New Media Approaches to Presidential Campaigning: Barack

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NEW MEDIA APPROACHES TO PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNING:

BARACK OBAMA’S CENTRALIZED CONTROL AND RON PAUL’S SPONTANEOUS

ORGANIZATION IN 2008 AND 2012

Hui Jung Chen

APPROVED BY SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE:

______Kim Knight, Chair

______Shilyh Warren

______Angela Lee

______Dean Terry

Hui Jung Chen

Dedicated to the Champion of the Constitution.

NEW MEDIA APPROACHES TO PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNING:

BARACK OBAMA’S CENTRALIZED CONTROL AND RON PAUL’S SPONTANEOUS

ORGANIZATION IN 2008 AND 2012

HUI JUNG CHEN, BA, MA

DISSERTATION

Presented to the Faculty of

The University of Texas at Dallas

in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements

for the Degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN

HUMANITIES – AESTHETIC STUDIES

THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS

AUGUST 2017

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My dissertation began with an idea inspired by the past and motivated by the future. Writing it has been a wonderful challenge and rewarding process, and I am grateful for the guidance and support I have received. So begins the many thank yous…

To my committee chair, Kim Knight: Thank you for your patience and guidance through this process. Your constructive criticism and our conversations have only made my scholarship stronger. To my committee members, Shilyh Warren, Angela Lee, and Dean Terry: Thank you for taking on a candidate who never once sat in your class as a student. I appreciate your willingness to serve on my committee.

To my past instructors: Thank you for playing an integral role my educational journey and positively influencing my desire and passion for learning.

To my classmates: We were a support group by chance and became friends by choice. It has been a pleasure learning together in the classroom setting, growing together as TAs, and becoming better versions of ourselves with our pursuit in academia.

To the patriots in the great state of Texas, many of whom I call friends, and those across the nation who believe in a better future and are fighting for liberty: Thank you for motivating me with your consistency, tenacity, and veracity.

To my colleagues, Matt, Desiree, Jordan, and Chris: Thank you for understanding the delicate balance of work and school in my life for the past few years.

To Adam, Corey, David, Joe, Kevin, Sal, and Stewart: Thank you for watching old debates with me. I hope you enjoyed them as much as I did.

To Tim: Thank you for your interest in my writing. Your thoughtful comments helped me work though some writing blocks.

To Shane: Thank you for your companionship through this entire process. Your support was often shown in unconventional ways, but I am thankful for it all.

To my sisters: Thank you for being my cheerleaders in life. I am lucky to have you two as my sisters, and I know y’all feel just as blessed to have me as yours. Where will we eat to celebrate?

To my father: Thank you for constantly checking on my academic progress, for instilling in me the importance of a good education, and for encouraging me to always do my best. Progress not perfection.

To my mother: Thank you for being my example of what hard work, passion, and persistence can accomplish. You have always supported me in my academic pursuits. You have offered me insight during times of uncertainty and encouragement during times of frustration. Thank you for always believing in me.

May 2017

NEW MEDIA APPROACHES TO PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNING:

BARAK OBAMA’S CENTRALIZED CONTROL AND RON PAUL’S SPONTANEOUS

ORGANIZATION IN 2008 AND 2012

Hui Jung Chen, PhD The University of Texas at Dallas, 2017

Supervising Professor: Kim Knight

Media and politics are a developing ecology of mutual evolution in presidential campaigns.

Political media and mediated politics play an ever-increasing role in the dissemination and discussion of social and political information. They impact the way we perceive politics, approach culture and society, and understand and interact with the world. The relationship between media and politics is an evolution that can be traced through time with the use of developing media technologies of traditional media in past presidential campaign strategies to new media strategies in present practices. In the last few decades, two media shifts have marked key moments in the growing influence of media and presidential electoral politics—the use of television in presidential debates in the 1960s and the incorporation of Internet capabilities in the

2000s. This dissertation examines the form and context of media and politics, focusing on

Barack Obama and Ron Paul in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. The two candidates were covered differently by mainstream media which affected their new media campaign strategies—Obama from a centralized control approach and Paul using spontaneous organization.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………………………………vi

Abstract ……..…………………………………………………………………………………..viii

Chapter One: Introduction ………………………………………………………………………..1

Chapter Two: Traditional Media and New Media ……………………………….……………...15

Chapter Three: The Federal Communications Commission, The Fourth Estate, and The Fifth Estate …..…………………………………....39

Chapter Four: Traditional Media and the 2008 and 2012 Presidential Campaigns of Barack Obama and Ron Paul …………………………………………………....73

Chapter Five: New Media and the 2008 and 2012 Presidential Campaigns of Barack Obama and Ron Paul …………………………………………………..113

Chapter Six: The Future of Media and Politics ………………………………………………..177

Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………………...204

Biographical Sketch ..…………………………………………………………………………..241

Curriculum Vitae

viii

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

“Change won't come from the top; Change will come from mobilized grassroots.” — Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” — Ron Paul, The Revolution: A Manifesto

There is truth to the cliché statement that media are political and politics are mediated.

According to media scholar John Hartley, the emergence of ideas in mediated networks is no longer a matter of interest to media and cultural scholars alone. An increasing number of economists are seeking to study how new values emerge through innovation,1 and political economy scholars, who are fundamentally concerned with questions of power, are increasingly interested in how media institutions play a pivotal role in the organization of images and discourse.2 Media, by which I mean forms and methods of mass communication, play an ever- increasing role in the dissemination and discussion of social and political information. As we are constantly bombarded with political media and mediated politics—messages that are carefully crafted, selected, and distributed for our consumption—they impact the way we perceive politics, approach culture and society, and understand and interact with the world.

1 Hartley, John, Digital Futures for Cultural and Media Studies, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, 3. 2 Havens, Timothy, Amanda D. Lotz, and Serra Tinic, “Critical Media Industry Studies: A Research Approach,” Communication, Culture & Critique 2, no. 2 (2009): 238.

Every four years, Americans are entrusted with electing the President of the United

States. During this process, media managers,3 or those in positions as gatekeepers4 of information, hold an influential role in informing voters and affecting elections. The relationship between media and politics is an evolution that can be traced through time with the use of developing media technologies in past presidential campaign strategies.

In the last few decades, two media shifts have marked key moments in the growing influence of media and presidential electoral politics. The first shift occurred in the 1960s when

John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon took to television for the first nationally aired presidential debate. Adding a moving visual, pictorial element to the previous static print and audial radio media forms, television helped to increase the potential of media use in informing voters on political candidates. It allowed Americans to see how presidential candidates conducted themselves in front of audiences and how they responded under pressure. Scholars and historians agree that the popularization of television and its visual power assisted a young, handsome candidate in winning the White House. The second shift was the move to digital and online capabilities in the 2000s, when presidential candidates started using the Internet to create websites to supplement their ground-game campaign strategies. Incorporating the new medium at the beginning of the 21st century demonstrated the importance of political campaign expansion and the adaptation of new media strategies with old political practices. The intersection of new

3 Media managers is a term and concept coined by Herbert I. Schiller as those who manage media through ownership and influence. The concept will be further explored in the FCC Chapter. 4 Gatekeeping is controlling what content emerges from the newsroom and enters into public circulation. The role of journalists and reporters, who serve as managers of media, have an occupational duty of determining what information is worth viewing and making such information available to the public.

media and politics peaked in 2008 with the election of the first “Internet President” Barack

Obama. His campaign utilized online strategies, took advantage of Internet community building, and harnessed the power of growing social media platforms.

The two shifts are technological in nature, but also reflective of generational5 media practices. Part of the discussion and challenge of media and politics is the constant change that occurs in technology and the generational change in voter mentality. Media technologies are consistently being developed, practiced, and updated. Their purpose is to aid in our collection of information, improve efficiency in communication, and increase our overall quality of life. Voter mentality by generation differs in generational “personality,” core values, preferred communication styles, motivators, and more.6 Voters use media technologies to share thoughts and ideas, debate issues and policies, and influence their own social circles. These two key media shifts in the 1960s and 2000s provide a starting point for this dissertation, because television and the Internet have helped to shape our expectation and behavior when it comes to presidential elections. The necessity of studying past and current influence of traditional media and new media on presidential elections is due to the significance media strategies play in persuading us during presidential elections, and more importantly the reoccurring duty we have as Americans in electing our President.7

5 What is meant by generation is often concluded by birth year. For purposes of this dissertation, I will include ranges for the GI Generation aka Greatest Generation (1901-late 1920s), Silent Generation aka Traditionalists (late 1920s-1945), Baby Boomers (1946-1964), Generation X (1965-1984), and Millennials (1985-2005). 6 “Top 10 Characteristics of the Four Generations Currently in the workforce. (Table).” American Medical Writers Association Journal 27, no. 3 (2012): 143.

7 The presidential election is only one among many elections that take place dealing with federal, state, and local elected officials, all of whom represent voters at different levels of government.

The two categories of media organization previously mentioned—traditional media and new media—serve as reference points in this dissertation. Traditional media refers to a unidirectional informational channel. I use the term in reference to print, radio, and television, or older, established forms of media prior to the rise and expansion of new media. And new media is a two-way or multi-way informational channel. In my dissertation, the term refers to digital, social, and alternative forms of media following the popularity of traditional media. A major distinction between the two is the role of informational gatekeeping.8 Even though the distinction between traditional and new media are becoming more blurred due to an increasing number of traditional media outlets and journalists available via new media and social media platforms.9

The two will be categorized separately for purposes of my dissertation in tracing the shift in political campaigning practices despite their convergence in present day media practice.

Media messaging in both traditional and new media allow for presidential candidates to introduce themselves to voters and to convince the electorate that they are best qualified and fit for the position. During the presidential election cycle, the news media and press—which I will discuss in terms of the Fourth Estate—is tasked with a burden and privilege, protected by the

First Amendment, in reporting accurate political information, objectively analyzing political policy, and fairly covering political candidacies. In more recent elections, the introduction of new media has resulted in a rise of citizen journalists and alternative media members—which I

8 Traditional media are often associated with media gatekeepers, as previously noted referring to journalists and reporters deciding what information is important and to be shared with the public. New media, with its open platform and userbase, are requiring the Fourth Estate to reshape their gatekeeping role, as online participation and access to information no longer requires the careful selection of information by journalists and reporters. 9 Skoric, Markom, and Nathaniel Poor. “Youth Engagement in Singapore: The Interplay of Social and Traditional Media.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 57, no. 2 (2013): 190.

discuss in terms of the Fifth Estate—who are working to fill perspectives and stories that may otherwise be neglected to be covered by the Fourth.

The ‘Fourth Estate,’ referring to news reporters and journalists, was a term attributed to

Thomas Carlyle in response to the father of modern Conservativism Edmund Burke. Burke mentioned there were Three Estates in Parliament, referring to the Lords Temporal (nobles), the

Lords Spiritual (clergy) and the House of Commons. Carlyle noted:

But, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important than they all… Printing, which comes necessarily out of Writing, I say often, is equivalent to Democracy.10

At a time where print technology was the prominent form of information dissemination, it was used as a tool for the Fourth Estate to report on Parliament. Within the scope of American politics, the imperative role of the Fourth Estate is to serve as an unofficial fourth branch of government to keep the first three branches—the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch—in check by informing the people of government’s doings, as well as their wrongdoings, with fair and factual reporting. Independent of direct government control and influence, the Fourth Estate is vital to the preservation of democracy and liberty and tasked with the responsibility of acting “as an effective check on government power and influence over its citizens.”11 Because the government is a non-stop entity, at the federal, state, and local level, the

Fourth Estate is constantly serving as watchdogs of the government on behalf of the people. The

10 Carlyle, Thomas. On Heroes, Hero Worship and the Heroic in History, London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1901, 189. 11 Lynch, Matthew. “Analyzing the Media’s Role in the Political Process,” Huffington Post, January 11, 2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-lynch-edd/analyzing-the-medias-role_b_1083914.html.

profession12 requires the press to be objective, critical, and neutral. News media focus on issues of legislation, foreign policy, and representation of American values, just to name a few. And every four years, during the presidential election cycle, they report on presidential candidates, focusing on qualifications, experience, and leadership.

The rise of the Fifth Estate is an aspect to consider with the interconnectivity, openness, and ease of online communication. It challenges the legitimacy, usefulness, and integrity of the

Fourth Estate, serving as both complimentary and an alternative to mainstream political coverage. The Fifth Estate destabilizes the cultural status of traditional journalism and the journalist’s professional distinctiveness.13 It consists of organizations that clarify and address the public interest from a wider perspective than any of the first three estates and in greater depth than the fourth.14

In the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, media played an essential role. Candidates relied on traditional forms of media to reach voters and complimented their conventional methods with social media presence, but two candidates best exemplify the harnessed power and applied capabilities of new media: Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Republican candidate Ron Paul.

12 As noted in Stephen J.A. Ward’s The Invention of Journalism Ethics, the term journalist first appeared in the seventeenth century referring to men of letters who wrote in learned journals. In the eighteenth century, the term became associated with members of the popular press. The term reporter initially referred to an official who recorded court proceedings by shorthand and later was applies to a group of newspaper journalists covering the courts, Parliament, and other notable events. 13 McNair, Brian. “The Rise of the Fifth Estate.” Journalism Practice 7, no. 6 (2013): 773. 14 Goodwin, Craufurd D. W., and Michael Nacht. Beyond Government: Extending the Public Policy Debate in Emerging Democracies. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995.

Academic focus and scholarship on Barack Obama’s two successful campaigns, especially in 2008, is abundant.15 Scholars argue that Obama’s campaigns emphasized social media as a necessary strategy for electoral politics. He not only understood the exponential power of internet networking to quickly share campaign information with a younger generation of voters who grew up with computer technology, he also had the insight to create a new media team dedicated to organizing and mobilizing supporters. Exit polls revealed nearly 70 percent of

Americans under the age of 25 voted for Obama—the highest percentage of the youth vote since exit polling began in 1976.16 Dubbed the “Facebook Election,” 2008 was the presidential election year where the influence of social media became a game changer.

A lesser studied campaign on the other side of the political aisle by presidential candidate

Ron Paul in the Republican Party also serves as an integral illustration of the merging of media and politics through non-traditional campaigning methods assisted by new media. During Paul’s respective runs for the Republican nomination in 2008 and 2012, he broke the record for a one- day online fundraiser in 2007, garnered an active online and offline group of supporters who used unconventional methods of campaigning, and, with the power of new media, generated his own political movement dubbed the “Ron Paul Revolution.”

15 The following are some of the books written about Obama’s 2008 election: John A. Hendricks’s Communicator- in-Chief: How Barack Obama Used New Media Technology to Win the White House, Kate Kensi’s The Obama Victory: How Media, Money, and Message Shaped the 2008 Election, Rahaf Harfoush’s Yes We Did: An Inside Look at How Social Media Built the Obama Brand, and John K. Wilson’s Barack Obama: This Improbable Quest.

16 Soumitra Dutta, and Matthew Fraser, “Barack Obama and the Facebook Election,” US News, November 19, 2008, http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2008/11/19/barack-obama-and-the-facebook-election.

The two presidential candidates, Barack Obama and Ron Paul, were covered very differently by mainstream media news which affected their new media campaign strategies. I argue that Obama’s campaign was able to approach new media from a centralized control aspect because he had the assistance of established media sources and prominent journalists providing positive credentials, qualifications, and support for his candidacy. Paul’s campaign, on the contrary, was reliant on the spontaneous organization17 and rise of the Fifth Estate using alternative media and non-traditional campaign methods due to media mistreatment and perceived bias against his candidacy. Although both candidates vied for the presidential nomination in competing political party primaries using different campaign strategies and media approaches, both Obama’s and Paul’s candidacies surpassed expectations of online organizing capabilities and ignited a fire in previously politically apathetic individuals, pulling in new political participants with the networking power of new media.

This dissertation examines the form and context of media and politics and how both are used by presidential campaigns to achieve maximum results of reaching voters, building support bases, and shaping the future of elections. Using case studies from both major media shifts, I focus on the shift from traditional media reporting and use in presidential elections to the incorporation and influence of new media networking. Through the study of media assistance in prior presidential elections and the analysis of present day media phenomena incorporated into current campaign strategies, I find the continual convergence of media and politics allows us to

17 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, New York: Random House Publishers, 1991, 456. Meaning without intervention or coercion; an organic and evolving view influenced by economist Adam Smith’s concept of the invisible hand.

understand the influential role of the Fourth Estate and the reasoning behind the rise of the Fifth

Estate.

News media developed its credibility and trust with previous generations of readers, listeners, and viewers over time. The engrained trust that voters have in traditional news media allows for the Fourth Estate to guide their perspectives by focusing the national narrative on specific stories either through constant repetition or continuous exposure. Trust and confidence in media hit a high of 72 percent in 1976 during the reporting of the Vietnam War and the

Watergate Scandal. Since then, Americans have gradually lost faith in the Fourth Estate due to perceived media bias, journalistic subjectivism, and lack of reporting criteria.18 The decline of the Fourth Estate and the rise of the Fifth Estate is a result of many factors. The shrinking control of media from the hands of the many into the management of the few is one of many reasons for the resulting consolidation of media power equating to less ownership and programming diversity. The quality of mainstream media reporting and fair news coverage has slowly shifted away from an objective, critical, and neutral view of politics. As such, Americans are gradually losing trust in the media and in politics.19

The move away from the popularity of traditional news media to new media is slowly occurring as a result of declining trust in the Fourth Estate due to media consolidation of power, technological advancement in platforms of electoral participation, and new generational practices of interacting with media and politics. With the development and growth of new media options

18 Art Swift, “Americans’ Trust in Mass Media Sinks to New Low,” Gallup, September 14, 2016, http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx. 19 Rebecca Riffkin, “Americans’ Trust in Media Remains at Historical Low,” Gallup, September 28, 2015, http://www.gallup.com/poll/185927/americans-trust-media-remains-historical-low.aspx.

providing online spaces for political organization and interaction, an increasing number of individuals are turning to new media for political research, discussion, and debate.20

Our daily practices of engaging with media and politics, whether directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, reinforces the importance of improving literacy in media and politics. The complex relationship between media and politics, traditional media and new media, will continue to renegotiate power and presence and redefine practices in the election of leadership roles in the United States. It is essential that we keep in mind our own responsibilities, as well as holding the media and elected officials accountable, as we participate in media and practice political stewardship in maintaining America’s legacy.

Chapter Breakdown

Chapter Two better defines the media terms used throughout the dissertation to assist in understanding the approach and perspective of this dissertation on media and politics. It provides a historical framework of the shift from traditional media to new media technologies. With each traditional media form, I analyze how media was utilized as a tool and strategy for presidential campaigns. A review of existing literature and scholarship provides background and knowledge of media history beginning with print media and radio. Looking at how traditional media was used in presidential elections helps to understand the first shift of media and politics when television was introduced through the studying of John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon’s

20 “Politics Fact Sheet,” Pew Research Center, last modified November 14, 2012, http://www.pewinternet.org/fact- sheets/politics-fact-sheet/. According to Pew Research Center, 66 percent of social media users (39 percent of American adults) have used social media to engage in politics in 2012. In 2008, the statistic was 55 percent.

televised debates. These examples establish traditional media as the base of information and a trustworthy avenue of communication during presidential elections. I introduce the second shift into new media, which continues on to show the rise of digital technologies and online networks, which can help us better understand the advancement of new media as a presidential campaign strategy. From the 1990s, presidential elections have incorporated web pages as an additional tool for providing information on candidates and have continued to be a standard aspect of political campaigning methods. New media serves, not as a disruption of traditional media, but as a developing form to complement the efficiency of messaging and communication.

Chapter Three introduces the Fourth Estate and the role and responsibility entrusted to their profession to provide media coverage of presidential elections. Using Herbert I. Schiller’s concept of media managers as mind managers, those who manage media through ownership and influence, the chapter expands on the power of media management and the consolidation of control in traditional media as a result of increased government regulations. The role the Federal

Communications Commission played in regulating and deregulating traditional media has contributed to the enormous consolidation of traditional media’s power, resulting in the role of the Forth Estate being skewed by ownership of news stations, personal politics of journalists and reporters, and 90 percent of media being controlled by 6 major media corporations. This process of limiting media control and diversity is important in helping us understand the rise of the Fifth

Estate—the people—and why new media has played a significant and growing role in presidential elections today. The connective ability of new media with trends of online political organization allowed for grassroots activists who supported two underdog presidential candidates in 2008 and 2012 to pave the way in their respective political parties.

Chapter Four concentrates on the media treatment and framing of Barack Obama and

Ron Paul during the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. The Fourth Estate plays a vital role in providing information of substance on presidential candidates, and as a profession, should be fair and factual in their reporting. A brief biography of each candidate and their entrance into politics will help us understand more about their approaches to leadership and organization. The political climate surrounding the 2008 presidential election was also set by the preceding policies of the previous president. As factors that influenced the media treatment and framing going into the

2008 election, the Fourth Estate did not afford even and fair coverage to all candidates running despite the candidates’ political affiliation. This chapter looks specifically at how the mainstream media treated and framed Obama and Paul in their respective party primaries.

Chapter Five focuses on Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns from a centralized control perspective and Ron Paul’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns from a spontaneous organizational perspective. Obama received ample and fair coverage during the

Democratic primary allowing his campaign team to focus on building his brand from the inside.

Paul received questionable media treatment during the Republican primary resulting in his supporters turning to non-traditional means of campaigning from the grassroots.

The abundance of material written by scholars on Obama’s use of social media during his campaigns, mostly focus on the power of media itself as an agent of collaboration, connection, and community. Because Obama’s New Media Division, the team that worked on social media and online community building, was constantly in control of his campaign message to media managers and to the American people, they were better able to monitor and tailor campaign messages to be cohesive, unifying, and organized. With the assistance of Facebook, Twitter, and

his campaign-created My.BarackObama.com website, Obama was able to pull together a massive army of supporters ready to win the White House. Obama’s online presence outnumbered his primary and general election opponents. His internet sensationalism can be compared to the non-traditional campaign methods and tactics of Republican Ron Paul’s candidacy.

