The impact of television on elections

In spite of the fact that I have argued in the past about the possibility of the internet overtaking television as the most important media source for political knowledge (and maybe even political influence), in light of the recent readings I would like to make almost the opposite claim that television plays the largest media role in political campaigns and this campaign is no exception. In addition, I believe that television is responsible for bringing information to the masses, which is then further looked into on the internet.

According to Broadcast Newsroom:

"In its newest study, Political Pulse , CAB found that people are most likely to first learn about a political candidate or issue from television, with 80% of respondents citing television as a likely source."

With this recent study in mind I would like to explore the impact of one of the most talked about clips from this campaign:

Although this quote has already received a lot of attention (See the results for a google search of "Mccain calls obama that one" which leads to over 14 million hits) I would like to point out two very important effects that this one small, two-word phrase had on the current election.

The first effect is that this one gesture lead to an assortment of reactions that stretched as far as accusing McCain of trying to make Mr. Obama look like "the dangerous other" who "Americans should not open the door for." These negative reactions are clearly not going to help Mr. McCain and might be something that voters remember when they enter the booth to pull the lever.
In addition, Mr. Obama, in barely reacting to the comment, continued to show his ability to maintain poise and control even in the worst of situations, which will remain in many voters minds and effect who they choose to vote for.
Lastly, this clip with its great camera work by almost every news station's camera crew brought to light what Mutz and Reeves (p. 3) point out about the effect of zooming in and different camera angles. They state that television networks sometimes create "a highly unnatural experience for viewers, one in which they view conflict from an extremely intimate perspective, and one that would be highly unlikely to occur in the real world." They further state that "the viewer's intimate perspective intensifies an already negative reaction." This new perspective (which is also aided by the "town hall" debate format may have lead to viewers seeing both Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain differently then they had before and these viewers may therefore change (or decide for the first time) who they will vote for.

I would also like to point out one other important finding of the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau (CAB) study quoted above and that is that television is the most likely place for people to FIRST find out political information. This being the case, I would still like to suggest that the internet plays a major roll in the way people get and react to political information (in addition, the internet did rank second in the place for people to first learn political information). In addition to the convenience of being able to search for almost anything and receiving information almost instantaneously, the internet also provides a place to watch (and re-watch) video clips. This, in light of the findings of Mutz, and Mutz and Reeves, can have great effect on the negative feelings people have towards one specific candidate and politician in general.