to the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate—an increase from 50.1 percent in 1988 and a turnout larger than any since 1972. The higher turnout raised the question of why American voters, whose participation had steadily declined since 1960, showed increased interest in this particular election.
For Germond and Witcover and other media experts, part of the answer lies in the role the press has come to play in campaigns and in the utilization in the 1992 election of “new media”—talk shows, cable television shows, 800- numbers, and the expanding network of computers, electronic mail, and fax machines. They argue that both voters and candidates had become increasingly frustrated and turned off in the past by negative campaigns. Many identified the “old media” as the source of their frustration, complaining that the traditional newspapers and network news shows focused too much on “character” issues, scandals, and polls rather than the economic and political issues most important to voters. The new media offered beleaguered candidates the opportunity to bypass the old media and spread their unfiltered campaign messages to voters, according to Germond and Witcover, and “enabled the candidates . . . to tap directly in to the voters’ frustration . . . and to give it an outlet.” More important, they contend, the new media allowed voters to voice personal concerns and questions to candidates and become directly involved in the election. Voters “had been quiet long enough. They had turned their backs on the political process long enough,” explain Germond and Witcover. “They demanded to be heard . . . through whatever electronic means were available to them.”
The problems of the old media
In their study of voter attitudes toward the media and politics the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on Television and the Campaign of 1992 reported, “Negative politics, attack advertising, and rough press coverage seemed to reach a new level of pervasiveness during the 1988 presidential campaign.” According to the task force, voters cited the “Willie Horton” ads produced by Bush supporters as a prime example of the rea- sons for their frustration with politics. These commercials featured a black prison inmate who committed violent crimes while participating in a furlough program implemented by Bush’s opponent, Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis. The ads were criticized for cynically playing on voters’ fear of crime and on racial tensions while offering no positive or substantive information about Bush. In reaction to the increasingly negative nature of campaigns, newspapers such as the New York Times and Washington Post and network organizations such as ABC and NBC news made a pact, prior to the start of the 1992 race, to try to raise election coverage to a more constructive level. They vowed to critically evaluate the content of campaign ads and focus on economic and social issues.
However, despite the old media’s vow to focus on issues, the 1992 campaign seemed destined to frustrate voters in the same way that the 1988 race had. In January 1992 major newspapers and network news shows aired allegations first made by a weekly supermarket tabloid, the Star, about a twelve-year extramarital affair between candidate Bill Clinton and Gennifer Flowers, an Arkansas state employee. The allegation produced a “feeding frenzy” among the media, with news organizations competing to provide lurid details of the scandal. The media appeared unable to resist focusing on character issues, and the majority of voters, who were more interested in political and economic issues than the Flowers scandal, said in polls that they felt as alienated from the electoral process as ever. In the task force’s words, “The emphasis on gossip, scandal, trivia—what’s called ‘tabloid journalism’—was decried by citizens, politicians, scholars, and media representatives themselves.” Many media critics believed that the scandal was indicative of a chronic problem with the old media’s role in elections. In the opinion of political scientist Thomas E. Patterson, author of Out of Order, the old media had become “a barrier between the candidates and the voters rather than a bridge connecting them.”
Some media scholars defend the role of the old media. They maintain that, despite the Flowers controversy, coverage of the 1992 campaign was significantly better than in 1988 and showed that it was possible for the media to improve the quality of their reporting. Marvin Kalb, director of the Joan Shorenstein Barone Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University, states, “There is no doubt in my mind that television coverage of the 1992 campaign was better than anyone had expected.” Kalb and others argue that, overall, campaign reporting by newspapers and traditional news shows focused on the issues and provided important information to voters. Everette E. Dennis, executive director of the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, contends that the old media “did quite a good job [in 1992] with critical fact-checking” and investigative reporting.
The promise of the new media
Looking for solutions to the problems of the old media, some observers saw in the use of the new media in the 1992 election a revolutionary way of connecting frustrated voters with political leaders. As political scientists Edwin Diamond, Martha McKay, and Robert Silverman put it, “With so many people telling the public opinion pollsters that they are angry and alienated, [candidates] would be foolish not to use as many means as possible to reach turned-off voters.” According to these media observers, the new media “helped transform American politics. Both our leaders and citizens are instantly in touch by radio, television, and ‘800’ numbers.” By giving voters a forum to question candidates for themselves and a chance to evaluate for themselves the direct statements of the candidates, they contend, the new media promoted voter involvement and participation. In the “talk show campaign” of 1992, as Diamond, McKay, and Silverman enthusiastically labeled it, “the public became part of the process, an active participant.” The newly elected president, Bill Clinton, who many felt made the best use of the new media throughout the campaign, agreed that these new communication forums had helped him to reach voters and to win the election. In his inaugural address, he told voters, “You have raised your voices in an unmistakable chorus, you have cast your votes in historic numbers, and you have changed . . . the political process itself.”
Other campaign observers dispute that the new media brought about a revolutionary change in the election process. Thomas Patterson argues, “Although the candidates’ 1992 efforts to go around the press were described as a new development by some observers, the same thing had happened in 1984 and 1988, when the Reagan and Bush campaigns had based their communication efforts on televised political advertising.” A number of reporters and media experts warn of problems with the new media, particularly in cases where candidates use it to bypass the old media. For instance, the Twentieth Century Fund task force contends that although direct communication between politicians and voters is beneficial to the electoral process, many new media formats allow candidates to lie to or intentionally mislead voters because no reporters are present to ask probing or clarifying questions. In its report, the task force notes that “these new entertainment outlets often fail to recognize their responsibility to the public, not just to ratings, when interviewing candidates.” Reporter and media critic Ken Auletta defends the role that the old media plays in elections. He states, “We need an intelligent press as a filter. If we [in the old media] are to be that filter, we have to win back the public trust that we’ve lost.”
Most media experts agree that the new media will be a permanent part of the campaign process. The question for future presidential elections is what effect, if any, the new media will have on voter participation. At Issue: The Media and Politics explores the relationship between the emergence of the new media and voter involvement in the political process.