Paul’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns have not been extensively studied by media or political scholars. Although Paul’s two runs for the Republican presidential nomination did not result in primary wins, they did produce a following of supporters that have continued to be active and shake up the political spectrum today. Due to traditional media mistreatment and blackouts of Paul’s campaigns, his supporters took it upon themselves to be the media and provide citizen-journalism accounts of his candidacy. The Fourth Estate’s lack of interest and fairness in providing coverage of Paul meant he had difficulty spreading his message and policy platform to American voters through traditional media outlets. His supporters used new media to connect on social media sites like Meetup.com and Facebook. They created campaign content for sharing through online outlets such as YouTube and established their own website,

DailyPaul.com, for all things Paul related. Other creative means were used to spread the message about Paul’s candidacy in the form of sign-waves and sending out Super Brochures, or direct mail literature pieces, that were completely funded through online support. The result was a rise in the Fifth Estate’s spontaneous organization of non-traditional campaigning methods and creative use of new media technologies to campaign for the underdog of the Republican primary.

Lastly, Chapter Six concludes the dissertation by touching on the 2016 presidential election, and focuses on the considerations and future implications of new media trends and

practices in the political process. We have already seen some similarities play out in the 2016 primaries in both dominant political parties—Hillary Clinton receiving favorable media exposure this election cycle while underreporting on Bernie Sanders’ growing support in the Democratic

Party, as well as Donald Trump in the spotlight and leading headlines while the many other GOP contenders fight for coverage. The silver lining is that more Americans are beginning to see through the relationship of media and politics and the veil of control exercised by media managers against the electorate. Rising interest in third party candidates like Gary Johnson and

Jill Stein are proof that new media is working around the fixity of traditional media managers.

Trust in the Fourth Estate continues to dwindle resulting in more growth in the Fifth

Estate. There is an increase of voters turning to the Internet for information on presidential candidates, discussion of political policy, and connecting with other supporters and elected officials. The move to direct communication with politicians removes the role of the Fourth

Estate as gatekeeper, increasing the influence of the Fifth Estate. The rapid development and implementation of new media in presidential campaigning tactics will affect the conventions of future elections. Presidential candidates must balance traditional media appearances and new media opportunities to resonate with American voters. The continuous convergence of two worlds—offline networking with online networking, traditional media with new media— indicates that media and politics are closer and deeper than ever.

CHAPTER TWO

TRADITIONAL MEDIA AND NEW MEDIA

“If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.” — Mark Twain

“By giving people the power to share, we're making the world more transparent.” — Mark Zuckerberg

Media plays an integral and dynamic role in American electoral politics. Our understanding of media stems from structures, means, and methods of communication inclusive of technological forms, corporate organizations, and establishments that deal with entertainment, news, sports, politics, society, and culture.21 The purpose of media is to serve as an avenue for speech and communication transmission. It functions as an important channel for how messages, the fundamental component of speech and communication, are delivered and received. The heart of media is the message, and according to Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the message.22

Without a message, print is just paper, radio is just static, and television is just a blank screen. In

McLuhan’s view, a medium is an extension of the human body or mind, not limited to media of communication. It is a tool we use as an extension of ourselves to move communication from one person to another, and depending on the medium, we may alter our words or actions in conveying our message. As users become familiar with a specific medium, whether it is text on print, voice over radio, or image on television, cultural connotations and conventions of

21 Fuller, Matthew, Media Ecologies: Materialist Energies in Art and Technoculture, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005, 2. 22 Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1964.

communication are embedded within the message through the medium. By understanding a medium and increasing our awareness and literacy of the form, we can better deliver and receive messages.

The symbiotic relationship between media and politics is a development that is consistent with Matthew Fuller’s concept of media ecologies, systems in which “media elements possess ontogenic capacities as well as being constitutively embedded in particular contexts.”23 The two have developed together through changing times and technologies, creating and evolving into a mutually beneficial relationship that sustains one another. Politicians realize the need to use media technologies to efficiently reach the electorate, and the media industry needs to keep audiences tuning in to maintain business. The simultaneous development and mutual influence of one on the other requires closer exploration and understanding of the two as separate entities and in unison with one another.

The relationship between politicians and the Fourth Estate trace back to the use of traditional media in campaigns. Political candidates used pamphlets and newspapers in the

1800s, radio in the late 1920s and into the 30s, television from the 1960s onward, to communicate and connect with the American public. Print media coverage of campaigns started out as following the candidates and reporting on what they were doing and things they were saying.24 Around the 1820s and 1830s, newspapers began hiring reporters to actively gather news. By the late nineteenth century, reporters and editors established a professional culture

23 Matthew Fuller, Understanding Media, 22-23. 24 Elizabeth A. Skewes, Message Control: How News Is Made on the Presidential Campaign Trail, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007, 8.

around the news media industry.25 When radio entered the equation, politicians eagerly used the medium with great enthusiasm but little practical knowledge.26 The medium was still in its infancy and users were still figuring out how best to approach the technology. The Democratic

Convention of 1924 attempted to broadcast nominee John W. Davis’ speech, and although Davis had a voice with “bell-like quality” and “delightful rhetoric, it was muffled and foggy over the radio. Davis commented that radio “will make the long speech impossible or inadvisable… the short speech will be in vogue.”27 Radio is best associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s successful use of the medium with his direct addresses to Americans through fireside chats in the mid-1930s. Media technology was important for presidential candidates in reaching voters, but it was not until the first nationally televised presidential debate between John F. Kennedy and

Richard Nixon in 1960 that campaign strategists realized how influential media presence and candidate image mattered to the voting public.

This chapter looks at the evolution of the history of media and politics through the various mediums of traditional media—print, radio, and television. Each media form offers benefits and challenges that require careful consideration for strategic use in presidential elections. It is important to recognize and study the use of media forms as tools and strategies by political candidates because by working to become more literate in media and politics, we can

25 Leonard Downie Jr., and Michael Schudson, “The Reconstruction of American Journalism,” Columbia Journalism Review (November/December 2009), http://www.cjr.org/reconstruction/the_reconstruction_of _american.php. 26 Becky M. Nicolaides, “Radio Electioneering in American Presidential Campaigns of 1932 and 1936,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, 8(2) (1988): 116. 27 M. X. Delli Carpini, “Radio’s Political Past,” Media Studies Journal, Radio: The Forgotten Medium, 7(3), http://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers/23, (1993): 25.

better understand the power technology has harnessed and the application of such power in past presidential elections. More importantly, by studying the past, we can look to the future of what possibilities may come.

Print Media & Newspapers

Early U.S. politicians relied on dailies, pamphlets, and newspapers to reach literate voters with the written word. Print media helped to circulate ideas, particularly for those unable to attend live rallies and hear political speeches by candidates firsthand. In the 1830s, Benjamin

Day and other newspaper publishers transformed the landscape of print media with the Penny

Press, taking a narrowly focused and sparsely distributed publication to a broad-based, mass produced medium.28 The ability to cheaply and widely circulate print media meant more people could afford and read it. Edwin Lawrence Godkin,29 a leading nineteenth-century editor, was a strong critic of cheap newspapers and the journalistic practices behind them. He criticized the inexpensive, high-circulation newspapers that focused on scandal and entertainment rather than quality journalism. But the inexpensive newspapers allowed for the definition of news to expand and include reports on crime, sports, religion, society,30 and other information that was previously excluded. It allowed for more readers to have access to such information, and thus transformed the social practice of news consumption.

28 Brazeal, Donald K. “Precursor to Modern Media Hype: The 1830s Penny Press.” Journal of American Culture 28, no. 4 (2005): 405.

29 Godkin has been described by historians as an incisive thinker, a bold writer, and a leading press critic. Historian Morton Keller called Godkin “the most distinguished journalist of his generation.” 30 Coyle, Erin K. “E. L. Godkin’s Criticism of the Penny Press: Antecedents to a Legal Right to Privacy,” American Journalism 32, no. 1 (2014): 266.

In the 19th Century, newspapers played a critical role in the articulation and promotion of key principles in American political thought, practice, and development.31 The first American newspaper that was continually published was the Boston News-Letter, later referred to as The

Boston Gazette and eventually the New England Courant. The paper provided information on issues of trade, foreign affairs, and entertainment, all of which were incorporated into American journalism. Americans found value in freedom of press and free speech. Journalists could protect the rights and freedoms of individuals from government overreach and heavy-handed laws by notifying citizens of important social issues and political legislation. By keeping the electorate informed of decisions and actions of the government, people were able to hold elected officials accountable. Politicians who kept their word and followed through on their campaign promises were likely voted back into office, and those who strayed, upsetting voters, were likely replaced during the following election cycle. Conversely, politicians could use printed text to share information and inform voters on their perspectives and ideologies. Unless readers sought out additional information outside of what was provided to them in newspapers or pamphlets, their knowledge may only be limited to the printed text. The powerful technology of print media was quickly grasped by politicians using them as necessary tools for informing voters and campaigning. Close relationships that were mutually beneficial were soon developed between politicians and journalists.

According to Mel Laracey, partisan newspapers in the nineteenth-century played a critical but largely underappreciated role in American political development. Not only were

31 Mel Laracey, “The Presidential Newspaper as an Engine of Early American Political Development: The Case of Thomas Jefferson and the Election of 1800,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Vol.11(1), 2008: 7-46.

newspapers a fundamental part of American political life at the mass communications level, but almost every American president from 1800 to 1860 was connected with a political newspaper that was published in Washington DC.32 This communication tool connected Americans with pertinent political information on the presiding administrations’ policies, positions, and principles. Worthington C. Ford,33 an American historian from the twentieth-century, addresses

Thomas Jefferson’s thoughts and use of the newspaper. Ford relays Jefferson’s beliefs on the value of political propaganda and that he preferred to work secretly and privately with pamphlets.34 Alexander Hamilton and John Adams, on the other hand, used newspapers openly and often.35

The history of print media in campaigning was not always positive. In the election of

1800, which was considered to be the birth of negative campaigning36 and the first real test of forming party politics at the presidential level37 in the US, Federalist President John Adams vied against Democratic-Republican Vice-President Thomas Jefferson. Print media played an interesting and unique role providing a media outlet for slander, personal insults, and mudslinging during the election of the third US president. Jefferson biographer Willard Sterne

32 Laracey, Mel. “The Presidential Newspaper as an Engine of Early American Political Development: The Case of Thomas Jefferson and the Election of 1800,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 11(1), 2008: 7-46. 33 He has edited a number of historical documents for various collections. 34 Worthington Chauncey Ford, “Jefferson and the Newspaper,” Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington DC, 8, (1905): 78-111. This document was read before the Columbia Historical Society in 1904. 35 Ford, 83. 36 Kerwin Swint, “Founding Fathers’ Dirty Campaign,” accessed December 30, 2015. http://www.cnn.com/2008/ LIVING/wayoflife/08/22/mf.campaign.slurs.slogans/.

37 Richard J. Benh, “The Election of 1800-1801,” The Lehrman Institute, accessed December 30, 2015. http://www.lehrmaninstitute.org/history/1800.html#intro.

Randall describes it as “the first knock-down, drag-out campaign” in which “Americans proved they preferred newspapers to pamphlets to books… that they preferred their newspapers crammed with items of scandal.”38 The excitement of political drama and gossip meant newspapers were likely to include more of such material to increase circulation. Much like modern campaigning, media tools were used to highlight the negative aspects of opponents and reasons for not supporting other candidates, be it personal life choices, policy positions, or previous political affiliations. And because antebellum newspapers were highly partisan, often explicitly affiliated with a political party of the people, and focused on delivering that party's point of view,39 readership was limited to specific perspectives and information regarding political campaigns; positive and in favor of their own positions, negative and against the positions of the opposition.

At the beginning, newspapers were mostly Federalists; this was during the time Adams served as President. Newspapers were the principal instruments of partisan campaign warfare, as supporters of each candidate lambasted the other candidate drawing in readership with reported drama, name calling, and news on scandals. Campaigning and attacking during early America was not practiced by the candidates themselves but through supporters and surrogates. One such surrogate was Pastor Timothy Dwight, President of Yale University and a supporter of Adams.

He stated that if Jefferson were elected, the Bible would be “cast into a bonfire” and that “we

38 Willard Sterne Randall, Thomas Jefferson: A Life, New York: H. Holt, 1993, 541-542. 39 “American Newspapers, 1800-1860: An Introduction,” last modified October 13, 2015, http://www.library.illinois.edu/ hpnl/guides/newspapers/american/1800-1860/introduction.html.

would see our wives and daughters victims of legal prostitution.”40 Federalist newspapers also denounced Jefferson for his alleged atheism, his pro-French, revolutionary leanings (thus being called a Jacobin, a term used by the British for radical French revolutionaries), and opposition to

Federalism.41

Jefferson urged friends to write pieces for the press, encouraged Democratic-Republican followers to assist in the party cause, while he himself engaged in writing letters, circulating political pamphlets,42 and using periodicals as often as he could to support his campaign.43

Jefferson had been secretly funding pamphlets by James Callender, an influential journalist who was prosecuted and imprisoned by the Adams Administration for violating The Sedition Act.

Callender called Adams a “repulsive pedant” and “gross hypocrite” who “behaved neither like a man nor like a woman but instead possessed a hideous hermaphroditical character.”44 According to opposing campaigns, historian David McCollough writes, “if Jefferson was a Jacobin, a shameless southern libertine, and a 'howling' atheist, Adams was a Tory, a vain Yankee scold, and, if truth be known, 'quite mad.’”45 The use of media to build up or tear down a candidate, as well as for dramatic entertainment, has followed in elections since the start. Participation and

40 Gregory W. Hamilton, “The Revolution of 1800,” Liberty Magazine (March/April 2001), January 2, 2016, http://www.libertymagazine.org/article/the-revolution-of-1800. 41 Jerry W. Knudson, Jefferson and the Press: Crucible of Liberty, Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2006, 52. 42 Noble E. Cunningham Jr., “Election of 1800,” The Coming to Power: Critical Presidential Elections in American History, ed. Arthur M. Schlesinge Jr., New York: Chelsa House Publishers, 1971, 47. 43 Forest Church, So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle over Church and State, Harcourt, 2007, 183. 44 Rick Ungar, “The Dirtiest Presidential Campaign Ever? Not Even Close!” Forbes, August 20, 2012, http://www.forbes.com/ sites/rickungar/2012/08/20/the-dirtiest-presidential-campaign-ever-not-even-close/2/. 45 McCullough, David, John Adams, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001, 544.

engagement with the medium, in both positive and negative contexts, codified print media as an important tool in political campaigning.

More than 200 years ago, politicians were in tune with innovative new forms of politicking through the capitalization of the growing technology of print media. Newspapers were used with particular effectiveness, partly the result of creative politicking, and partly the result of the ever-spreading power of the press—a growing technology.46 The historical role of campaigning with the assistance of print media and newspaper though was less glamorous than imagined in early America by the Founding Fathers. Media’s use was focused on negative attacks and mudslinging to discredit opponents. The vivid and colorful languages used in such attacks were perhaps results of the media form itself, with text being the paintbrush of image.

Print media functioned more as an outlet for First Amendment rights of free speech. Less focus was on the accuracy of information or journalistic quality of reports and news. Although it has been attributed that Jefferson preferred “newspapers without a government” over “a government without newspapers,” he has also mentioned, “the man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers,”47 particularly when filled with drama and scandal.

Print media and newspapers established its presence in the political world as a necessary campaign tool, despite the strong use of it in attacking candidacies and mudslinging (something

46 Freeman, Joanne B. “The Presidential Election of 1800: A Story of Crisis, Controversy, and Change,” accessed January 1, 2016. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/early-republic/essays/presidential-election-1800- story-crisis-controversy-and-change. 47 Caplan, Bryan, “Jefferson Against Newspapers,” Library of Economics and Liberty, last modified March 28, 2008, http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/03/jefferson_again.html.

we still see today with current media practices). Pieces of paper held meaningful messages for the masses and assisted in igniting intellectual deliberation through circulation. They served as a means of sharing information from one person to the next without requiring direct contact between politician and voter. “Whatever the American newspaper may have been in the past, and whatever sentimentalists may wish to think it now,” writes Frank L. Mott in 1944, “It is today primarily a purveyor of news. With all its multiple faults, the American newspaper today has reached a level of news presentation which, for accuracy, fullness, and fairness, far surpasses that of any other period or country. It is primarily a newspaper, and it is founded upon the

Jeffersonian doctrine that if the people have the news they will know what to do about it. That is the essence of democracy.”48

Radio

A new door was opened when radio waves were discovered which allowed for the transmission of political messages to directly reach into the homes of American radio-owners. It provided Americans with a new medium of communication that could bypass the partisanship of newspapers and help to create a direct bond—what Lou Orfanella considers an intimacy, a one- to-one connection that no other medium can match49 — between voters, candidates, and office holders.50 Families would gather around the radio to listen to radio plays, soap operas, and news

48 Mott, Frank Luther. “Newspapers in Presidential Campaigns.” The Public Opinion Quarterly, 8(3), 1994: 348- 367. 49 Orfanella, Lou. “Radio: The Intimate Medium,” The English Journal, 87(1), Media Literacy (Jan 1999): 53-55. 50 Craig, Douglas B. Fireside Politics: Radio and Political Culture in the United States, 1920-1940, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000, 113.

programs. According to Rick Sklar, an American radio programmer, radio’s significance is personalization through only one of the five senses. Sound allowed for listeners to imaginatively create in his or her mind an image, each seeing something different.51 A unique use of the power of radio as a technological tool was grasped by a well-known president.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, before the advent of television, when radio was still finding its place in American homes, a presidential candidate by the name Franklin Delano

Roosevelt was running for office. As a 6’1” man crippled by polio and mostly confined to a wheelchair, many knew FDR as a strong and charismatic individual through his distinctive voice that radio transmitted directly into people’s homes. Radio allowed for his spoken words to take precedence over his appearance, and gave him an opportunity to directly address the American voter. FDR realized the importance of this form of mass media and its power to promote his image52 and reach the electorate. He considered radio an important campaigning tool, but he also wanted data on station reach and listenership to verify its mass messaging power. With broadcasting stations having jumped from 5 in 1921 to over 500 by 1924,53 Americans were spending $198 million annually on radios by 1927.54 Geoffrey Storm reports that a questionnaire distributed by the State Democratic Committee Chairman James Farley to the heads of each county Democratic committee poling them on WGY’s radio coverage and effectiveness resulted

51 Sklar, Rick. Rocking America: How the All-Hit Radio Stations Took Over. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984. 52 Lawrence W. and Cornelia R. Levine. The People and the President: America’s Conversation with FDR. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2002. 53 SterlingC. H., & Kittross, J.M. Stay Tuned: A History of American Broadcasting (3rd Ed), Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2002, 827. 54 U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1930, Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1930, 841.

in 40 chairmen responding and 36 reporting the speeches were heard “distinctly under normal conditions.”55 The 90 percent response rate proved the efficiency of FDR’s radio speeches reaching an intended audience.

Previous presidents used radio before, but FDR is widely regarded as the first chief executive to master the medium as a source of political advantage.56 FDR’s ability to connect with Americans through voice relied on his tactics of greeting listeners with remarks like “my friends,” referring to himself as “I” and to the American people as “you,” and using simple language and concrete examples made the fireside chats understandable, personal, and direct.

After his successful election, he continued using radio as a tool for mass communication. His

“fireside chats,” a term coined by reporter Harry Butcher of CBS,57 were addressed directly at the people and helped him gain support for innovative and controversial social programs.58 He was able to use radio to sell the New Deal reform program during a time of national economic suffering of the Great Depression through government intervention and expanded government programs. During this time, droves of Americans were drawn to radio, with radio ownership more than doubling in the 1930s, from about 40 percent of families at the decade’s start to nearly

55 Storm, Geoffrey. “FDR and WGY: The Origins of the Fireside Chats.” New York History, 88(2), Spring 2007: 176-197. 56 Smith, Stephen. “Radio: FDR’s ‘Natural Gift,’” American RadioWorks, last modified November 10, 2014, http://www.americanradioworks.org/segments/fdr-radio/. 57 The term was coined by a reporter Harry Butcher in a press release before one of Roosevelt’s speeches on May 7, 1933. www://www.history.com/topics/fireside-chats. 58 Yu, Lumeng (Jenny). “The Great Communicator: How FDR’s Radio Speeches Shaped American History.” The History Teacher, 39(1), Nov. 2005: 89-106.

90 percent ten years later.59 Under FDR’s administration, the Rural Electrification

Administration (REA) was signed into existence in 1936 providing federal loans to bring electricity to rural areas in America, namely farms. As electricity spread, so did radio. Millions of Americans were listening to the same broadcasts simultaneously across the nation, and distinctions between places and people were diminished, even erased.60 As one ad from the thirties read, "They've never met, but they're all one family."61 The unity radio created, along with the rhetoric of FDR’s fireside chats, pulled Americans together during a time of despair and focused energy on rebuilding America.

The first two forms of traditional media, print and radio, show the power media has in affecting consumers. It can polarize through partisanship and it can unite through community.

Print journalism may have served as the first form of mass communication due to the advent of the printing press, and Alexis de Tocqueville attributed the large number of U.S. newspapers in

1831 as key to the country’s broad political participation,62 but radio was the first truly mass medium, linking great cities and remote hamlets in the same instantaneous event.63 Such was the power harnessed by FDR through radio technology that he was reelected to office three times after his first term. Radio was able to move a presidential candidate’s voice into the intimate

59 Lenthall, Bruce. Radio’s America: The Great Depression and the Rise of Modern Mass Culture, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007, 13. 60 McDonald, Marcy. Radio and The Great Depression, accessed January 2, 2016, http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma05/ macdonald/ radiosfx/bg_radio_sfx.html 61 Brown, Robert J. Manipulating the Ether: The Power of Broadcast Radio in Thirties America, Jefferson: McFarland and Co., Inc., Publishers, 1998, 5. 62 De Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America. Trans. Isaac Kramnick, and Gerald E. Bevan. London: Penguin Classics, 2003. 63 Smith, American RadioWorks.

space of a family home creating a sense of intimacy, and at the same time serve as a removal of one’s physical presence in relation to attending a live event. FDR continued to pave the way for radio’s influential usage in politics, establishing the medium as a routine White House medium.

As technology continued to develop, so did the changing landscape of media usage. In the 1950s, radio was eclipsed by television as a political forum.64

Television: Nixon versus Kennedy

The constant adaptation of technology by political campaigns meant the rise of television proved no different. Known as the first true television president, John F. Kennedy grasped the potential of using television to reach American voters. Political and media scholars commonly agree that the Nixon/Kennedy debates, which played out simultaneously on two different mediums of radio and television, resulted in differing responses. Those listening to the radio debates felt that Nixon won, whereas those watching the television broadcasts felt that Kennedy won. E.D. Dover writes in Presidential Elections in the Television Age: “1960 was considered the turning point in the television age, particularly with politics.”65 Television had an enormous impact on American politics after the Nixon/Kennedy debates, and it set forth a new standard for politicians seeking office. Public image become very important in campaigns now that the electorate could see a candidate in action as opposed to a still photograph. It also changed the

64 Ibid. 65 Dover, E.D. Presidential Elections in the Television Age: 1960-1992, Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994.

way television was viewed as a communication medium and technological tool by the political world.

Americans were accustomed to their media routine of newspapers and radio, so it took time for television to be adapted into regular routines of media consumption. Although television started reporting newsworthy information and events since at least 1948, most people still read newspapers and listened to the radio for political news coverage. In 1950, only 11 percent of forty million American families owned televisions. Herbert Asher reports that only 51 percent of voters in the election of 1952 used television as a medium for acquiring political information; 79 percent still used newspapers and 70 percent used radios. However, in 1960, at the time of the

Nixon/Kennedy debates, the number of television owners had jumped to 88 percent66 and a reported 87 percent of voters used it as a source of information.67

The synchronization of sound and image appealed to auditory and visual senses simultaneously, meaning the importance of a political candidate’s looks increased relative to what they had to say. Prior to the televised debates and post-convention for both the Republicans and the Democrats, polls showed Nixon with about a six-point lead over Kennedy. Nixon was better known, as he was Vice President under then current President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and he was considered the more experienced candidate compared to newcomer Kennedy, an inexperienced Senator from New York.

66 Donaldson, Gary A. The First Modern Campaign: Kennedy, Nixon, and the Election of 1960, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007, 112. 67 Dover, Presidential Elections in the Television Age, 10.

To give an idea of how drastic television impacted the outcome of the election, as many as 60 percent of the electorate at the time admitted that they had, thus far, not paid much attention to the campaign.68 By the time the two candidates met in Chicago for the first debate,

Nixon looked awful from having been hospitalized for an injured leg and lack of rest. Kennedy continued campaigning and increasing his poll numbers while Nixon was recovering from his injury. By the time of the debate date, the two were about even in the polls. In The First Modern

Campaign: Kennedy, Nixon, and the Election of 1960, Gary A. Donaldson writes:

Kennedy stood ready to benefit the most from that situation because the debates would place him before even more Americans, and he believed he would be able to show that he belonged in the arena with Nixon, that he was not too young and too inexperienced to be president. Nixon, on the other hand, believed that his superior debating abilities would allow him to defeat Kennedy, possibly even destroy his candidacy in front of millions of Americans. It would be the first time in history that the American people would be able to see their candidates, together, debating the issues before them. It would be the beginning of a new era in politics, truly the origins of the modern era of American presidential elections.69

As many as 74 million Americans—nearly two-thirds of the nation’s adult population— tuned in to watch the two candidates side-by-side in the first ever televised presidential debate.70 Those who listened to the radio broadcast of the debates felt that Nixon had a slight edge over Kennedy having been better spoken and knowledgeable on the issues, but it was the viewers of the televised debates that mattered and were drawn to Kennedy’s youth and charisma. Nixon, pale and underweight from his recent hospitalization, appeared sickly and sweaty, while Kennedy

68 Donaldson, The First Modern Campaign, 94. 69 Ibid, 108. 70 Webley, Kayla. “How the Nixon-Kennedy Debate Changed the World,” TIME, last modified September 23, 2010, http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2021078,00.html.

appeared healthy, calm, and confident.71 Viewers said they felt Nixon was talking down to them during the first debate, whereas Kennedy’s demeanor was different. As Kennedy spoke to the audience, it felt as if he were speaking to the American people.72 As a predominantly visual medium with audio being secondary, an older, sickly looking Nixon gave a bad first-impression on television. And a young, handsome, well-spoken JFK was able to utilize television with strength, strategy, and success. Kennedy acknowledged the role television played in his victory to the White House. Four days, after winning the election by a narrow margin, Kennedy admitted

"it was the TV more than anything else that turned the tide."73 After the debates, Kennedy wrote,

“The network television debates between Mr. Nixon and myself have been a great service by the television industry to the American people."74 For the first time, Americans could see

Presidential candidates instead of only reading about them or seeing pictures. In Nixon’s 1978 memoir, he wrote:

As for television debates in general, I doubt that they can ever serve a responsible role in defining the issues of a presidential campaign. Because of the nature of the medium, there will inevitably be a greater premium on showmanship than on statesmanship."75

71 Ibid. 72 Donaldson, The First Modern Campaign, 118. 73 Menand, Louis. “Masters of the Matrix: Kennedy, Nixon, and the Culture of the Image,” New Yorker, last modified January 5, 2004, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/01/05/masters-of-the-matrix. 74 Kraus, Sidney. (Ed.). The Great Debates: Background, Perspective, Effects, Gloucester, MA: P. Smith, 1968. 75 Nixon, Richard Milhous. The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978, 221.

Nixon’s commentary on the role of television would turn out to prove true, as the visual medium, although helpful in connecting candidates with voters, would emphasize appearance and showmanship over substance and statesmanship, particularly in more recent elections.76

After Kennedy’s win in 1960, it would not be until 1976 that another presidential debate would be televised. Kennedy agreed to debate Barry Goldwater in the 1964 election, however,

Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and Democratic candidate Lyndon B. Johnson did all that he could to avoid debating Goldwater. Johnson was not a good debater, not telegenic, and was somewhat less attractive.77 In 1968 Nixon refused to debate the Democratic candidate Hubert

Humphrey, and in 1972 he refused to debate George McGovern. It was not until 1976, when

President Gerald Ford debated the Democratic Candidate Jimmy Carter that the presidential debates returned to the campaign trail. In “Television’s Portrayal of the 1976 Presidential

Debates: An Analysis of Visual Content,” Robert K. Tiemens focuses on the debates between

Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Carter studied old kinescopes of the Kennedy-Nixon debate, and

Ford staged full scale dress rehearsals on a mock-up set. Both understood the power of television. Televised presidential debates have continued uninterrupted ever since.

The power of television as a communication medium is its ability to send both visual and auditory messages to a live and national audience. Television affects elections by personalizing candidates on screen and bringing them into American homes. Not only does the immediacy of

76 The 2016 GOP Primary is a prime example of how television and its gravitation towards showmanship pushed candidate Donald Trump to the top. His economic and political policies had little substantive backing compared to the other GOP primary candidates, but because of the appeal of his celebrity status and entertainment value, he was highly covered by the mass media. 77 Donaldson, Gary. Liberalism’s Last Hurrah: The Presidential Campaign of 1964. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003, 243–244.

television assist in candidate campaigns, but the reality of the image and the closeness it provides to viewers can allow one to get up-close and personal with the politician. Whereas before, one might be lucky enough to see a candidate from a faraway distance, or closer if they arrived early enough to secure a good spot at a live event, television brought the candidate into the safe space of one’s living room at home. Televised debates allowed Americans to see the thinking that occurred as candidates answered questions and study their micro-expressions to an opponent’s answer. If a candidate responded quickly, it could equate to understanding policy and the

American people, even if it were simply a talking point. The amount of time required for reflection on television differed from the previous technology of radio, which allowed one to draw out their responses with more time to contemplate answers; on television, viewers can see it all. The intimacy television created with presidential candidates that print and radio could not provide allowed the new medium to quickly develop into a profitable and dominant medium.

The 1960 presidential campaign and the first nationally televised debate was the point in

American history that image replaced substance in the national electoral process. After the

Kennedy-Nixon debates, presidential candidates and their strategists seemed more intent than ever on creating favorable images, as personality began to overcome policy in our increasingly celebrity-driven culture.78 Although television is still the dominant place for political content, it is being supplemented by an increasing role of other media forms with the rise of new media.

78 Kenneth T. Walsh. “JFK: First TV President,” last modified November 20, 2013, accessed March 18, 2014, http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/ken-walshs-washington/2013/11/20/jfk-first-tv-president.

New Media

From early uses of print technology, radio, and television, these three mediums form to create what is referred to as traditional media, as mentioned in the introduction. Traditional media are forms of media that are tangible, audible, and perceptible, defined linearly before the advent and commercial use of the Internet and new medias. As older and more established mediums, the adaptation to new media’s arrival, marked by the rise of the Internet, disrupted the ecology of media and politics, requiring their roles to be renegotiated and reorganized.

New media refers to new technology for communicative means, yet there is arguably an assumption that there is not a real ‘new’ because ‘new’ is constantly being redefined and recreated. What ‘new’ refers to is actually the ‘digital,’ the digitization of information, and more specifically, the Internet. Moving print, radio, and television to the internet realm of existence and building onto the development of communication formats and styles, the recent standardization of digital media usage in politics requires traditional media to adapt to new media’s arrival. It also requires political strategies to incorporate advanced technologies into their campaign methods. New media typically does not displace or replace another as much as it complicates and renegotiates its operation; new media serves as a remediation79 of traditional media. For Lev Manovich, new media is a shift of all culture to computer-mediated forms of production, distribution, and communication; it is a convergence of two separate historical trajectories: computing and media technologies.80 Just as McLuhan believes the medium is the

79 Bolter, Jay. D., and Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999.

80 Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.

message, the purpose of media itself has not changed but the form has. The new message form is new media.

The introduction of Internet into political campaigns occurred before the new millennium. Some press pundits argued that the Web would be a high-tech means for bypassing traditional media and allow for candidates to offer subjective and slanted sources of information81 by going around the fixity of media gatekeepers. Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign was the first to use the Internet in 1992 providing a basic website with candidate biographies, policy positions, and full text of speeches for purposes of information dissemination.82 In 1996, Bob Dole joined the Internet world and created a campaign website that received more than 3 million “hits” during the first six months it operated.83 George W.

Bush and Al Gore created websites for their campaigns in the presidential election of 2000 and targeted their own supporters. Political scientist Bruce Bimber said regarding websites, “People tend to go to the websites of the candidates they support, and they tend to come away feeling even more strongly about them than they did going in.”84

81 Johnson, Thomas J., Mahmoud A.M. Braima, and Jayanthi Sothirajah. (1999). ”Doing the Traditional Media Sidestep: Comparing the Effects of the Internet and Other Nontraditional Media with Traditional Media in the 1996 Presidential Campaign,” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 76(1), 100. 82 Hendericks, John Allen, and Lynda Lee Kaid. Techno Politics in Presidential Campaigning: New Voices, New Technologies, and New Voters, New York, NY: Routledge, 2011, 4. 83 Corrado, Anthony. “Election in Cyberspace: Prospects and Problems,” in Elections in Cyberspace: Toward a New Era in American Politics, Ed. Anthony Corrado and Charles M. Firestone. Washington, DC: The Aspen Institute, 1996. 84 Schlotter, Bill. “Use of Internet in Presidential Campaigns, Lessons of 2000 Race Analyzed in Book by US Santa Barbara Political Scientist,” The Current, November 18, 2003, http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2003/011786/use- internet-presidential-campaigns-lessons-2000-race-analyzed-book-uc-santa-barbara.

Howard Dean is considered to have run the first real “digital campaign” in 2004, using the Internet to organize and finance his campaign. His campaign backbone was Meetup.com, to organize meeting with supporters, which quickly grew to over 140,000 members.85 And he raised over $41 million, most of it from online donors giving $200 or less.86 These early presidential elections served as stepping stones for what developed the following election cycle in 2008 with the first “Internet President” Barack Obama and the Internet “Revolution” of Ron Paul (to be further discussed in Chapter Four).

Digital media alters political landscapes by allowing individuals to freely associate online without the boundaries of physical space, to create interactive webs of exchanges that surpass the power of traditional media as a unidirectional messaging channel. Digital technologies challenge the role of the individual in the critical exchange between self and world. Virtual existences and identities can be created by returning communicative power to individuals seeking to form their identity through the public sphere, as well as political expression and participation online and off. Development and rapid expansion of alternative media outlets, those differing from traditional media, inclusive of social media and citizen-journalism, allow “people to work around the fixity of traditional media technologies and institutional systems and to negotiate, manipulate, and blur the boundaries between interpersonal interaction and mass communication.87” Michael Albert believes alternative media is an independent institution aimed

85 Wolf, Gary. “How the Internet Invented Howard Dean,” Wired, January 1, 2004, https://www.wired.com/2004/01 /dean/. 86 Hindman, Matthew. (March 2005). “The Real Lessons of How Dean: Reflections on the First Digital Campaign,” Perspectives on Politics, 3(1), 121–128. 87 Leah A. Lievrouw. Alternative and Activist New Media, Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2011, 5.

at establishing new ways of organizing media and social activity.88 Straying from the hierarchical organizational approach of traditional media with corporate ownership, alternative media uses different communication outlets to cover content that might not otherwise be reported by traditional media. The importance of information diversity is what becomes at play with new media challenging the content of traditional media.

The prominence of social media in today’s society becomes both a helpful tool in mass messaging and a challenge in content control of media and politics. The more established social media sites—Facebook, Twitter, YouTube—play important roles in the recent 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. From garnering supporters and creating celebrity-status like followings to quickly communicating with activists and donors, online networks on social media sites allow for politicians and their candidacy to spread like wildfire in a way traditional media could not have allowed for due to time and cost constraints. Print media requires raw materials, reporters, editors, and a printing press to create content for distribution to readers. Radio involves licensing approval from a government agency and strict adherence to appropriateness in content for public consumption. And television encompasses a mix of the previous two. Traditional media cannot compare to the ability of new media’s instant mass outreach. The ease of sharing a video or retweeting a message on social media allows for messages to quickly reach audiences without a strong time or cost constraint. Anyone with access to the Internet and computer literacy can create an account to post, comment, and share their thoughts and opinions and join social and political discussions.

88 Michael Albert, “What Makes Alternative Media Alternative?” Z Magazine, October 1, 1997, accessed March 31, 2014, http://zcomm.org/zmagazine/what-makes-alternative-media-alternative-by-michael-albert/.

Presidential elections have always incorporated media into campaign strategies, from print media to radio broadcasting to televised debates. With the introduction of each new medium, it required user adaptation to media practices and traditional media to renegotiate their mutual standing to fit into the ecological system of media and politics. As with the introduction of the Internet, new media technologies continued to serve as helpful tools in assisting candidates reach out to the electorate. The ability for the electorate to have immediate access to political information, to connect with other voters and activists, and to interact with presidential candidates changes the landscape of electoral politics and the political sphere. One has direct influence in helping a candidate win or lose support from social circles, especially those with large online followings. The influential factor has exponentially increased with the connectivity of new media technologies. Because access to and variety of information can wield incredible power, entities wanting to control power must also control the media.

CHAPTER THREE

THE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION,

THE FOURTH ESTATE, AND THE FIFTH ESTATE

"If people in the media cannot decide whether they are in the business of reporting news or manufacturing propaganda, it is all the more important that the public understand that difference, and choose their news sources accordingly." — Thomas Sowell

“Journalism is publishing something someone does not want published.” — George Orwell

America’s twenty-first century landscape is one saturated with media presence. Print media is delivered straight to mailboxes, radios are installed in every vehicle, and cable television is aired 24 hours, 7 days a week. Many individuals have access to social connectivity and online information at their fingertips with smartphones, tablets, and laptops.89 Although traditional media has reigned supreme for decades, it has recently been disrupted by the explosion of new media and technology requiring the ecological system and balance between media and politics to mutually adapt and incorporate one another into daily practices. Print media are offering some of their services online, such as membership-only access to news articles for subscribers. Radio programs and political podcasts can be heard from station websites or through mobile phone applications. And presidential debates or news television programs are now live streamed on the web, even allowing and welcoming public interaction on social media sites through practices like submitting questions on YouTube or commenting with a specific

89 A Pew Research Study found 84 percent of American adults use the Internet.

Twitter hashtag. The simultaneous development of media and politics challenges the literacy of voters by requiring media consumers to be aware of their mutual interaction—to note what is being shared, to consider how information is being delivered, and to reflect upon why specific stories are told over others. The constant exposure to media also increases the importance of literacy of media and politics. It essentially boils down to the power of media as a tool and outlet to inform, educate, captivate, and influence viewers.

The seeming myriad of information on various candidates in the two dominant contending political parties, Democrat versus Republican, are, in reality, only covered by a handful of major news networks—the big three90 consisting of CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, as well as ABC News and NBC News—and their local affiliates. With the future of the United

States leadership and the most powerful position in the free world resting in the hands of five news networks, this brings to question the power and influence these big networks have over the voting population of America, and if five news networks can objectively, critically, and neutrally cover the presidential race.

The challenge of mainstream media, which refers to publicly and corporately owned and or controlled media, which are available to the general public across radio, print, television, and the Internet within a particular media environment,91 is that their bottom line is viewership

(loosely translated to profit for the sale of commercial time). The more people who read, listen to, or watch the media, the more advertisements can be sold for and the more money can be

90 Franklin, Nancy. (2010, Aug 02). SNAPPED CABLE: On television. The New Yorker, 86, 78-79. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/821046793?accountid=7120. 91 McCurdy, Patrick. (2012). “Social Movements, Protests and Mainstream Media,” Sociology Compass 6(3), 244- 255.

made.92 When the goal of the Fourth Estate changes from preserving democracy and liberty to becoming a profit-making machine, we as readers, listeners, and viewers of media, must question the rhetorical presentation of politics depicted and reported on mainstream media outlets across the nation for the sake of improving literacy in the area of media and politics. More importantly, we must be literate in these areas for the conservation of America’s future.

The powerful and influential role of the Fourth Estate is what Herbert I. Schiller refers to as media managers, or that those who manage the media. Media managers become mind managers through manipulating and propagandizing information to control popular opinion.

According to Schiller:

America’s media managers create, process, refine, and preside over the circulation of images and information which determine our beliefs and attitudes and, ultimately our behavior. When they deliberately produce messages that do not correspond to the realities of social existence, the media mangers become mind managers. Messages that intentionally create a false sense of reality and produce a consciousness that cannot comprehend or willfully rejects the actual conditions of life, personal or social, are manipulative messages.93

Because of our constant exposure to mediated messaged, we are in a perpetual state of consuming images and information put forth by media managers to influence our perceptions of society. This puts a heavier burden on members of the Fourth Estate to practice honesty and integrity in their profession. This also put responsibility on consumers of media to understand media literacy and political literacy.

92 Skinner, Dasia. “When News Media’s Bottom Line is Profit,” Chicago Monitor, November 12, 2012, http://chicagomonitor.com/2012/11/when-news-media-is-driven-by-profit-not-informing-the-public/. 93 Herbert I Schiller. (1968). The Mind Managers. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1.

The control and power that media managers have over audiences in a dominating industry that permeates our culture can be seen as a problematic issue. According to a 2015 report by ZenithOptimedia, a top return-on-investment agency, people spend over 490 minutes a day on some form of media—television accounting for at least three hours of consumption and at least an hour on the Internet.94 With a third of our day interacting with media (and its relational politics), it is sure to play an influential role to some extent due to constant exposure of media messaging. What Americans read in the newspapers, hear on the radio, or see on the television guides their views on society and politics. As consumers of media, the thought of being influenced to a degree by media is understandable, but the idea of being manipulated by media is perhaps unappealing, upsetting, and offensive to our intellect and individuality. But consider that in 2015, an estimated $187 billion was spent on advertising alone, with 28 percent, or $52.8 billion accounting for digital advertising and $30 billion of that behind television ads.95 Perhaps media might be a lot more influential than we as consumers are willing to fully admit.

One of the top concerns regarding access to diversified information and differing perspectives on issues is media consolidation and power in the hands of mind managers. In the

1970s, the top three television networks ABC, CBS, and NBC were prohibited by federal regulation to produce and syndicate their own prime-time programming because they would favor shows that their own network had a financial interest in. The government wanted to

94 Karaian, Jason. “We Now Spend More Than Eight Hours a Day Consuming Media,” Quartz, June 1, 2015, http://qz.com/ 416416/we-now-spend-more-than-eight-hours-a-day-consuming-media/. 95 Lunden, Ingrid. “2015 Ad Spend Rises to $187B, Digital Inches Closer to One Third of It,” TechCrunch. Last modified January 20, 2015, accessed January 26, 2016, http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/20/2015-ad-spend-rises-to- 187b-digital-inches-closer-to-one-third-of-it/.

prevent horizontal media monopolies from forming within major television networks so as to promote diversity in in content creation. Yet since 1983, 90 percent of American media have shifted in ownership from 50 companies to now being controlled by six major corporations:

General Electric, News Corporation, Disney/ABC, Viacom International, Time Warner/AOL, and CBS/Westinghouse.96 The tightening of media ownership means fewer people being in charge of larger amounts of airwaves, networks, and broadcast information. Serving as gatekeepers of information, those who work in mainstream media and those who own media conglomerates wield great power over average Americans who rely on journalists, reporters, and political pundits for pertinent information on presidential candidates and their campaigns. The major media corporations now have so much control and power over traditional media (print, radio, and television), that new competition is almost impossible to break into the stronghold of the media oligopoly. When media actively works to manage minds through manipulation of information, the created environment can strongly affect social practices and political outcomes.

Access to diversified information and accurate, unbiased new coverage of presidential campaigns is of concern when power is concentrated in the form of a media oligopoly. How are viewers supposed to trust political election information when media ownership is highly concentrated?

Are voters actually receiving diverse enough information and well-researched journalistic reports on presidential candidates?

96 Lutz, Ashley. “These 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America,” Business Insider. Last modified June 14, 2012, accessed January 21, 2016, http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the- media-in-america-2012-6.

This chapter of my dissertation focuses on the decline of trust in the Fourth Estate due to media consolidation and the role of mind managers in gatekeeping political information and the rise of the Fifth Estate to fulfill duties and perspectives that they feel have been neglected. There are many reasons for this shift, including but not limited to government intervention, corporate greed, and lobbying to name a few. My argument focuses around the regulatory and deregulatory influence of the Federal Communications Commission on media ownership resulting in media ownership consolidation, how the Fourth Estate and industry professionals have moved away from the proper role of serving the citizenry, and, as an effect, has caused rise of the Fifth Estate turning to social media and alternative media for accurate, unbiased news reports and becoming citizen-journalists and activists as a means of avoiding mind manager manipulation.

The Federal Communications Commission

The FCC wields enormous power over media and the telecommunications business.

Many people flock to newly invented technology, as was the case with the discovery of airwaves and the ability for transmissions to be sent through broadcast frequencies. The massive influx of amateur radio practitioners resulted in airwaves being overcrowded with noise due to the few frequencies available being used by numerous operators. Local and regional policymakers worked to figure out ways to self-regulate radio, but there was still a fear and threat of “chaos in the air,” a term introduced to pressure Congress to act97 and pass federal regulations. Chaos in the air meant there would be nothing but static and noise on the airwaves if radio were not

97 Hazlett, Thomas W. “The Rationality of U.S. Regulation of the Broadcast Spectrum,” Journal of Law & Economics 33, 1990: 137–38.

adequately and federally regulated.98 Steve Wurtzler writes, “AT&T proposed developing U.S. radio as a dispersed, largely decentralized array of noncompetitive local broadcast stations… designed only to reach members within the community itself.”99 A localized approach to radio would have resulted in a vastly different landscape for the medium that has since developed allowing for direct markets, or those most immediately connected to the community, to influence radio ownership and listenership.

To address the overflow, the federal government claimed jurisdiction under the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution over broadcast frequencies, giving regulatory powers to the

United States Department of Commerce. This gave the Secretary of Commerce a high federal role of media management with the ability and authority to deny radio licensing applications or reassign broadcast frequencies. Broadcast history tends to focus on federal radio policy, largely ignoring the wide range of attempts at local radio regulation or state and regional autonomy within a national system that could have resulted in wider diversity in ownership and programming. Bill Kirkpatrick discusses this issue in depth, stating that many local communities devolved authority to regions, states, and localities while the federal government worked to figure out rules and regulations to control the market.100 One such example of local ordinances is that of Portland, Oregon creating a noise pollution law banning excessive sound, catching radio

98 Kirkpatrick, Bill. “Regulation Before Regulation: The Local-National Struggle for Control of Radio Regulation in the 1920s,” Journal of Radio & Audio Media, 18(2), 2011: 248–262. 99 Wurtzler, Steve J. (2007). Electric Sounds: Technological Change, and the Rise of Corporate Mass Media. New York: Columbia University Press, 34. 100 Kirkpatrick, “Regulation Before Regulation,” 260.

in its net (although the law was later revoked).101 The state of Minneapolis passed a law that created fines and even jail time for radio interference.102 There were other localities and states that worked to self-regulate radio within their communities, but it was the federal government’s regulatory influence that became the first major step in media ownership concentration.

Congress passed the Radio Act of 1912, which regulated radio communications and gave the federal government more power, this time to license radio stations. It was the first major legislation affecting broadcasting and established government control over issuing licenses, allocating the spectrum based on what the government considered priority of uses, and gave individual communications priority over amateur communications.103 This prevented newcomers from entering the radio market, particularly those who were not already established within the young, growing media form. It also meant government had the power to limit the radio market, preventing free market public interest from taking place. Pushback from amateur radio users and local markets resulted in a hybrid plan by Herbert Hoover at the Fourth National Radio

Conference in Washington D.C. in 1925. The federal government would set broad policy and regional radio boards would decide on local licenses.

The highly represented corporate broadcasting interests at the conference found the plan contentious.104 What followed was the Radio Act of 1927, which transferred existing powers from the Department of Commerce to the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) and granted it more

101 “Noise Suppression Ordinance Revoked,” Variety, 1927: 56. 102 “Local Regulation of Broadcasting.” (1927, August). Radio Broadcast, 11(4): 236–237. 103 Einstein, Mara. Media Diversity: Economics, Ownership, and the FCC. Mahwah, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates, 2004, 9. 104 Kirkpatrick, “Regulation Before Regulation,” 259.

responsibilities. A lot of discretionary power was given to the FRC to classify radio stations, assign wave lengths, determine the power and location of the transmitters, regulate the kind of apparatus used, and make additional regulations to prevent interference.105 The federal government could now intervene in radio stations deemed “non-useful” and have them abolished,106 establish zones to be served by stations, make special regulations for chain broadcasting (when two or more radio stations air the same program), and make general rules and regulations at its discretion.107 The enormous power assumed by the government and given to the FRC meant controlling ownership and content. This put the FRC in a position of approving, selecting, or removing the start of media managers. Many independent radio stations that focused their content on selective markets or personal interests were cleared off the airwaves by the FRC for not serving the broader “public interest,” preventing market competition between independent stations and public stations approved by the hands of government, such as larger leaders in the broadcasting industry, like Radio Corporation of America (RCA), Westinghouse, and General Electric, who promised high quality radio programs with wholesome public service content.

In 1928, as radio expanded in popularity and television continued to develop in the

United States, the government felt a need to create a unified entity to oversee these communication systems to avoid corporate monopolization, promote media diversity, and

105 Coase, R.H. “The Federal Communications Commission,” The Journal of Law & Economics, 2, 1959: 1–40. 106 Barnouw, Erik (1966), A Tower in Babel; A history of Broadcasting in the United States to 1933, New York: Oxford University Press. 107 Radio Act of 1927 Law, Sec. 4

prevent interference with government use. The priority of the government to regulate airwaves was not actually in the interest of the public but in their own self-interest of preventing the public from utilizing a resource that the government deemed to own. Congress abolished the FRC and transferred its jurisdiction to the newly formed FCC,108 which was created by the passage of the

Communications Act of 1934. The FCC was an independent agency established under President

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal era by the United States government to regulate interstate communications by radio and wire, later to include television, satellite, and cable. 109 At the time,

Roosevelt was concerned that large corporations and conglomerates would monopolize the growing communications systems industry. He wanted the FCC to regulate it, so as to keep a fair and balanced industry which would serve “the public interest, convenience, and necessity.”110 A great intention, but little did Roosevelt know, giving federal bureaucrats the power to regulate the market through government intervention, to determine which applicants received licenses and which were denied based on loose, undefined standards would skew competition, diversity, and localism of media. Such regulations would also prove to be problematic and partly at fault for the creation of our current media oligarchy and the role of mind managers. These three aspects are what the FCC set as its public-interest goals for media. Some scholars argue whether the public

108 When the FCC was first created, it was overseen by a seven-member commission appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. It has since been reduced to five commissioners. Only three of the five members may be from one political party and none can have any financial holdings in any FCC-regulated business. 109 According to communications scholar Robert R. Horwitz, the fear of government power and control of media is a central concern to American politics, as is the dismay over the concentration of private power in media. Government regulation and antitrust policies traditionally attempted to address the dangers of media concentration through rules regarding ownership. 110 47 U.S.C. §§ 214(a) & 310(d).

is actually served by the public-interest standard, and more importantly, who decides what is in the public’s best interest.

The Public Interest Standard

The public interest goals of the FCC follow three main components: competition, diversity, and localism.111 Media competition not only promotes better services for users as businesses compete to create quality programs, but because of varying audience demands, programming will also be more diverse to accommodate the market need. Media diversity refers to ownership diversity, programming diversity, and audience diversity. Having a diverse group of media owners should translate to providing a range of programming selection due to differing interests and styles, thus attracting an assorted audience. And localism refers to designated geographical areas known as designated market areas (DMA) because local communities best know their area’s needs. Local stations can better cater to their geographical demographic’s interest and demands. Each of the public interest standard goal works in tandem with the other to create a medium that serves the public at large.

FCC regulations serve as guidelines and rules that allow for fair competition. Its rules and regulations are in Title 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). If one wants to broadcast over the airwaves, they must obtain a license and permit to do so, pay the appropriate fees, and adhere to rules and regulations that govern the medium. The steps to broadcasting sound simple and fair; however, the FCC still reserves the power to classify stations and prescribe services,

111 DiCola, Peter. “Choosing Between the Necessity and Public Interest Standards in FCC Review of Media Ownership Rules.” Michigan Law Review, 106(1), 2007: 101-133.

approve equipment and mandate standards for levels of interference, make regulations for stations with network affiliations, prescribe qualifications for station owners and operators, levy fines and forfeitures, and issue cease and desist orders.112 The commission’s most important powers are the ability to license, short-license, withhold, fine, revoke or renew broadcast licenses and construction permits depending on their evaluation of whether a station serves the public interest.

Taking a closer, deeper look at the public interest standard and that which embodies the creation and purpose for the FCC, their key responsibilities range from issuing operating licenses for radio and TV stations to maintaining decency standards designed to protect the public good.113 But how the FCC defines what is in the best interest of the public is unclear because there is no fixed standard or definition of public interest.

Adam Thierer, an economic policy fellow from the Heritage Foundation, questions if the public interest standard, which has governed the FCC, does indeed serve the public, or if it serves the interests of the regulators and the companies that stand to gain via the regulatory process.114 Ronald Coase, a Nobel Laureate economist, noted “the phrase [the public interest] lacks any definite meaning. Furthermore, the many inconsistencies in commission decisions have made it impossible for the phrase to acquire a definite meaning in the process of regulation.”115

112 47 U.S. Code § 303. 113 “Federal Communication Commission,” AllGov – Departments, http://www.allgov.com/departments/ independent-agencies/federal-communications-commission-fcc?agencyid=7325.

114 Thierer, Adam. “Is the Public Served by the Public Interest Standard?” The Freeman, last modified September 1, 1996, http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/is-the-public-served-by-the-public-interest-standard. 115 Ronald H. Coase, “The Federal Communications Commission,” The Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 2 (October 1959): 8-9.

The idea of what is in the best interest of the public can depend on the mindset of those in charge or the social context and climate of national and international politics. Public interests can also change with time as ideas evolve and society progresses.

Howard Shelanski believes that under the “public interest” rubric, the FCC has tried to structure the media market to be both competitive enough to satisfy consumers’ desires and to be diverse enough to provide the range of information and viewpoints necessary for informed public discourse.116 What becomes problematic with the FCC’s formulated structure and power to declare what is or is not of public interest is the limitation it creates of what could have possibly been. Thierer argues that there is no objectivism in federal regulations, but that relations were dependent on the FCC board (members who are appointed by the President and the U.S. Senate and not voted into power), and they had broad authority and discretion to regulate on behalf of

“the public interest, convenience, or necessity.” Thomas Hazlett demonstrated that federal lawmakers of the 1920s knowingly favored far-reaching regulation. He writes:

The situation in the American broadcasting industry is not essentially different in character from that which would be found if a commission appointed by the federal government had the task of selecting those who were to be allowed to publish newspapers and periodicals in each city, town, and village of the United States… the broadcasting industry is a source of news and opinion of comparable importance with newspapers or books…117

116 Shelanski, Howard A. “Antitrust Law as Mass Media Regulation: Can Merger Standards Protect the Public Interests?” California Law Review, 94(2), Mar 2006: 372. 117 Hazlett, Thomas W. “The Rationality of U.S. Regulation of the Broadcast Spectrum,” The Journal of Law & Economics, 33, 1990: 133–175.

In the early 1940s, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the authority of the FCC to regulate some aspects of broadcasting because of the scarcity of broadcasting channels.118 With media competition on the rise, government regulation was intended to deter monopoly ownership or control and serve as a system to achieve diversity in ownership, programming, and perspectives.

During this time, three radio networks owned most of the commercial stations in the United

States, Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and the Red and Blue networks of the National

Broadcasting Company (NBC).119 A report on NBC’s media stronghold lead to the breakup of

NBC and resulted in the creation of American Broadcasting Company (ABC). But just as the

FRC regulated independent radio stations out of existence during its time to make room for public stations utilizing public airwaves, the FCC could and did prevent the creation of independent broadcasting stations under the ruling that they were not in the public’s interest.

This meant the government actually shut out the potential increase of competition, diversity, and localism, taking another step closer to the consolidation of media and mind manager control.

The subjectivism of public interest holds back fairness of competition within the industry because of the power levied on a few to oversee the many. The ability for large corporations like

CBS and NBC to come into existence required the approval of licensing by the FCC. Having the

FCC involved in competition from a government-regulated standpoint negates the reality of true market competition based on user demands. It is the competition between media corporations vying for consumer preference that results in diversity of ownership and programming to address

118 Paletz, David L. The Media in American Politics: Contents and Consequences. New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, Inc., 2002, 87. 119 Edwardson, Mickie. (2002). “James Lawrence Fly’s Report on Chain Broadcasting (1941) and the Regulation of Monopoly in America,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, 22(4): 397–423.

the desires and direction of the market. Mara Einstein writes of two methodologies and schools of thought on how to best create diversity: the open market—a belief in the efficiency of market forces to create breadth of diverse voices in society, and government regulation—a belief that regulation is needed otherwise diversity will be threatened by the pursuit of profit over public interest.120 Diversity may be achieved with programming and access to programming, but if audiences still limit themselves to particular programs that they like or reinforce their worldview, it might not necessarily serve a democracy, and the FCC regulations that are working toward the best of public interest may be for naught. Beyond the lack of consensus on public interest, the definition of diversity itself is also a contentious battle between content providers, policymakers, scholars, and the courts. Einstein thinks diversity as a policy goal is not only difficult but possibly impossible to achieve. She writes:

A major reason for the lack of definition is that regulating content comes into direct conflict with the First Amendment. The federal courts are likely to shoot down any attempt to regulate specific programming.121

Even though the FCC has received numerous complaints that television and radio stations have broadcast extreme or incorrect social or political statements, the Communications Act prohibits the commission from censoring broadcast material and from making any regulation that would interfere with the First Amendment.122 Obscenity, profanity, and indecent material cannot be

120 Einstein, Media Diversity. 121 Einstein, Media Diversity, 6. 122 Indecent material and profane material can however be restricted, and obscene material is not protected and cannot be broadcasted.

banned, but the FCC can restrict the material from being broadcast during times when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience.

Fearful of the monopolization of ideas over the airwaves, the FCC adopted the Fairness

Doctrine in 1949 to promote diversity. It was a formalized expectation that broadcasters should air contrasting viewpoints123 to facilitate diverse ideas and encourage debate for the interest of the public. Audience exposure to perspectives different from their own would provide for healthy debate. Government regulation assisted in diversifying content and perspectives that audiences received to maximize public interest by creating a more informed citizenry by making broadcasters present contrasting views on important issues. The Fairness Doctrine is not to be confused with the Equal-Time Rule,124 a provision in the 1934 Communications Act, which allowed for reasonable access for opposing political candidates during campaigning season no matter how many political parties were in a race.

Corydon Dunham, former executive vice president for NBC, argued against deregulation, stating that it would not necessarily increase diversity. Because television is linked to a profit motive of increasing subscribers,125 more competition would lead to decreased diversity as media companies scramble to attract the same viewers who like and watch the same programs. There would essentially be more of the same across different channels. Robert Horwitz concludes in his article that a market-governed media system under-produces certain kinds of content, especially

123 Horwitz, Robert B. “On Media Concentration and the Diversity Question,” The Information Society, 21 (2005): 189. 124 Gill, Kathy. “What is the Equal Time Rule?” Accessed November 7, 2014. http://uspolitics.about.com/od/ electionissues/a/fcc_equal_time.htm. 125 Winter, Bill. “Deregulation – Will Broadcasting Be Next?” American Bar Association Journal, 67, 1981: 407- 409.

content essential to democratic deliberation and self-government, but that a government- regulated system ignores the strength of consumer preferences and the limited effects of regulatory interventions on the consumption of audience favored content.126 It seems that a fully deregulated approach would not work, but neither would a fully regulated approach.

In the following decades, as cable television viewership exploded, more rules and restrictions were enacted by the FCC to regulate the market. The 1941 Local Radio Ownership

Rule and National TV Ownership Rule barred broadcasters from owning television stations that reached more than 35 percent of the nation’s homes. The 1946 Dual Television Network Rule prohibited a major network from buying another network. The 1949 Fairness Doctrine required radio and TV license holders to devote some of their programming to controversial issues of public importance and allow the airing of opposing views on those issues.127 The 1970 Radio/TV

Cross-Ownership Prohibition prevented a broadcaster from owning a radio station and a television station in the same market.128 And in 1987 the Fairness Doctrine was repealed.

During the 1990s, Congress and the FCC dropped almost all ownership restrictions. This led to a frenzy of mergers and acquisitions. Clear Channel Communications, the nation's largest owner of radio stations, bought the second largest station and now has more than 900 stations and outlets in almost all the top fifty markets.129 This result of the FCC dropping ownership

126 Horwitz, “On Media Concentration and the Diversity Question,” 196. 127 Matthews, Dylan. “Everything You Need to Know About the Fairness Doctrine in One Post,” The Washington Post. Last modified Augusgt 23, 2011, accessed September 3, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra- klein/post/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-fairness-doctrine-in-one-post/2011/08/23/ gIQAN8CXZJ_blog.html. 128 “Media Regulation Timeline,” PBS.org. Accessed September 3, 2016. http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/ mediatimeline.html. 129 Paletz, The Media in American Politics, 23.

restrictions and Clear Channel taking advantage of the deregulated market is a consequence of government interference in the market to begin with. In 2011, the FCC adopted a Notice of

Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in which it tentatively proposed loosening or eliminating some of the current constraints on cross-ownership of media outlets in local markets.130 The loosening of some of the restrictions allowed for the stronger networks to gain more markets and power by buying up the smaller stations that had neither the monetary means or customer base to compete with established companies.

Of the three principles guiding media regulation, localism has been the least understood and the subject of the least amount of research.131 It is perhaps also one of the most important due to the direct relationship individuals have to geographical areas. Former FCC Chair, Michael

Powell, established a Localism Task Force in 2003 to evaluate the performance of broadcasters in local markets by gathering empirical data and grassroots information and to advise the

Commission on steps it could take to promote localism in radio and television broadcasting.132

FCC research concluded that ownership does affect the diversity and localism of news. Many

Americans tune in to local news stations as their main source of information. Many local news stations are also somewhat affiliated with larger networks. A Gallup poll conducted in December of 2006 found that 55 percent of Americans received their daily news from local television stations in their area (which was the same as it was in 1995), 44 percent from local newspapers

130 Goldfarb, Charles B. “The FCC’s Broadcast Media Ownership and Attribution Rules: The Current Debate,” Journal of Current Issues in Media and Telecommunications, 5(4): 376. 131 Napoli, 2004, as cited in Yanich. Yanich, Danilo. “Does Ownership Matter? Localism, Content, and the Federal Communications Commission,” Journal of Media Economics, 23, 2010: 51-67. 132 “Broadcasting and Localism,” https://transition.fcc.gov/localism/Localism_Fact_Sheet.pdf.

in the area, 35 percent from programs on ABC, CBS, or NBC, followed by 34 percent from cable networks such as CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC.133 In a survey conducted by the Pew Research

Center in 2014, 45 percent of respondents said they receive most of their news about government and politics from television (with CNN, Fox, and local news topping the list), and 37 percent of the polled sample stated they received news on the Internet (with Yahoo and Google topping the list).134 Television, for the time being, is still the dominant mode of media and political news consumption, with major networks and local affiliates playing paramount roles in political campaign coverage.

When citizens are informed of local news and issues, it helps them become better social and political agents for their community. Localism as a policy principle is embedded in many areas of public policy, and any reasonable discussion of these issues requires an informed citizenry. In public comments that were submitted on March 5, 2012, broadcasters argued that they face increased competition from non-broadcast media outlets (especially cable networks and

Internet websites) that have reduced their audience and revenues, that existing ownership constraint kept them from exploiting economies of scale that would allow them to offer more local news programming. They therefore seek to loosen existing ownership restrictions. They also oppose expansion of attribution rules or reporting requirements related to sharing arrangements because, they claim, such requirements would impede their ability to attain

133 Saad, Lydia. “Local TV Is No. 1 Source of News for Americans.” Gallup. January 5, 2007. http://www.gallup.com/poll/26053/Local-No-Source-News-Americans.aspx.

134 Mitchell, Amy, Jeffrey Gottfried, Jocelyn Kiley, and Katerina Eva Matsa. “Political Polarization & Media Habits.” Journalism.org, October 21, 2014, http://www.journalism.org/2014/10/21/section-2-social-media- political-news-and-ideology/.

efficiencies that lead to improved programming.135 The fear of losing control of media ownership and declining viewership forces media organizations to lobby in favor of regulations that aids their company’s interests.

The top six media corporations (News Corp, General Electric, CBS Corp/Viacom,

Comcast Corp, Timer Warner, and Disney) have donated almost $7 million to political action committees and so-called “527 committees” during 2009 and 2010 and nearly $38 million since the 1990 election cycle.136 Consider the fact that in 2014, the top 10 companies that spent the most on lobbying included media corporations General Electric with $134 million (first), AT&T with $91.2 million (second), Comcast Corp with $86.4 million (fifth), and Verizon

Communications with $86.4 million (sixth).137 And in 2015, according to the Senate Office of

Public Records, lobbyists for the Television/Movies/Music industry spent over $62 million.138

These funds have been spent as donations to political action committees, campaign re-elections, travel and dinners, etc. as a means to persuade and influence policymakers into voting a specific way on media related legislation. The intentions of the FCC’s public interest standard, that is meant to improve competition, diversity, and localism, becomes a cross pollination of media and

135 Goldfarb, “The FCC’s Broadcast Media Ownership and Attribution Rules,” 377. 136 Wilson, Megan R. “Not Just News Corp.: Media Companies Have Long Made Political Donations,” OpenSecrets.org, August 23, 2010, http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/08/news-corps-million-dollar- donation/. 137 Solomon, Jesse. “Top 10 Companies Lobbying Washington,” CNN Money, October 1, 2014, http://money.cnn.com/2014/10/ 01/investing/companies-lobbying-10-biggest-spenders/. 138 TV/Movies/Music Industry Profile: Summary, 2015. OpenSecrets.org. https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/ indusclient.php?id=B02&year=2015.

politics that ends up driving out competition, shrinking diversity (in both ownership and programming), and overlooking localism.

Media Consolidation

The two main perspectives that conflict with one another are the ideas around regulation and deregulation when it comes to dealing with media markets and the FCC. The regulatory aspects of media control by the FCC have led to the consolidation of businesses in the media industry. When facilitated correctly with a free market approach, media mergers are not necessarily a bad thing. The idea that two or more businesses realize they can do better by assisting each other with economies of scale, or the idea of obtaining larger production returns through the use of division of labor,139 means they can work smarter to produce better products for consumers while making profit. It can foster healthy competition between corporations competing for the same audience market. However, the concern is when there is a concentration of ownership due to the risk of increased economic and political influence that can itself be unaccountable.140

When the media industry and politicians side together against the masse, not only do issues of ethics concerns come into question, but so does the integrity of information presented to the public through media management. The relationship between media and politicians is a two- way street. Lobbying efforts by media corporations to maintain their media manager status have

139 Sullivan, Arthur, and Steven M. Sheffrin. Economics: Principles in Action. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2003, 157. 140 Anup Shah. “Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership.” Accessed Oct 28, 2014, Last revised Jan 2, 2009. http://www.globalissues.org/article/159/media-conglomerates-mergers-concentration-of-ownership.

topped millions of dollars during election season. In the past two decades, GE has donated more than $12.5 million to federal political entities favoring Republican candidates by one percent.

Walt Disney Co. has donated around $3 million favoring Democrats. Political candidates then turn around and spend big for media advertising. In 2012, political television advertisement topped $3.8 billion with President Obama accounting for $450 million of it.141According to Tom

Rosensteil, founder of the Pew Research Project for Excellence in Journalism, media involvement in the political system is not new, but journalism did used to be more partisan than it is today.142 Once the media marketplace and industry becomes distorted with cronyism and big businesses being helped by political legislation, as mentioned above with media lobbying efforts, the fairness of competition, diversity, and localism no longer exists.

The steady accumulation of power in the world of media gives the media managers stronger influence and power in politics, for it is the news media that controls how politicians are depicted to the voting public. As Ben H. Bagdikian puts it, “The more powerful the leading media, the more powerful their influence over politicians and national policy.”143 The FCC dropped almost all ownership restrictions in the 1990s with the passage of the 1996

Telecommunications Act, which resulted in a frenzy of media mergers and acquisitions,144 allowing for larger corporations to acquire many of the smaller media outlets across the nation.

Known as the “deep-pocket argument” by economists, larger conglomerates have an upper hand

141 Kurtzleben, Danielle. “2016 Campaigns Will Spend $4.4 Billion on TV Ads, But Why?” NPR, August 19, 2015, http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/08/19/432759311/2016-campaign-tv-ad-spending. 142 Wilson, “Not Just News Corp.: Media Companies Have Long Made Political Donations.” 143 Bagdikian, Ben H. The New Media Monopoly. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2004, 29. 144 Paletz, The Media in American Politics, 32.

in dropping their prices to compete with smaller businesses, allowing them to afford a temporary loss of profit. This bankrupted the small competitors, as they could not afford to match lower prices.145

According to media scholar Robert McChesney, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was the first major reform of telecommunications policy since 1934 and was considered to be one of the three or four most important federal laws of the generation.146 Media and communications lobbyists highly supported the Telecommunications Act of 1996 because they were already in positions of money and power to buy up their competition once the law passed and the industry deregulated. What the FCC set out to do when it was created, with its rules, restrictions, and regulations, was to prevent a media monopoly, yet instead it has resulted in a media oligopoly with its regulation-deregulation-regulation pattern.

Additionally, in 1999, Viacom purchased CBS for $81.5 billion, making it one of the largest media deals in US history147 until in 2000 when AOL acquired Time Warner for $165 billion. News coverage of the mergers focused on the global technology aspect, stating that the

US needed to have a global presence. The Associated Press and the New York Times framed it as a business story interviewing the CEOs and Wall Street experts, who treated the process as natural and inevitable.148 Some New York Times coverage and editorials acknowledged criticism

145 Bettig, Ronald V., and Jeanne Lynn Hall. Big Media, Big Money: Cultural Texts and Political Economics. New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2003. 146 Corcoran, Michael. “Twenty Years of Media Consolidation Has Not Been Good for Our Democracy,” March 30, 2016, http://billmoyers.com/story/twenty-years-of-media-consolidation-has-not-been-good-for-our-democracy/. 147 Arak, Joel. “Viacom Makes Split Official,” CBS News, June 14, 20015, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/viacom- makes-split-official/. 148 Bettig and Hall, Big Media, Big Money, 18.

and anxiety about the potential societal effects of the monopolization of the media market in the hands of a few companies.

The more serious threat posed by the economic concentration, however, was to the political system: the ability of such corporate behemoths to buy political influence.149

Government is subject to political pressures and lobbying, which can conflict with the interest of the public. Conversely, even government contractors are intertwined in media management. Only

118 people compose the membership of the boards of directors of the ten big media giants, and four of the top ten corporations in the US have military Department of Defense contractors on their boards.150 The intermingling of government employees in the news media industry may not seem problematic to some, but the reality is that it could have disastrous effects, like military propaganda. A prime example is the drumming of the Iraq War in 2003. The American people were bombarded with reports that our military had credible intel and evidence that Saddam

Hussein was amassing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq to use on American troops and allies, and we were in imminent danger if our military did not intervene and engage in war.

Our invasion left Iraq war-torn and without any findings of WMDs. Our country’s major media, constitutionally and popularly expected to be the nation’s primary truth tellers, became the first casualty of government propaganda.151 The Iraq War is only one such example of governments manipulating their media stronghold, and it is why it is imperative that news media provide

149 Bettig and Hall, Big Media, Big Money, 24-25. 150 Cohen, Elliot D. The Last Days of Democracy: How Big Media and Power-Hungry Government Are Turning America into a Dictatorship. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2007, 14.

151 Bagdikian, The New Media Monopoly, 85.

truthful accounts, factual data, and serve the American democracy in providing fair and balanced news.

On the other side of the argument, some mergers, like AOL/TimeWarner, did initially result in positive effects for consumers—households could have easier and better service for phone, cable, and internet; and the ease of paying for all three services with one bill made technology access convenient and affordable—but the conglomeration of media ownership and content still raised concerns. In 2000, a joint poll conducted by the Pew Research Center for the

People and the Press and the Columbia Journalism Review found that 35 percent of almost 300 reporters and news executives surveyed said that news stories that would hurt the financial interests of a news organization often or sometimes goes unreported. Of those who believe newsworthy stories are being ignored to protect corporate interests, fully three-quarters say journalists get signals or anticipate negative reactions from superiors, and just 8 percent say journalists decide to avoid such stories completely on their own.152 Not only is media consolidation resulting in diversity concerns in lack of reporting on important issues, but journalists are also practicing self-censorship. Corporations have multimillion-dollar budgets to dissect and attack news reports they dislike.153 Lawrence Zuckerman notes in an article in The

New York Times:

Paradoxically, the public debate over the power of Big Media seems to have grown quieter since the 1980's, even as the industry has become increasingly concentrated. Critics cite the power of the media companies themselves to shape public debate on the issue, largely by ignoring it. Critics also say that Wall Street

152 Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. “Self-Censorship: How Often and Why.” Accessed Oct 28, 2014. http://www.people-press.org/2000/04/30/self-censorship-how-often-and-why/. 153 Bagdikian, The New Media Monopoly, 65.

is not likely to stop the trend since it, along with top media executives, profits handsomely from the corporate deals. And politicians in Washington are also unlikely to act, for fear of alienating large media owners and losing large campaign contributions.154

The likelihood of media managers reporting objectively, critically, and neutrally on their own industry only adds to the distrust consumers of the industry will have towards it.

Media consolidation lowers the public interest standard. The concentration of media ownership removes an aspect of competition, as media owners no longer have to compete for audience viewership. For instance, if there are 20 different owners of television stations in a given market, each owner has their own interest and perspective and will produce and air content on their station that reflects their views. As ownership numbers decrease, the diversity of content follows suit. Data on the consolidation of the media program supply market shows that 1970, the top 20 suppliers accounted for almost 67 percent of prime-time programming. Seven years later, after additional merging of ownership, they accounted for almost 81% of prime-time content. 155

By the 1990s, media providers consolidated so much, that there were no longer enough suppliers to analyze a top 20 for comparison.

The aspects of the FCC’s public interest standard are not exclusive of each other.

Competition, diversity, and localism all play a cohesive role in the media literacy of audiences who are informed and influenced by programming and content approved by media managers. By removing competition in ownership, the diversity of independent perspectives aired and provided

154 Zuckerman, Lawrence. “Media Megadeal: The Power; Questions Abound as Media Influence Grows for a Handful.” The New York Times. Last modified January 13, 2000, http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/13/business/ media-megadeal-the-power-questions-abound-as-media-influence-grows-for-a-handful.html. 155 Einstein, Media Diversity, 168–169.

to audiences also decreases due to media managers gatekeeping information. And the amount of diversity and localism declines following a decrease in the number of independent stations.156

Mainstream media’s corporate oligopolistic ownership is the opposite of what the FCC set out to accomplish and has contributed to the dwindling Fourth Estate.

The Fourth Estate

The technology of the printing press allowed for mass communication. It amplified the reach of the Fourth Estate in delivering information to the electorate. Transparency and accountability in government provided through investigations by journalists and factual information from reporters provides for a free and democratic society.

Politicians, along with those in control of the media, are well aware of the power of mind managing through media outlets and controlling the political message through strategies of communicating to the electorate. They are also aware of the advantages media provides in constructing the narrative around global and national events. Politicians rely on the electorate to vote them into office, keep them in office, and hold them accountable, thus the future fate of a politician relies on the power structure of whether the majority of the electorate is educated, informed, and involved. With this in mind, if the information that citizens have available is managed and manipulated to reflect specific attitudes, push voters to particular perspectives, and limit the knowledge and information they have, power is no longer singularly held in the hands of the electorate.

156 Hiller, R. Scott, Scott J. Savage, and Donald M. Waldman. “Market Structure and Media Diversity,” Economic Inquiry, 2015, 53(2): 872–888.

An example can be found in the 1970s, when investigative journalism hit a peak with investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovering the Watergate Scandal.

President Richard Nixon was found attempting to cover-up a break-in at the Democratic National

Committee office located in the Watergate building in Washington, D.C. Burglars were caught trying to wiretap phones and steal secret documents. During this time, newspapers and television were the major sources of information about Watergate,157 and the media played a major role in increasing awareness of and concern over the scandal158 through in-depth coverage and informative reporting. Reporters took their jobs seriously and fact checked information before reporting back to the American people. An article that appeared in US News & World Report following Nixon’s resignation stated, “the over-all effect of Watergate is seen as having a cleansing effect on the nation's political process.”159 Trust in the presidency, and politicians in general, declined while faith in journalism rose with an expectation that journalists would hold those in power and influence accountable for their actions. Although Nixon was never prosecuted and ended up resigning from office, the incident demonstrates the Fourth Estate acting in its proper role.

The Fourth Estate is protected by First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The Rirst Amendment states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or

157 Arterton, F. C. 1974. “Children’s Attitudes toward Political Authority,” Political Science Quarterly, 89 (June): 269–88. 158 Weaver, D. H., M. E. McCombs, and C. Spellman. 1975. “Wateragate and the Media: A Case Study of Agenda- Setting,” American Politics Quarterly, 3 (October): 458–72. 159 “Effects of Watergate: The Good and the Bad,” US News. Last modified August 8, 2014, accessed September 3, 2016.

the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.160

Since the founding of our America, the freedom of the press and free speech held an utmost importance to the preservation of liberty. Benjamin Franklin wrote in the Pennsylvania Gazette in November of 1737, “Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government: when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved and tyranny is erected on its ruins.”161 George Washington, in an address to officers of the army in 1783, proclaimed, “… for if Men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences, that can invite the consideration of Mankind; reason is of no use to us—the freedom of Speech may be taken away—and, dumb & silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.”162 Thomas Jefferson penned in a letter:

The people are the only censors of their governors: and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true principles of their institution… The way to prevent these irregular interpositions of the people is to give them full information of their affairs thro’ the channel of the public papers, and to contrive that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people… But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.163

Such high regard was given to the ability for people to communicate ideas, freely discuss political ideologies, and applaud or criticize government, the concept was codified as the First

Amendment in the Bill of Rights.

160 US Bill of Rights, First Amendment. 161 Franklin, Benjamin. “On Freedom of Speech and the Press,” The Pennsylvania Gazette, November 17, 1737. 162 “From George Washington to Officers of the Army, 15 March 1783,” Founders Online, National Archives, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/99-01-02-10840 [last update: 2015-09-29]. 163 “From Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 16 January 1787,” Founders Online, National Archives, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-11-02-0047 [last update: 2015-09-29]. Source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 11, 1 January–6 August 1787, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955: 48–50.

The Fourth Estate is a fundamental tool for facilitating communication between the political sphere and the general public. Douglas Carter describes the reporter as a “recorder of government” and someone who “is also a participant. He operates in a system in which power is divided. He, as much as anyone, and more than a great many, helps to shape the course of government.”164 Reporters in the media should inform the public of important information that is happening at the local, state, federal, and international level. They should assiduously report on the relevant behavior, decisions and non-decisions, actions and inactions, of those in power, thereby holding them accountable.165 Their role should not be taken lightly, as they have high influence in public perception of politics and individual understanding of political policy. When the Fourth Estate practices media ethics, reports factual material, and uses investigative journalism techniques, it acts in its proper role of informing people. This important role and responsibility of the Fourth Estate to the people should maintain unchanged with the advancement of technology for information dissemination. Unfortunately, when the Fourth

Estate fails to uphold their responsibility, becoming entwined with politics and power rather than adhering to principle and purpose of the press, the power distribution of the people, whom the

Fourth Estate should be sided with, versus the government becomes very uneven.

As was such a case in 2011 with whistleblower Amber Lyon, a former CNN reporter and three-time Emmy Award winning journalist, who was sent with a four-person team to Bahrain to cover the Arab Spring. She accused CNN for censoring, fabricating, manipulating, and

164 Douglas Cater. The Fourth Branch of Government. New York: Random House, Inc., 1959. 165 Paletz, The Media in American Politics, 1.

restricting factual news coverage. In a video interview, Lyon mentions that Bahrain regime was paying CNN International to produce content that showed Bahrain in a favorable light166 even though she personally witnessed atrocities and oppression in the region. “I saw first-hand that these regime claims were lies, and I couldn’t believe CNN was making me put what I knew to be government lies into my reporting,” said Lyon.167 The American mainstream media was complicit in airing and perpetuating false information to the public.

The consolidation of media ownership in the hands of a few powerful corporations brings to question competition, diversity, and localism of the Fourth Estate. The frustration of the people with their government’s lack of accountability and the absence of quality journalism from the Fourth Estate has thus resulted in a distrust of the government and the Fourth Estate itself, giving cause to the rise of the Fifth Estate—the people. Using various methods of merging media with additional tools at hand, new media and alternative media becomes a means for direct messaging, debating and discussing, and citizen journalism reporting around the traditional fixity of mainstream media managers.

The Fifth Estate

Digital technologies and the Internet have allowed new voices to enter the media, particularly in the areas of journalism and entertainment for those desiring content outside of

166 “Amber Lyon reveals CNN Lies and War Propaganda.” RT America. January 16, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO-TyETzNO8. 167 Krieger, Michael. “Former Reporter Amber Lyon Exposes Massive Censorship at CNN,” InfoWars.com. Last modified September 10, 2012, accessed September 3, 2016. http://www.infowars.com/former-reporter-amber- lyon-exposes-massive-censorship-at-cnn/.

mainstream media. Citizen journalism and grassroots, participatory media has substantially developed because of new media technology. Access to the Internet is seen as shaking off the shackles of the problem of ownership. It allows for private individuals to fill niche areas left open by the media market due to media consolidation. Digital media has given rise to the Fifth

Estate, or networked individuals enabled by the Internet in ways that can hold the other estates accountable.168 The Fifth Estate requires citizen participation as a role in the governmental checks and balances. As activism takes places both off- and online, citizen journalists need to be digital citizens.169 Digital media has become an essential component for the socially and politically active individual.

Presidential candidates have picked up on the usefulness of the Internet as a tool to share campaign information since 1996 when having a website was enough of an online presence. The more the technology developed and was adapted by users, the more people started to gravitate to the Internet for media consumption on candidate research, discussion, and comparison. The 2008 and 2012 presidential elections exemplify how various online platforms allowed for grassroots participation to take place in forms of content creation, distribution, and debate. Candidates and political activists went around the stronghold of the FCC and the structure of traditional media by using the Internet, which altered the cost structure of media firms and content producers by lowering the cost of distribution.170 This provided an opportunity to use the medium to their

168 William H Dutton. “The Fifth Estate Emerging Through the Network of Networks,” Prometheus, 27, no. 1 (2009): 11. 169 Mossberger, Tolbert, and McNeal use the term to describe those who use the Internet regularly and effectively. 170 Hindman, The Myth of Digital Democracy, 87.

benefit without having to spend as much as they normally would for traditional media methods of campaigning. This also meant candidates could sidestep the gatekeeping media managers and directly address supporters and voters through new media options.

The growth of the Internet allows for the three major aspects of the public interest goals to take place—competition, diversity, and localism. A less regulated digital space means anyone with online access has the opportunity to have their words read, make their voice heard, create video to be seen. With an abundance of content, one is more likely to find various perspectives on information that competes for prominence. And it allows people the ability to connect with communities and spaces that might not have otherwise been available to them. With no oversight like the FCC has over radio and television, no gatekeeping from media managers who have a stronghold over 90 percent of mainstream media outlets, the possibilities that digital media gives users are open and endless.171

The FCC was supposed to protect against monopolies, yet has inadvertently assisted in the creation of media oligopolies. It has not been an advocate for free market competition regarding media broadcasting and airwave controls that would have evened the playing field for newcomers and amateurs to the media industry—all because of an undefined public interest standard and uncertainty of what constitutes diversity. But new media allows for the creation of non-traditional media opportunities to serve the American public as citizen-journalists find unreported stories and important perspectives. By being able to freely communicate and

171 Although digital media allows for greater public interest goals, there are arguments of monopolization of the social media industry (particularly Facebook’s growing prominence and power). This issues will be addressed in the concluding chapter.

associate through online networks, information can bypass the mind managers of traditional media outlets.

Reducing media competition and removing diversity and localism from news media created problems of media consolidation and the increased view of American distrust on corporate greed and political institutions. The particularities in the fall of the Fourth Estate and the rise of the Fifth Estate can be witnessed in two case studies of presidential elections in 2008 and 2012 in the following chapter. The media manager’s role is being challenged by the rise of the Fifth Estate’s disregard for managed messages and political propaganda. The Fifth Estate’s use of digital technology helps to improve the channel in which messages are sent, and reduces excess noise and distortion. By being able to reach a broader audience, connected individuals can use the various forms of media to play a larger role in the political world. As we move into a world where media and politics are synonymous, the implications for the election of America’s

Commander-in-Chief and the leader of the free world must be carefully considered and our literacy in both areas judiciously honed.

CHAPTER FOUR

TRADITIONAL MEDIA AND THE 2008 AND 2012

PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS OF BARACK OBAMA AND RON PAUL

“Just like Kennedy brought in the television presidency, I think we’re about to see the first wired, connected, networked presidency.” — Joe Trippi172

“This pretending Ron Paul doesn’t exist for some reason has been going on for weeks.” — Jon Stewart173

The previous two chapters provide background and information pertinent to my argument on balancing the equilibrium between traditional media and new media. In Chapter Two, I outline the historical framework of media with case studies of each traditional media outlet strategically being used by a presidential candidate. Print, radio, and television media were all adapted as means of assisting candidates to introduce themselves to the electorate, respond to attacks from other contenders, and garner voter support. Presidential candidates have since relied on traditional media because American voters have become accustomed to using them when seeking informational content pertaining to political elections, voting processes, and campaign updates. Whether it be reading newspaper or journal articles, listening to public talk radio, or tuning in to a mainstream media television news station, audiences have a familiarity with traditional media communication methods and have a previously built trust in the Fourth Estate.

172 Joe Trippi on Obama’s 2008 campaign. 173 MacNicol, Glynnis. “Jon Stewart BLASTS the Media for Ignoring Ron Paul.” Last modified August 16, 2011, accessed September 20, 2015. http://www.businessinsider.com/jon-stewart-ron-paul-media-video-2011-8.

In Chapter Three, I investigate the responsibilities and profession of the Fourth Estate, the regulatory and deregulatory role of the Federal Communications Commission, and introduce the rise of the Fifth Estate. The Fourth Estate is tasked with an unofficial burden of covering the presidential campaign season every four years, as well as maintaining a watchful eye on the ensuing presidential administration. With the ability to serve as gatekeepers of information, this entrusts an enormous amount of influence and power in the Fourth Estate. Due to inconsistent media regulations by the FCC, however, I argued that results were the opposite of what was intended by the public interest standard. Instead of growing competition, diversity, and localism, corporate conglomerates tightening media ownership resulted in reduced competition, less diversity, and overlooked localism. The amount of substantive policy information in the news coverage of presidential campaigns has declined in the last 50 years.174 As such, Americans are increasingly turning to character considerations rather than policy positions for reasons they support a presidential candidate.175 These aspects along with increased perceptions of media framing created a combination that resulted in a declining trust in the Fourth Estate. With the timely advancement of new media technologies and the growing use of social media, there was a shift to a rising Fifth Estate—a turn to citizen journalism and new media.

Traditional media and new media have a dynamic relationship that consistently challenges the development of communication between candidates and the electorate. In a society in which most knowledge is obtained not through direct experiences but through

174 Gilens, Martin, Lynn Vavreck, and Martin Cohen. “The Mass Media and the Public’s Assessments of Presidential Candidates, 1952–2000,” The Journal of Politics 69, no. 4 (2007): 1172.

175 Ibid, 1173.

secondhand sources, the media plays a central role in promoting hegemonic messages.176 The role of mass media in imposing hegemonic views increases dramatically during times of extended public policy debate,177 which heightens during election season. As direct channels of communication open with social media platforms, presidential candidates supplement the traditional media coverage of their campaigns with additional information shared through social media.

The focus of this chapter of my dissertation is to examine the media representations and coverage of the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Ron Paul in their respective party primaries during the 2008 and 2012 election cycles. I will then provide a biographical sketch of each candidate that explains how their upbringing and past experiences influenced their political perspectives. I will discuss the political climate leading up to their decision to run for presidency in 2008 and the primary field of their political party. I will then analyze the mainstream media treatment and media framing coverage of each candidate,178 which will provide understanding of traditional media tactics and reasoning behind their implemented new media approaches (to be discussed in the following chapter).

176 Hegemony is a term originally developed by the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci. It refers to situations of subordination in individuals and groups. According to Gramsci, hegemony is manufactured, organized, and maintained through promoting ideology, philosophy, and ways of life through grouping. Marcus E. Green argues that hegemony is exercised by ruling groups that control political society for subaltern groups to consent to their own subordination.

177 Anthony R Dimaggio, The Rise of the Tea Party: Political Discontent and Corporate Media in the Age of Obama, (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2011), 23.

178 I focus mostly on Obama’s 2008 primary campaign because he did not have to vie for the 2012 nomination. Paul’s primary campaign in 2008 was loosely covered by news media, as he was unknown and not projected to stay in the race as long as he did. His 2012 campaign had a larger following that snowballed from his 2008 run.

Candidate Biographies and Political Backgrounds

Understanding the personal politics, policy positions, and campaign practices of Obama and Paul requires that we look at the background of each candidate, their upbringing, and their entrance into politics. A brief biography will assist in providing context for the upcoming section on how media framed each candidate and painted a picture of the presidential candidate that influenced the electorate’s perspective on their respective candidacies.

Introducing Candidate Obama

Barack Obama was born in 1961 to a Kenyan father and an American mother. His parents divorced when he was only a few years old, and his mother later remarried. Although he was born in Hawaii, Obama’s younger years were spent in Indonesia with his step-grandparents; and from middle to high school, he was raised by his maternal grandparents in Hawaii. Growing up in a Polynesian society, Obama faced racial identity challenges as he was not quite white and not quite black. "I was raised as an Indonesian child and a Hawaiian child and as a black child and as a white child," Obama later recalled. "And so, what I benefited from is a multiplicity of cultures that all fed me."179 The challenges Obama faced growing up, being raised by his grandparents with a mixed ethnicity and in a middle-class household, allowed him to closely relate to minorities and the average American. But his experiences neither exposed him to the full realities of life nor sheltered him by social privilege. He endured racial slurs from his basketball

179 Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia. “Barack Obama: Life Before the Presidency.” Accessed January 9, 2017. http://millercenter.org/president/biography/obama-life-before-the-presidency.

coach. And his African American friends did not consider him to be one of them.180 As Obama describes in his autobiography Dreams from My Father, he struggled with his racial identity throughout high school: “My identity might begin with the fact of my race, but it didn't, couldn't end there. At least that's what I would choose to believe.”181

Obama attended Columbia University where he studied political science. Following his graduation in 1983, he moved to Chicago where he worked as a community organizer with a group of churches to help rebuild communities devastated by the failing local economic environment. The time Obama spent as a community organizer had a profound impact on his approach to politics,182 and helped to develop Obama into a leader for influencing change.183 In

1988, he returned to academics and attended Harvard Law School. It was at a summer internship while attending Harvard that he met his wife Michelle. They courted for four years before getting married, and they now have two daughters.

Obama served two-terms as a state legislator in Illinois from 1997 to 2004. He made national headway when he gave the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in

2004 in Boston, Massachusetts. At the beginning of his speech, he brought up his mixed-race

180 Dupuis, Martin, and Keith Boeckelman, Barack Obama: The New Face of American Politics, Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2007, 3.

181 Obama, Barack, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, New York: Three Rivers Press, 2004, 111.

182 Wilson, John K, Barack Obama: This Improbable Quest, Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2008, 2.

183 Obama was highly influenced by the theories of Saul Alinsky who preached the idea of “agitation” or getting people to realize a problem and to then organize to do something to address the problem. The Alinsky approach to community organizing sees action groups of the community as participants and as playing a fundamental role in the organization.

heritage, his parents’ improbable love, and the faith they had in the American Dream.184 His humble beginnings, essentially being raised by a single mother with the assistance of his grandparents, was prominent and relatable during a time when the national divorce rate was around 39 percent.185 His mixed-racial heritage posed him as being culturally diverse, a reflection of the melting pot of America.

In the 2004 election, Obama was elected as a U.S. Senator of Illinois. His election to the

U.S. Senate made him the highest-ranking African American officeholder in the country at the time and placed him high on the roster of prospective Democratic presidential candidates in

2008.186 The Democratic primary would certainly pit Obama up against former First Lady and

New York Senator Hillary Clinton, who had vastly more political connections and policy experience than him. Steve Elmendorf, top advisor to former House minority leader Richard A.

Gephardt (D-Mo.) stated, “If [Obama] runs and Mrs. Clinton runs, I don’t think there’s a lot of room for anyone else. The two of them take up an enormous amount of political space.”187 But of the two candidates, Obama would represent a breath of fresh air in comparison to typical career politicians who had long been embedded with the Washington political elite.

184 Obama, Barack. “2004 DNC Keynote Speech.” Speech presented at the Democratic National Convention, Boston, MA, July 27, 2004.

185 “National Marriage and Divorce Rate Trends.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, November 23, 2016. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/marriage_divorce_tables.htm.

186 Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia. “Barack Obama: Campaigns and Elections.” Accessed September 8, 2016. http://millercenter.org/president/biography/obama-campaigns-and-elections. 187 Balz, Dan. “Obama Says He’ll Consider A 2008 Bid for The Presidency,” Washington Post. Last modified October 23, 2006, accessed December 11, 2016. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/ 2006/10/22/AR2006102200220.html.

Obama’s decision to run for the presidency did not happen overnight. There were many factors that played into the favor of an upcoming Democratic presidency. The Republican incumbent, George W. Bush, had low approval ratings. The American people were fed up with misinformation fed to them about the Iraq War. And the economy had dwindled down and was in dire need of stimulation and recovery. When President Bush entered his first term in office in

2001, he had a 57 percent approval rating. At the height of his administration, he had a 90 percent approval rating (following the September 11 attacks), and by the end of his second term, he left office with a 34 percent approval rating.188 Part of the decline was a result of costly wars and the decision to intervene in Iraq with faulty intelligence. As described in Chapter Three, the media misinformed Americans and propagated unreliable information about WMDs in the country. A survey found that among 1,508 adults, 54 percent said the U.S. made the wrong decision to use military force in Iraq, as well as 67 percent saying the war was not going well.189

The mistake also added an estimated 2 trillion dollars to America’s debt.190 And with Americans pessimistic about the U.S. economy (at a mere 7 percent judging the economy as good or better), these factors among those that contributed to the Democratic Party advantage heading into the

2008 presidential election. The country was primed for an optimistic presidential candidate who was different than the typical Washington politician.

188 “Presidential Approval Ratings – George W. Bush,” Gallup. Accessed September 8, 2016, http://www.gallup.com/poll/116500/presidential-approval-ratings-george-bush.aspx. 189 “Public Attitudes Toward the War in Iraq: 2003-2008,” Pew Research. Last modified March 19, 2008, accessed September 8, 2016, http://www.pewresearch.org/2008/03/19/public-attitudes-toward-the-war-in-iraq-20032008/. 190 Trotta, Daniel. “Iraq War Costs U.S. More Than $2 Trillion: Study,” Reuters. Last modified March 14, 2013, accessed September 8, 2016, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-war-anniversary- idUSBRIE92D0PG20130314.

On February 10, 2007, Barack Obama announced in Springfield, Illinois that he was running for president. Standing in front of the Old State Capitol, where Abraham Lincoln began his political career, Obama spoke to an eager crowd:

We all made this journey for a reason. It's humbling, but in my heart I know you didn't come here just for me, you came here because you believe in what this country can be. In the face of war, you believe there can be peace. In the face of despair, you believe there can be hope. In the face of a politics that's shut you out, that's told you to settle, that's divided us for too long, you believe we can be one people, reaching for what's possible, building that more perfect union… And that is why, in the shadow of the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln once called on a divided house to stand together, where common hopes and common dreams still, I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for President of the United States.191

Obama’s official candidacy announcement was met with cheers, tears, and hope for the future of

America. But it would still be an uphill battle in the Democratic primary against established politicians like Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. With the eventual support of mainstream media covering his campaign without the usual skepticism and scrutiny placed upon a presidential candidate (and contradictory to the treatment afforded to Hillary), Obama used the momentum of favorable news coverage, built his personal network of followers and supporters, and paved a path to victory.

Introducing Candidate Paul

Ronald Ernest Paul was born on August 20, 1935, the third out of five sons, to a dairy entrepreneur, Howard Paul and his wife, Peggy. Paul and his brothers all worked on a dairy farm

191 Associated Press. “Illinois Sen. Barack Obama’s Announcement Speech,” The Washington Post. Last modified February 10, 2007, accessed September 8, 2016, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/ 02/10/AR2007021000879.html.

growing up and attended church regularly. Growing up during the era of the Great Depression,

Paul did not have the luxury of material abundance. His formative adolescence unfolded during

World War II and the Korean War, with his family friends and neighbors being sent off to fight in the wars, many of whom did not return. One of his high school coaches went to the Korean

War—the first major undeclared war of American modernity—and never returned.192

Paul met his wife, Carol, while they were in high school, and the two married during his senior year in college in 1957. He graduated from Gettysburg College with a degree in biology and continued his education attending medical school at Duke University. When the Vietnam

War began, Paul was drafted and he served as a flight surgeon in the Air Force. In 1968, Paul and Carol moved to Brazoria County, Texas and settled in Lack Jackson with their three sons and two daughters.

Paul’s introduction and interest in politics stemmed from the humanities when he was in his late 20s after reading Boris Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago, a novel about a young medical doctor who had no interest in politics until the Russian Revolution destroyed his life. The book’s theme was about individual liberty, and it helped form Paul’s interest in economics and politics.193

While in medical school, Paul began reading about Austrian economics, libertarianism, and non- interventionism. In 1971, when President Richard Nixon removed the U.S. dollar from the gold standard and imposed price and wage controls as an attempt to prevent monetary inflation, Paul

192 Doherty, Brian. 2012. Ron Paul’s Revolution: The Man and the Movement He Inspired. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 35.

193 Volack, Jason M. "Ron Paul 2012: Republican Presidential Candidate." ABC News. ABC News Network, 20 Sept. 2011. Web. 02 Sept. 2015. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ron-paul-biography-republican-2012-presidential- candidates/story?id=14563821.

decided to run for Congress and speak out against harmful economic policies. In 1976, Paul was first elected into U.S. Congress, and he served in the U.S. House of Representatives for three separate stints: 1976-1977, 1978-1985, and 1996-2010.194

In 2008, Ron Paul was a relatively unknown 10-term Congressman from Texas.195 As a member of Congress, Paul was a consistent champion of smaller government, fiscal responsibility, and individual liberty. He earned the nickname “Dr. No” for refusing to cut deals with lobbyists and politicians, and he was often the lone “no” vote on any legislation that could be interpreted as growing government powers or interfering with the free market.196

Congressional Quarterly noted in 1999 that he cast the lone `no’ vote in the U.S. House nearly twice as many times as all other members combined.197 He called for eliminating various agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Reserve. He also refused to register for the federal pension program and would return unused money from his congressional office. He voted according to his principles almost 100 percent of the time and established his reputation as an uncompromising representative.198 For these reasons, Paul distinguished himself as the most consistent candidate in the GOP field.

194 Paul always won his seat with more votes than in the previous run when he returned to Congress as a non- incumbent. 195 His first run for presidency was under the Libertarian Party in 1988. 196 Dobias, Matthew. “Ron Paul’s Lonely Opposition; Congressman Is Only Rep to Say `nay’ to GINA. (Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act).” Modern Healthcare 38, no. 19 (2008): 7.

197 Hicks, Josh. “Ron Paul’s Constitutionalist Record (Fact Checker Biography),” The Washington Post. Last modified December 29, 2011, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/ron-pauls- constitutionalist-record-fact-checker-biography/2011/12/27/gIQAsPSOLP_blog.html. 198 "Ron Paul, Representative From Texas." CQ Weekly (November 1, 2010): 2488. http://library.cqpress.com/ cqweekly/weeklyreport111-000003757365.

On February 19, 2007, Paul announced the formation of his presidential exploratory committee stating he was running because of issues of exploding deficits, out of control entitlements, threatened personal liberties, and a dangerous and expensive foreign policy.199 On

March 12, 2007, Paul announced his candidacy for presidency.200

As a low-tiered candidate, Paul’s candidacy was relatively uncovered in media until a

Fox News hosted debate in May 2007 in South Carolina. Twice during the debate, Paul was asked if he was running for presidency under the right political party because of his stance against the Iraq War.201 Being against the war was an unpopular view to hold at the time within the Republican Party, but it was a war he was opposed to from the start. Paul suggested that

America was attacked on September 11 due to our interventionist foreign policy: “Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us?” he asked, referring to one of Osama bin Laden’s communiqués. “They attack us because we’ve been over there. We’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years.”202 Rudy Giuliani, Mayor of New York during the 9/11 attacks, was appalled by Paul’s statement and reacted by demanding a retraction, which drew gales of applause from the

199 “February 19, 2007 Message from Ron,” YouTube. RonPaul2008dotcom. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=AH1qN4kAsMk. 200 There was so little coverage of his 2008 announcement, that an online search of his bid resulted in reports of his 2012 campaign.

201 “Republican Debate Transcript, South Carolina,” Council on Foreign Relations. Last modified May 15, 2007, accessed September 8, 2016, http://www.cfr.org/elections/republican-debate-transcript-south-carolina/p13338. 202 “Rudy Giuliani Squares Off with Rep. Ron Paul Over 9/11 at GOP Debate.” FoxNews.com, May 17, 2007. http://www.foxnews.com/story/2007/05/17/rudy-giuliani-squares-off-with-rep-ron-paul-over-11-at-gop- debate.html.

audience. But the incident helped Paul’s popularity, too.203 Overnight, Paul became the country’s most conspicuous antiwar Republican.204

The challenges Paul faced growing up were vastly different than those faced by the twenty-first century electorate he would eventually have to persuade for presidential votes.

Paul’s strict Constitutional perspective and sound money policy can be deduced from his upbringing during the era of the Great Depression and having witnessed the economic change following Nixon’s removal of the U.S. dollar from the gold standard.205 The growing movement of the Tea Party206 shared his views favoring fiscal responsibility and limited government.207

Paul’s years of consistency in Congress prompted one of his congressional colleagues to say,

“Ron Paul personifies the Founding Fathers’ ideal of the citizen-statesman. He makes it clear

203 After the debate, Fox News provided a text-in number to poll viewers on who they thought won the debate. Early numbers showed Paul beat out Romney for first place with 30 percent to 27 percent respectively. Immediately Sean Hannity and his fellow political pundits discredited their own poll by repeatedly saying Paul did not win the debate and mentioning Romney’s “strong second.” A Google Trends search of “Ron Paul” showed an increase of 22 percent in May 2007. 204 There was growing sentiment against the Iraq War among the general population of Americans. As stated in Obama’s background section, the mainstream media had reported faulty news regarding WMDs in Iraq. According to an ongoing Gallup poll, when George W. Bush took his second term as President in 2004, 42 percent thought it was a mistake to send troops to Iraq and 56 percent thought it was not. By the end of his presidency, the poll numbers had changed to 58 percent to 39 percent. 205 Paul served on the U.S. Gold Commission in 1982 to evaluate the role of gold in the monetary system. He authored a book by the title The Case for Gold: A Minority Report of the U.S. Gold Commission, arguing a return to the gold standard. 206 The movement began after Obama’s election to presidency in 2008. Early Tea Party protests demanded that government be limited in its size and scope and for taxes to be lowered. In a study by Kevin Arceneaux and Stephen P. Nicholson, they found that Tea Party supporters were also conservative on abortion and gay marriage, tended to have higher income levels than the general population, and were predominantly white, male, and Republican (despite the attitude that they were Libertarian, although they were committed to some libertarian views). Paul’s non-interventionist foreign policy stance did not bode well with many pro-Israel Tea Party supporters. 207 In an opinion piece by Juan Williams of Fox News, he attributes the rise of the Tea Party movement to Paul’s failed 2008 bid for presidency which pushed for limiting government powers and returning to constitutional principles.

that his principles will never be compromised, and they never are.” Another colleague observed,

“There are few people in public life who, through thick and thin, rain or shine, stick to their principles. Ron Paul is one of those few.”208 Perhaps it was his decades of consistency in following liberty principles and keeping a track record in favor of fiscal responsibility, limited government, non-interventionism, and individual freedoms that made Paul popular with Tea

Party activists, previously self-identified politically apathetic individuals, military veterans, and disillusioned youth. Whatever the case, his candidacy would need all the momentum and assistance it could get with the unforeseen roadblock of the mainstream media.

Mainstream Media Influence

J. Strömbäck notes that media exert their influence “over people’s perceptions and over political institutions”209 at different stages when communication occurs: the input (the start of the communication channel), throughput (the occurrence of communication through a channel), and output (the resulting effects from the communication process and media influence).210 Media framing occurs during the first two stages, as media managers decide social and political topics for consideration. The Fourth Estate is entrusted with narrowing discussion and debate topics to areas most pertinent for American voters to know. With a plethora of issues and policies that can be discussed, ranging from education to healthcare and foreign policy to domestic economy, this

208 “Hon. Ron Paul.” The Federalist Society, February 4, 2008. http://www.fed-soc.org/experts/detail/ron-paul.

209 Strömbäck, J. “Four Phases of Mediatization: An Analysis of Mediatization of Politics.” Press/Politics 13(3), 2008: 232.

210 Maurer, Peter. “Explaining Perceived Media Influence in Politics.” Publizistik, 56(1), 2011: 30.

reduction process is necessary for filtering out noise and distractions. But this reduction process also means some important topics may be left out of the conversation as priorities can be subjective.211 Media managers help set what issues are of top priority and, through media framing, are able to influence the public’s perceptions of said issue.

News corporations can lean more conservative or more liberal to fulfill market demand for news. The economic market perspective on this argument explains the phenomenon by assuming consumers want to access news that is consistent with their existing beliefs and ideologies.212 Media literacy is less important when individuals consume media that reflect his or her preexisting beliefs, because it reinforces personal beliefs relating to social and political issues rather than challenging one to consider outside perspectives.

There are two dominant views of the economic perspective of media influence on voter behavior. The first view is that media is important for voters to get information that is pertinent to their decision on whom to vote for. People tune into media for news updates and to stay informed. Though media may introduce some systemic biases, such as pandering to voters’ established worldviews, it is overall a positive outlet for political education and accountability of politicians. Another view is that media manipulates and exploits voters through media framing and propaganda, to act against their own interests. On media framing, Michael Parenti writes that media bends the truth “rather than breaking it, using emphasis and other auxiliary

211 For example, to an individual who is a small business owner, issues on the economy may take precedence over foreign policy. For parents, public education and public safety would be top concerns as compared to environment regulations. What is important to each individual is a makeup of their political perspectives, upbringing, environment, profession, etc. 212 Xiang, Yi, and Miklos Sarvary. “News Consumption and Media Bias,” Marketing Science, 26 (5), 2007: 611.

embellishments.”213 Media managers create desired impressions without resorting to “explicit advocacy and without departing too far from the appearance of objectivity.”214 Early propaganda researchers believed media had an immediate and direct effect on viewer, much like a hypodermic needle that injected messages into audiences.215 But the actual effects are a more complicated relationship inclusive of personal influence, medium, and culture.216 The trustworthiness of news on mainstream media outlets is questionable at best because media makes voters may not have access to the best available information and analyses, therefore their opinions may not be as informed.217 By consistently tuning in to news channels that slant left or right rather than provide neutral, factual coverage, voters are being fed prejudiced information and biased perspectives that may influence their voting behavior.

In a study conducted by Stefano DellaVigna and Ethan Kaplan on media and voting behavior, they found evidence indicating exposure to Fox News increased non-Republican voter turnout for Republican candidates.218 Their study concluded that within the boundaries of three groups—those who identified as Republicans, non-Republicans who fell into the inclusive

213 Parenti, Michael. “Monopoly Media Manipulation.” Mediterranean Quarterly, 13, no. 2 (2002): 64.

214 Ibid, 64. 215 Perloff, Richard M. The Dynamics of Political Communication: Media and Politics in a Digital Age, New York, NY: Routledge, 2014, 60.

216 The hypodermic model of mass communication began during the 1920s and 1930s when Nazi propaganda was prominent in Germany. Media researchers believed that simply watching propaganda could influence one’s thoughts, beliefs, and actions. By the 1950s and 1960s, however, media researchers replaced the model with the theory of “personal influence” by Katz and Lazarsfeld. The development of their theory was influenced by psychology. The interdisciplinary understanding of mass communication included studying exposure, medium, content, and predispositions. 217 Zaller, J. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992, 313. 218 DellaVigna, Stefano, and Ethan Kaplan, “The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 122(3), 2007: 1187-1234.

audience measure (which means they watched Fox News for any length of time in the past 7 days), and non-Republicans who fell into the restrictive audience measure (watched Fox News for at least a half-hour block in the past 7 days)—there was an increase in percentage of the

Republican vote from 1996 to 2000. The increase was 0.4 to 0.7 percent for self-identified

Republicans, 3 to 8 percent for non-Republicans in the inclusive audience measure, and 11 to 28 percent for non-Republicans in the restrictive audience measure.219 Whether one identified as a

Republican or not, their steady exposure to a right-wing news network limited the information they received on political candidates to right-leaning perspectives. Although this study focused on Fox News, this is indicative that top news stations such as CNN, NBC News, and MSNBC also have large influence over their viewers.

The two divergent views above contain some validity when analyzing media and politics, as well as the two presidential candidacies in my dissertation. The concern that voters are controlled by media, through any means, represents a common thread in American history. There is broad evidence that suggests news media greatly impact the public’s political perceptions, opinions, and behaviors.220 As J. Hogan puts it, “The central paradox of America’s constitutional tradition lies in the persistent tension between our sovereignty and fears that ‘the people’ might be too easily distracted or manipulated to govern themselves.221 Thus the important of the electorate to be media and politically literate, critical of the Fourth Estate, but also the first three

219 DellaVigna and Kaplan, "The Fox News Effect,” 1189. 220 Uscinski, Joseph E. The People’s News: Media, Politics, and the Demands of Capitalism. New York: NYU Press, 2014, 44.

221 Hogan, J.M. “Persuasion in the Rhetorical Tradition.” In The Sage Handbook of Persuasion: Developments in Theory and Practice, edited by J.P. Dillard and L. Shen, 2nd ed., 2–19, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2013, 10.

that connect and interplay to form the social and political climate of the American culture we partake in.

We know that communication is more than Claude E. Shannon’s communication model of a unidirectional direct channel,222 and is even more complex than a feedback loop. The forms of media have developed with time and technology, shifting from traditional means to new methods. Beyond simply arguing what information media is presenting to viewers and if the messages are manipulative in nature, we must consider the interpretation of information and messages by the receiver as being dependent on a multiplicity of factors.

Mainstream media can, to a degree, affect voter support through positive or negative coverage and analysis. According to David Strömberg, media influences voters through information levels and vote choice.223 Information levels includes both the quantity of information provided by the media on an issue or a candidate, but also the quality and depth of material covered. News organizations and journalists signal their candidate assessments by the amount of coverage provided to plausible contenders through positive or negative analysis of candidates. This plays into media framing by managing information necessary for voters to make an informed decision. The influential factor of news media is important because the amount of news coverage of candidates can impact who voters perceive as a leading contender. The electorate may assume their voting peers support one candidate over another due to poll numbers—even if such polls are conducted with only a small, random sampling of the larger,

222 Shannon, Claude Elwood. The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1963.

223 Strömberg, David. “Media and Politics,” The Annual Review of Economics, 7, 2015: 174.

eligible voting population. Other times, poll numbers are simply a reporting of a condensed systematic survey of a group of voters who share similar political ideologies, such as online polling of certain website visitors, polls directed to a specific readership of a news organization, or straw polls at political events.

Voters may often rely on the Fourth Estate for their news updates and candidate information due to other priorities like family, work, and personal interests. The Fourth Estate’s responsibility when covering presidential candidates includes investigating and reporting on pertinent news, vetting all running candidates, and fairly covering campaigns without subjectivism or bias. As described in the previous chapter, these practices by the news media are ideal but seldom fully achieved, especially when paired with media framing, and the perception of media bias by media managers in lieu of objectivity, criticality, and neutrality in journalistic reporting.

The influence media managers have is relevant for the public political discourse and foregoes processes of opinion formation at the societal level and coalition building inside the political system.224 But it is also important for us to understand the influence mainstream media has on voters and the representative democracy of the United States due to the vast and encompassing presence of media in society. By serving as gatekeepers of information and having the ability to decide the quantity and quality of content being aired to readers, listeners, and viewers, mainstream media news has a large influence over a free society. In Chapter Three,

224 Neidhardt, F. (2004). Kommentarthemen. Die mediale Policy-Agenda. In C. Eilders, F. Neidhardt, & B. Pfetsch (Eds.), Die Stimme der Medien. Pressekommentare und politische Öffentlichkeit in der Bundesrepublik (pp. 106– 128). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, as cited in Maurer (2011), 30.

Schiller’s concept of mind managers, or those who influence thought through controlling media content, brings to light the powerful role media can have on electoral politics. In the following section, these topics will be discussed in relation to media coverage and treatment of Obama and

Paul.

Media Treatment & Media Framing of Obama

At the beginning of the 2008 Democratic primary, Obama was at a disadvantage with less name recognition, limited policy experience, and inadequate establishment support. But after eight years under President George W. Bush’s administration, voters seemed ready for something new and different. For the political climate of 2008, Obama’s disadvantages could be considered advantages. He was a politician who had not been entrenched in the political world for decades, so he did not have as many personal connections and high profile figures in his political network. It also meant he did not have an extensive voting record for journalists to report on. His lack of political experience was touched upon in the media, with New Hampshire

State Representative Beth Aresnault saying his inexperience was “the big question mark.”225 The media consistently pointed out Obama’s inexperience, framing him as a candidate who was green when it came to political policy and foreign affairs. Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times cited “the weakness on his resume—his lack of experience.”226 Former Democratic legislative staffer, and Huffington Post contributor Brent Budowsky, criticized Obama’s “close to zero

225 Keen, Judy. “The Big Question About Barack Obama,” USA Today, last modified January 17, 2007, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-01-16-obama-experience-cover_x.htm. 226 Sweet, Lynn. “Obama in Campaign Mode on a Theme of ‘Hope.’” Chicago Sun-Times, February 4, 2007.

national security experience, close to zero national defense and foreign policy experience, close to zero national political experience, close to zero national legislative experience and close to zero experience being tested in the crucible of brutal national politics.”227 This national sentiment of Obama’s inexperience being discussed in mainstream media news, backed by journalistic discoveries of his actual lack of experience, played a role in how voters perceived Obama’s candidacy. However, it also served as an appeal to change from politics as usual.

“Inexperienced” may have been the biggest voter description of Obama in 2008, but it was closely followed with words like “change,” “intelligent,” “young,” and “charismatic.”228 The positive views of Obama’s candidacy far outweighed the negatives.

Beyond Obama’s lack of experience, media managers struggled with how to categorize him early in the race without raising the specter of racial stereotypes.229 April M. Washington, a political reporter with the Rocky Mountain News, covered the 2008 presidential election. In regards to how race was covered as a topic by the media, she stated:

In our longstanding history, we’ve never addressed race head on or honestly in our country. Barack Obama was an extraordinary candidate with an incredible story. He came seemingly out of nowhere. He threw his hat in the ring and continued until it became clear that he was going to become the Democratic nominee. And you knew there that there was going to be certain voters in the South who weren’t going to vote for him because of his race, according to the pundits and even according to Hillary Clinton herself. So there was no way race was not going to emerge as one

227 Budowsky, Brent. “Obamamania.” Huffington Post, October 23, 2006. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brent- budowsky/obamamania_b_32321.html.

228 “Obama in a Word: From ‘Inexperienced’ and ‘Change’ to ‘Good’ and ‘Trying,’” Pew Research Center, last modified September 5, 2012, http://www.people-press.org/2012/09/05/obama-in-a-word-from-inexperienced-and- change-to-good-and-trying/. 229 Walsh, Eileen T. “Representations of Race and Gender in Mainstream Media Coverage of the 2008 Democratic Primary,” Journal of African American Studies, 13(2), June 2009: 121–130.

of the key issues in the campaign. He did a beautiful job trying to downplay the role of race so it did no dictate the outcome of the presidential race.230

Even though Obama’s upbringing was largely with his white grandparents, he had to address the media’s representation of black masculinity, despite trying to run a post-racial231 campaign.

Political scientist Dewey M. Clayton describes it best when he says “Obama did not run as an

African American candidate but as a candidate who happened to be African American.”232 In other words, race was not at the forefront of Obama’s campaign; he neither pushed it as of great importance nor did he shy away from his racial identity and heritage.233 Frank Rudy Cooper,

Associate Professor of Law at Suffolk University mentioned that Obama had to be careful to avoid “the angry black male” stereotype by not being too aggressive.234 Navigating between the lines of being “black enough” and being “normative white,” Obama skillfully portrayed himself as representing a ‘Rainbow’ Coalition made up of all races, as well as advancing policies on a wide range of issues235 due to his diverse cultural experience. A 2007 Newsweek poll indicated

230 Interview with April M. Washington as cited in Carstarphen, Meta G. (2009) “Uncovering Race in 2008: Media Politics and the Reporter’s Eye,” Journal of Civic Rights and Economic Development, 24(2): 421. 231 Scholars discuss the post-racialness of Obama’s campaign as a transcendence of racial issues through two different meanings: color blindness and multiculturalism. 232 Clayton, Dewey M. The Presidential Campaign of Barack Obama: A Critical Analysis of a Racially Transcendent Strategy, New York: Routledge, 2010, xiii.

233 Even though Obama struggled with his racial identity growing up, he has since said during an interview on 60 Minutes, “I am comfortable in my racial identity and recognize that I'm part of a very specific set of experiences in this country, but that's not the core of who I am.” 234 Yerman, Marcia G. “Race, Gender and the Media in the 2008 Elections,” Huffington Post. Last modified November 11, 2008, accessed September 5, 2016. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marcia-g-yerman/race-gender- and-the-media_b_133934.html. 235 Verney, Kevern. “’Change We Can Believe In?’ Barack Obama, Race, and the 2008 US Presidential Election,” International Politics, 48(2-3), 2011: 349.

that 93 percent of Americans said they would vote for a qualified Black presidential candidate.236

Obama’s strategy to focus less on skin color and more on social similarities, community building, and bringing about new changes to government resonated with the American people who were ready for a new national leader.

Obama’s biggest competitor during the Democratic primary was Hillary Clinton. As the two top contenders for the Democratic nomination, Obama and Hillary received more news coverage than the entire Republican field with 294 and 240 stories, respectively, compared to

457 for all Republicans.237 The quantity of coverage focusing on each of their campaigns meant their names were circulated far more often in the public realm, pulling more attention to their candidacies. Hillary, being a former First Lady and having served in the U.S. Senate representing

New York for 8 years, already had strong name recognition, whereas Obama would need to rely on the press a bit more. As the primary continued, the media covered more substantive issues focusing on the declining economy, the military actions abroad, and reforms dealing with education and healthcare. With about two months left before the Democratic National

Convention where the nomination would occur, 37 percent of Americans believed news organizations were biased toward Senator Barack Obama, while only 8 percent thought the same about Senator Hillary Clinton.238 One thing was certain, either election of Obama or Hillary to presidency would make American history—the first African American president or the first

236 Polman, Dick. “Barack Obama’s Race Seems to Be a Second-tier Issue in ’08 Election,” Augusta Chronicle. Jan. 24, 2007, at A05.

237 Belt, Tood L., Marion R. Just, and Ann N. Crigler. (2012). “The 2008 Media Primary: Handicapping the Candidates in Newspapers, on TV, and the Internet,” The International Journal of Press/Politics, 17(3): 341-369. 238 “Many Say Coverage is Biased in Favor of Obama.” Pew Research Center, accessed June 29, 2016, last modified June 5, 2008. http://www.people-press.org/2008/06/05/many-say-coverage-is-biased-in-favor-of-obama/.

female president. When the Democratic primary ended in June, Obama was only one-tenth of a percentage point ahead of Hillary—41,622 votes out of more than 35 million239—an extremely tight margin and within the margin of error.

Obama’s candidacy received ample coverage of his campaign trail after he secured the

Democratic nomination—to the point that in August of 2008, 48 percent of respondents of a Pew

Research poll said they were hearing too much about Obama.240 Positive media framing helped push Obama into the national spotlight, allowing his team to focus his campaign narrative on hope and change, a message that resonated with voters who were fed up with career politicians.

In a study conducted by Butler and Schofield on pro-candidate letters to the editor, a majority of the newspapers they studied (70 percent of their sample) had endorsed Barack Obama for president in the general election in 2008.241 Brian Cathcart wrote in Newsweek that Gerard Baker in the New York Times called Obama “the Fab One,” whose Atlantic crossing had provoked a

“pregnant excitement” reminiscent of Beatlemania; John Rentoul of the Independent on Sunday called Obama “Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela rolled into one;” and Timothy Garton Ash wrote in the Guardian that Obamamania probably surpasses even Dianamania242 as a global phenomenon.243

239 Noyes, Rich. “Obama’s Margin of Victory: The Media.” Media Research Center, August 20, 2008. http://archive.mrc.org/ SpecialReports/2008/obama/ObamaMarginofVictory.pdf.

240 “Obama Fatigue – 48% Hearing Too Much About Him.” Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, August 6, 2008. http://www.people-press.org/2008/08/06/obama-fatigue-48-hearing-too-much-about-him/.

241 Butler, Daniel M, and Emily Schofield. “Were Newspapers More Interested in Pro-Obama Letters to the Editor in 2008? Evidence from a Field Experiment,” American Politics Research, 38(2), 2010: 356. 242 Referencing the craze around Princess Diana. 243 Cathcart, Brian. “Getting Giddy Over Obama,” New Statesman, July 28, 2008, 137(4907): 16.

The general election pit Barack Obama and Joe Biden against John McCain and Sarah

Palin. The principle message of Obama’s candidacy was change with slogans such as “Obama for Change,” “Change We Can Believe In,” and “Yes We Can.” McCain was selected as the

Republican nominee due to his decades of experience and largely because he was viewed as the most electable candidate.244 The 2008 general election was highly reflective of the 1960’s general election between Kennedy and Nixon. The Democratic Party had a youthful, well- spoken, inexperienced candidate in comparison to the Republican Party with an older, policy- oriented, experienced candidate. In a study on the general election by the Pew Research Center,

69 percent of the prominent personal narratives studied about Obama carried a positive message; about 28 percent focusing on the idea that he represented hope and change and 17 percent on his charisma and strong rhetoric. The other 31 percent that focused on the negative of Obama was led by 17 percent on his inexperience and youth.245 From September 8 to October 16, the media’s tone in coverage of the general election differed greatly from the primary. For Obama, about a third of his coverage was positive (36 percent), a third of it was neutral (35 percent), and a little less than a third negative (29 percent). For McCain, nearly six in ten of the stories studied were decidedly negative in nature (57 percent), while fewer than two in ten (14 percent) were positive.246

244 Barry, Herbert. “Obama for Change or McCain for Continuity.” The Journal of Psychohistory 36, no. 2 (2008): 149.

245 Character and the Primaries of 2008.” Pew Research Center, accessed May 3, 2016, last modified May 29, 2008. http://www.journalism.org/2008/05/29/barack-obama-2/. 246 “Winning the Media Campaign.” Pew Research Center, accessed June 29, 2016, last modified October 22, 2008. http://www.journalism.org/2008/10/22/winning-media-campaign/.

To recap this section on media treatment and framing of Obama, the Democratic primary of 2008 was largely a race between him and Clinton. One candidate representing political change and the other representing political experience. Clinton was initially positioned as the front- runner and expected nominee due to her vast political background, support from senior party officials, and strong voter appeal to be the first female president. But she was defeated by

Obama’s charismatic persona, rhetorical power, and avid media support. When Obama was pitted against Republican nominee John McCain, it became an election nostalgic of the 1960s of

Kennedy versus Nixon. Through media framing, Obama came across as a well-spoken, youthful candidate who exuded charm and intelligence. McCain, nicknamed Maverick, represented the experienced, older generation with an outdated view on current society. Even though McCain clinched the Republican nomination, the theme that surrounded his candidacy was whether he was a “true conservative.”247 The final vote counts on election night secured Obama’s historical presidential win at 52.9 percent to McCain’s 45.6 percent.248 Four years later, Obama’s reelection for presidency in 2012 benefitted from incumbency and not having to fight for his party’s nomination.

247 Schwab, Nikki. “Democrats Enjoy More Positive Coverage than McCain,” US News. Last modified June 3, 2008, http://www.usnews.com/news/campaign-2008/articles/2008/06/03/democrats-enjoy-more-positive-media- coverage-than-mccain. 248 “President - Election Center 2008.” CNN, November 17, 2008. http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/ president/.

Media Treatment & Framing of Paul

The treatment Ron Paul received from the Fourth Estate during the 2008 Republican primary differed in quality and quantity from what was afforded to Obama’s campaign in the

Democratic primary. As a low-tiered candidate with little name recognition on a national level and political perspectives that were not popular with the Republican Party,249 Paul’s candidacy faced a quite a few challenges. Beyond the Republican Party primary itself, negative media framing and perceived media bias against him proved problematic in reaching the mass electorate through means and methods of traditional media.

Paul has been the subject of sporadic scholarly and journalistic attention. Discussions of his politics in the general press are more numerous than academic treatments,250 and even then, there are not many from mainstream media news sources that focus on his candidacy in a substantial manner. This dissertation aims to add to the small body of work surrounding his understudied candidacy. In 2008, the only other Republican primary candidates to receive less coverage than Paul was California Congressman Duncan Hunter, largely because he dropped out of the race following the Nevada primaries,251 and former U.S. Ambassador Alan Keyes who left the Republican Party to advocate for the nomination from the Constitution Party. The only consistency Paul received from mainstream media news networks was their lack of media coverage of his campaigns. Of the little coverage Paul’s candidacy did receive, the negative

249 Some of Paul’s views that were not popular with the GOP included anti-war views, a non-interventionist foreign policy, and desire to end the Federal Reserve banking system. 250 Lorenzo, David J., Debating War Why Arguments Opposing American Wars and Interventions Fail, Hoboken: Taylor and Francis, 2015, 124.

251 “Hunter Drops out of GOP Presidential Race,” January 22, 2008. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/politics/ election2008/2008-01-20-hunter_N.htm.

media framing of him indicated to viewers that he was not a serious candidate. Without a presence in mainstream media, media managers prevented Paul from having a fair chance at earning support from the general voting population who were unaware of his campaign.

The two main methods of exposure in traditional media were general news coverage of each candidate and the primary debates. Because of the sparse literature on Paul, both in news coverage, particularly in 2008, and academic or scholarly work, I select prominent presidential debates that he participated in during his candidacy in both 2008 and 2012 for analysis, along with looking at news articles that focus on the election. Treating the debate videos as media texts, I focus on how the media treated Paul in relation to other candidates, the rhetoric during the debate, and overall speaking time of each participant.

2008 Presidential Race

The first debate I analyze for the 2008 Republican primary took place in Myrtle Beach,

South Carolina on January 10, 2008 and was Sponsored by Fox News and the South Carolina

Republican Party.252 The debate was aired on television by Fox News, broadcasted over the radio on Fox News’ channel, and streamed online at FoxNews.com. It was moderated by Brit Hume

(managing editor for Fox News), with Chris Wallace (host of Fox News Sunday), Wendell Goler

(Fox News White House correspondent) and Carl Cameron (Fox News chief political correspondent). Each panelist asked a series of questions of the candidates who were given a minute and thirty seconds for responses and thirty seconds for rebuttals or follow-up questions.

252 Hobobob10. 2008 Fox SC Republican Debate (Part 1), 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddJGsqB2nKI.

The participants of this debate included Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Mike

Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, and Ron Paul. The main topic of discussion was foreign policy and domestic issues.

The first set of questions by Chris Wallace were asked in the order of Romney, McCain,

Huckabee, Giuliani, Paul and Thompson. The opening question was asked to Romney on his thoughts on the economic recession, as the dwindling economy was an important issue to be addressed during the 2008 election. Romney compared himself to McCain during his response, and thus McCain was given time to respond. As Wallace proceeds to ask his questions to each candidate, all are provided open ended questions asking for the how’s and whys of their thoughts and solutions (except for Paul). For example, Wallace’s question to Romney included asking why voters should trust him over the other candidates, or when addressing McCain, he asks what kinds of fixes would McCain propose to reduce the government deficit. When addressing Paul,

Wallace asks him a vague and close ended question: “Do you support a government program to stimulate the economy?” The question could have easily been reworded to elicit a more explanatory response in helping the audience understand Paul’s views, such as asking what kind of government program would he support to stimulate the economy or why would a specific government program help, or not help, the economic recovery. Paul responds by mentioning “a government program is too vague. What kind of a government program?” He then proceeds to bring in the Depression as an example and provides background on the importance of understanding why we are in a recession, such as artificial low interest rates and a problematic monetary policy. Wallace’s vague, close-ended question indicated a lack of interest in getting to know Paul’s views. Journalists and reporters need to be precise in how the ask questions to

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receive desired information. They serve as an extension of the American electorate in being able to discuss and confront presidential candidates so voters can be better informed.

Hume led a round of questions on the Middle East and Iran. He asked about the passive response by an American commander in the Strait of Hormuz when approached aggressively by

Iranian fast boats believed to be from the Revolutionary Guards and whether or not it was the right call not to engage. Each candidate responded with affirmation that the commanders made the right judgement calls, but followed up with perspectives on the strength of the U.S. military, which came across as an aggressive and pre-emptive view on foreign policy in the Middle East.

For instance, Huckabee answered, “I think it's very important that we make it crystal clear that we will have the most powerful, the best trained, the best-equipped military on the face of the planet that has ever existed. And we hopefully will have one that no one wants to engage in battle, but we'll make it clear that if they do, there'll be a severe price to pay for engaging us.”

Thompson and Giuliani followed with responses about the distrust of Iranians and the American needed to exert their power to keep them from obtaining nuclear weapons. McCain, having served as a former naval commander commented on the process to become a commander of a

Navy Ship: “These are the most professional and well trained and capable people in the world.”

Paul’s response about urging caution and not rushing to judgement was a perspective that did not line up as closely with the pro-military, strong foreign policy stance of the establishment GOP.

With many Republicans being aggressively pro-Israel, Paul’s views regarding not policing the world and letting other sovereign nations manage their own affairs was unpopular. His beliefs may have prompted the exchange below.

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During this debate, moderator Carl Cameron singled out Paul to ask him with a tone of skepticism and disdain: “Another question about electability… do you have any, sir?” Drawing in laughter from the audience, he continues: “There’s always the question as to whether or not you are, in fact, viable. Your differences with the Republicans on the… with the rest of the

Republicans on this stage has raised questions about whether or not you can actually win the general… the Republican nomination, sir.” As a political correspondent and moderator of a presidential debate, Cameron did not display professionalism with the commentary and question.

But Paul’s response was honest and meaningful. He asks Cameron rhetorically if Republicans should write him off as being the most conservative candidate because he follows the

Constitution253 stating: “I'm the most conservative member here. I have voted, you know, against more spending and waste in government than anybody else.” This statement was followed by loud applause from the audience. Paul continues: “So you're suggesting that I'm not electable and the Republicans don't want me because I'm a strict fiscal conservative, because I believe in civil liberties?”

The South Carolina debate proved that Paul was an outsider not only in the eyes of the news media, but also in the establishment Republican Party. First Paul was indirectly accused by the moderator for running in the wrong party. Then, at another point, when Romney was responding to a question about illegal immigration, Paul is singled out as potentially having a

253 All elected officials are required to take an oath of office that states: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

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different view than the others. Romney states: “I'd also tell you that all of us on this stage agree -

- I believe, I don't know about Ron Paul, but I think everybody else agrees -- I just haven't heard your position; I don't mean to be critical -- that we secure the border, we have the fence, and we have enough Border Patrol agents to secure the border, and that we have an employment verification system of some kind.”254 The challenges Paul faced on two ends of his 2008 campaign meant more than an uphill battle. With little assistance from mainstream media coverage, and lacking support from establishment Republican party faithfuls, Paul’s candidacy would have to find other means of sustainment.

The media mistreatment also extended to fellow Republican Duncan Hunter. For a Fox

News debate in Milford, New Hampshire on January 6, 2008. The studio said they would only include candidates poling in the double digits, leaving out Paul and Hunter. Yet, they included

Thompson who was polling even lower than Paul at the time. According to CBS News, Romney led the polls with 33 percent of Republican support, Rudy Giuliani followed with 22 percent, and rounding out the top three was John McCain with 13 percent. Both Paul and Mike Huckabee each had 7 percent, and Thompson was last with 5 percent (Hunter did not make the list).255 The exclusion of candidates in the debate resulted in the New Hampshire Republican Party withdrawing as a partner. Fergus Cullen, the party chairman issued the following statement:

The first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary serves a national purpose by giving all candidates an equal opportunity on a level playing field. Only in New Hampshire do lesser known, lesser funded underdogs have a fighting chance to establish

254 Following this response, Paul was not provided an opportunity by the moderator for a thirty second rebuttal or response. During the entire debate, when one candidate referenced another candidate, the candidate being referenced was allowed time to respond. 255 “Poll: Clinton, Romney Lead in N.H.,” CBS News. Last modified November 11, 2007, accessed September 6, 2016, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-clinton-romney-lead-in-nh/.

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themselves as national figures. The New Hampshire Republican Party believes Congressmen Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter should be included in the FOX forum on Sunday evening. Our mutual efforts to resolve this difference have failed.256 As a local party chairman, Cullen believed that there should be a fair treatment and coverage for all candidates seeking the Republican nomination, providing voters the opportunity to hear from different policy ideas and conservative perspectives and thus providing them with adequate information on all candidates to decide who to vote for in the primary. Because of Paul’s exclusion, his campaign team decided to organize and broadcast their own town hall event in

New Hampshire on public local television, C-SPAN, and online. Hunter’s campaign announced that they too would do the same.257

2012 Presidential Race

This media mistreatment became a trend that continued during Paul’s 2012 bid for the

Republican nomination. The election cycle saw a massive influx of candidates seeking the

Republican nomination—former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney, former U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania Rick

Santorum, former Governor of Texas Rick Perry, former Governor of Utah Jon Huntsman Jr., former U.S. Representative from Minnesota Michele Bachmann, businessman Herman Cain, former Governor of Louisiana Buddy Roemer (who left the Republican Party to seek the

256 Dalla, Sareena, and Rebecca Sinderbrand. “Granite State Republicans Pull Debate Support,” CNN Blogs. Last modified January 5, 2008, accessed September 6, 2016, http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/01/05/granite- state-republicans-pull-debate-support/comment-page-10/. 257 Falcone, Michael. “New Hampshire G.O.P. Backs Out of Fox Forum,” NY Times Blog. Last modified January 5, 2008, accessed September 6, 2016, http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/new-hampshire-gop-backs- out-of-fox-forum/.

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nomination from the Reform Party), former Governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson (who eventually left the Republican Party and was nominated by the Libertarian Party), and political consultant Fred Karger (who withdrew after the Utah primary).258

The treatment Paul received during the 2008 debate I discussed above was mild compared to another debate in 2012 where he was blatantly ignored and received only 90 seconds of speaking time on air.259 This other debate I analyze also took place in South Carolina, in a city called Spartanburg, on November 12, 2011.260 Hosted by CBS News and moderated by

CBS News’ Scott Pelley with Major Garrett from National Journal, only the first hour of the debate was aired on national television while its entirety was streamed online at CBSNews.com and NationalJournal.com. The format of this debate allowed candidates a one minute response time with a 30 second rebuttal or follow-up at the discretion of the moderator.

Pelley asked the first set of questions, on the topic of Iran and nuclear weapons, of the presidential candidates in the following order: Cain, Romney, Gingrich, Paul, Perry, Santorum,

Bachmann, and Huntsman. Like the 2008 race, all the Republican candidates supported an aggressive foreign policy in the Middle East with Huntsman leaning slightly closer to Paul’s perspective on bringing our troops home. Each of the first three candidates received a minute to respond to the question. Cain spoke of increasing “economic pressure” and deploying “our

258 Due to even lower polling numbers than Paul, the latter three candidates were not invited to any of the televised debates, but they participated in a WePolls.com online debate. 259 His total speaking time during this South Carolina debate was 11 minutes and 4 seconds. Huckabee spoke 12 minutes and 5 seconds. McCain spoke 11 minutes and 9 seconds. Giuliani spoke 10 minutes and 5 seconds, Thompson spoke 10 minutes and 1 second. And Romney spoke 9 minutes and 6 seconds. This was surprisingly one of the debates where Paul was allowed more time to speak. 260 RonPaul.com. Complete CBS News South Carolina Republican 2012 Presidential Debate, 2011. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=49pjWXjIZ4c.

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ballistic missile defense capable warships strategically in that part of the world” if we needed to.

Romney followed suit with commentary on how Obama’s administration failed from a foreign policy standpoint by not putting crippling sanctions on Iran. And Gingrich stated using

“maximum covert operations, to block and disrupt the Iranian program.” When Pelley got to

Paul, Pelley gave him 30-seconds to respond, rather than the full minute, as to whether the

United States should go to war to prevent a nuclear weapon in Iran. Paul, being the

Constitutionalist that he is affirmed that it is not the commander-in-chief who makes the decision to go to war, but rather the old-fashioned way of going to Congress. “I'm afraid what's going on right now is similar to the war propaganda that went on against Iraq,” Paul followed, “they didn’t have weapons of mass destruction… the death and destruction, the $4 trillion in debt… it’s not worthwhile going to war. If you do, you get a declaration of war and you fight it and you win it and get it over with.” Huntsman shared similar thoughts as Paul stating, “I say it’s time to come home. We’ve uprooted the Taliban. We’ve dismantled Al Qaeda. We have killed Osama bin

Laden.” When pressed by Pelley about bringing all the troops home today, Huntsman backpedals a bit and responds that there is still work to be done to help train the Afghan National Army. By changing his response, Huntsman showed the pressures from the Fourth Estate, among the attacks from other contenders, that candidates face when running for president.

Conversely, Paul has for decades strongly advocated going to Congress to get a declaration of war. During the unaired portion of the debate, Paul was asked about covert operations in Syria, and his response was much the same—that it is very costly and not a good idea. Paul’s foreign policy perspective is a large portion of what separates him from the

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establishment Republican Party and the neoconservative coalition.261 Paul’s stance against undeclared wars and piled debt from nation building is consistent with what he witnessed growing up with family friends and neighbors fighting unconstitutional wars and never returning home. Throughout his 2008 and 2012 campaign, he fiercely advocated against undeclared wars, no nation building, and bringing our troops home.

It would be 20 minutes and 37 seconds before Paul had the opportunity to speak again during this debate. Before moderator Garrett addresses Paul, he states: “Congressman Paul, my spidey sense tells me we have a debate about to get launched here. I know you have an opinion you'd like to weigh in.” This indicates that Garrett is aware of the lack of attention being given to

Paul, and that Paul has an opposing perspective than what is being discussed on stage. The issue being discussed was torture and the use of enhanced interrogating techniques.262 Paul’s response is extremely brief stating that torture is illegal by our laws and international laws. Garrett follows up by asking Paul to define torture.263 Only Paul and Huntsman expressly state being against torture, and that enhanced interrogation techniques are not American principles and values.

The notable debate only allowed Paul less than 90 seconds of speaking time on air (40 seconds in the first section of the debate and 49 seconds in the second section of the debate). For the total speaking time that was aired, Mitt Romney lead with 5 minutes and 59 seconds, Rick

Perry with 5 minutes and 51 seconds, Newt Gingrich with 5 minutes and 10 seconds, Rick

261 Neoconservatism originated in the 1990s and is rooted in American exceptionalism. The ideology advocates for using U.S. political and military power in order to promote democracy. 262 This is referencing waterboarding. 263 If Garrett did not ask a follow-up question to Paul to define torture, Paul’s speaking time for the aired debate may have only been 30 seconds.

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Santorum with 4 minutes and 47 seconds, Herman Cain with 4 minutes and 6 seconds, a tied

Bachmann and Jon Huntsman with 3 minutes and 2 seconds, and Paul with 89 seconds.264 Paul’s lack of fair coverage by the Fourth Estate was even picked up on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon who joked: “There was another Republican debate on Saturday, and listen to this: Ron Paul only got 89 seconds to speak. Seriously? Rick Perry gets more time than that to try to remember something.”265 The role of debates in the election process has seemingly become more about appearance, talking points, and sound bites. Rather than fully discussing issues and solutions, which would take up more time than an allocated 90-minute segment, candidates are expected to deliver responses to complicated issues in at most one minute and 30 seconds and at the shortest

30 seconds. This places importance on rhetoric skills and condensed communication instead of practical solutions to pertinent problems facing our country.

In August of 2011, Paul placed second at the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa with only 152 votes behind first place winner Michele Bachmann, yet there was no talk of the strength of

Paul’s second-place finish. Analysts discussed Bachmann’s win, Tim Pawlenty’s third place that resulted in him instantly pulling out of the race, Herman Cain’s fifth place that was a drop in his previous leading of the Republican pack, and even Sarah Palin, who was not even taking part in the poll. There was no mention, talk, discussion, or analysis of Paul at all—no campaign chances

264 To compare, the total speaking time for the entire 90-minute debate breakdown is as follows: Romney with 9 minutes and 7 seconds, Gingrich with 8 minutes and 8 seconds, Perry with 7 minutes and 16 seconds, Santorum with 7 minutes and 3 seconds, Cain with 6 minutes and 42 seconds, Bachmann with 6 minutes and 24 seconds, Huntsman with 5 minutes and 33 seconds, and Paul with 3 minutes and 50 seconds. The last third of the debate was streamed online. 265 Looking Out For Your Freedoms. “Jimmy Fallon Jokes About the Ron Paul Media Blackout!” Online Video Clip. YouTube. YouTube, 19 Nov. 2011. Web. 02 Sept. 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nylltg7fxE.

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or debate over his policy positions, or even that he was a candidate. The complete blackout of his candidacy was consistent across news networks. Roger Simon of Politico put it bluntly, “I admit

I do not fully understand Ron Paul and his beliefs. But I do understand when a guy gets shafted, and Ron Paul just got shafted.”266 The news media’s lack of coverage on Paul became so much of a joke that it was also picked up by comedian Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. Following the

Ames Straw Poll vote count in Iowa, Stewart had a segment of his show on the media blackout of Paul. In the segment, a video is pieced together with major news networks (MSNBC, CBS, and Fox News) all pushing the “new top-tier” Republican candidates—Romney, Perry, and

Bachmann. Stewart interjects, asking if they have forgotten anyone, “say an ideologically consistent, 12-term Congressman who came within less than 200 votes of winning the straw poll.” 267 Stewart continues his segment by citing Paul as “Tea Party patient zero,” the one to have planted the seeds of small government and fiscal responsibility, which have now become the talking points of the Republican Party.

The Fourth Estate steered clear of mentioning Paul’s name whenever possible, and if he was mentioned, he was not covered in a positive light. The media managers’ tactics of ignoring

Paul, framing him negatively, and treating him unfairly would eventually backfire in the form of new media organization by the Fifth Estate. When news media fails to do their job and entertainment media is picking up the slack, it creates a distrust in the role of journalism and reporting. In a Pew Research Journal Project study by Tom Rosentiel, Mark Jurkowitz, and

266 Simon, Roger. "Ron Paul Remains Media Poison." Politico. Politico, 15 Aug. 2011. Web. 19 Oct. 2015. http://www.politico.com/ story/2011/08/ron-paul-remains-media-poison-061412#ixzz3ozbpFyoJ.

267 MacNicol, Glynnis. “Jon Stewart Blasts the Media for Ignoring Ron Paul,” Business Insider. Last modified August 16, 2011, http://www.businessinsider.com/jon-stewart-ron-paul-media-video-2011-8.

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Tricia Sartor, they concluded that the tone of Ron Paul’s 2012 campaign was more positive than in 2008. The positivity of Paul’s 2012 campaign was offset by the fact that the media virtually ignored him and he was only covered in the mainstream media news 7 percent during January 2 through April 15, as compared to Romney’s 59 percent, Santorum’s 31 percent, and Gingrich’s

30 percent.268

The control over mediated content and the media mistreatment of Paul’s candidacy brings to question the role of media managers and the impact of their profession on audiences. How the

Fourth Estate frames a candidate can influence public perception, thus the responsibility of their position of power should not be taken lightly. Paul was not only ignored and framed negatively by news media, but even prominent business figures chided his candidacy. Henry Blodget, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Business Insider published an online letter to Paul supporters. Blodget writes:

Well, frankly, we don't write more about him, because he just does not have a serious chance of winning the Presidency of the United States. Sorry, he just doesn’t. Ron Paul certainly has the youth vote (and who can blame them, given the pathetic state of Washington these days). And he has the extreme vote: Everyone who thinks the Fed is the real problem in America is loopy about him. And he has the anti-government vote: His plan to eliminate $1 trillion of government spending the moment he's sworn in is a home run for these folks. But there's just no way Ron Paul can win the Presidency. Why not? Because he's just too extreme.269

268 Rosenstiel, Tom, Mark Jurkowitz, and Tricia Sartor. "How the Media Covered the 2012 Primary Campaign." Pew Research Centers Journalism Project, 23 Apr. 2012. Web. 29 Jan. 2016. http://www.journalism.org/files/legacy/ 2012PrimaryCampaignReport.pdf. 269 Blodget, Henry. “Dear Ron Paul Supporters: Here’s the Truth about the ‘Media Blackout,’” Business Insider. Last modified January 9, 2012, accessed September 6, 2016. http://www.businessinsider.com/ron-paul-media- blackout-2012-1.

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Blodget’s letter pinpoints some of the fears and views surrounding Paul’s candidacy. Issues with ending the Federal Reserve and overhauling the U.S. dollar system would seriously impact the

American economy as we know it.270 But Blodget mentions that Paul’s views do resonate with factions of the American public. Ongoing problems with the future of government programs

(such as social security—a program the youth will be paying into but not get anything from) pull in the youth vote. Strong opposition to constant government borrowing and spending that continues to increase our national debt pull in the Tea Party vote. And the endless military intervention in the Middle East with no obvious aim and mission pull in the military veteran vote. Even though there were those who viewed Paul as being too extreme, he was able to unite voters under the banner of the GOP.

Paul’s stances on important issues like taxes and big government changed the conversation in the Republican Party from 2008 to 2012. The 2012 Republican platform included issues Paul brought to the forefront, like auditing the Federal Reserve, creating a commission to study returning to the gold standard, and balancing the federal budget.271 His efforts of consistently speaking on issues of fiscal responsibility, limited government, and personal liberty was slowly paying off after almost three decades as an elected official. But it was not the mainstream media that provided the platform for Paul’s voice to be heard on a national scale.

270 The information that is lacking is the history behind the Federal Reserve Banking system and the detrimental effects it has on our monetary policy. Auditing and ending the Federal Reserve has been an ongoing goal of Paul’s. With his strong interest in economics and monetary policy, as well as the return of the American dollar to the gold standard, his perspective on this issue requires additional study and analysis in the areas of economics and monetary policy. 271 “Republican Party Platforms: 2012 Republican Party Platform,” August 27, 2012. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=101961.

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Media mangers did not provide quality information or air fair coverage of Paul’s candidacy. Be it uncertainty of the uncontrollable candidate or the desire to maintain the status quo, the Fifth

Estate rose and turned to new media technologies, online networks, and citizen journalism to fill the void created by the Fourth Estate.

Conclusion

The Fourth Estate has an obligation to the American voting public to provide fair and equal coverage of the presidential candidates. In the examples provided for Obama and Paul’s candidacies, the move away from journalistic quality and integrity is problematic when it comes to trust of the journalism profession and the Fourth estate. The coverage of Obama was critical at the beginning, as people questioned his lack of experience in politics and policy. The coverage of

Paul was not only critical but skeptical of his participation in the presidential election. The eventual change of tone for Obama’s candidacy and the virtual lack of coverage on Paul’s resulted in the following chapter’s discussion on their approaches to new media strategies and organization.

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CHAPTER FIVE

NEW MEDIA AND THE 2008 AND 2012

PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS OF BARACK OBAMA AND RON PAUL

“There’s plenty to criticize about the mass media, but they are the source of regular information about a wide range of topics.” — Noam Chomsky

“All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values.” — Marshall McLuhan

New media played a highly influential role in how Obama and Paul organized their political campaigns in 2008 and 2012. New media technologies and applications allowed for flexibility in campaign strategies that bypassed traditional media forms and media managers, or the gatekeepers of information. As discussed in Chapter Two, McLuhan’s notion of understanding the medium as the message and Fuller’s concept of media ecologies both unfold with the approaches to new media by Obama and Paul. McLuhan’s understanding of mediums as messages translates to the extensions of ourselves that produce change.272 As extensions that institute change on various levels, both Obama and Paul’s candidacies encouraged and incited political activism that challenged the power of traditional media, shifting the ecological system of media and politics.

272 As discussed in Chapter Two, McLuhan defines medium as an extension, acceleration, and amplification of the human body, but as such, it also paralyzes or amputates. As media creates innovation solutions and assists in areas of possible shortcomings, it also limits other potentials or basic purposes. He defines messages as the change of scale, pace, or pattern introduced into human affairs, with importance being placed on the change that occurs.

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Political scientist David L. Paletz notes several reasons for the political effects of technology. New media technology gives individuals access to mass information, interpretation, and opinions from diverse sources that were not previously available. Beyond access, people can share, edit, and manipulate the material to others with more ease with digital transfers, which enhances the opportunity for expression, discussion, and political participation. Interest groups, grassroots activists, and stakeholders can recruit, organize, and mobilize more quickly and efficiently with technological assistance. It enhances the ability for political candidates to share their ideas and platforms with voters. And technology also allows for elected officials and government entities to communicate directly with the public, which enables people to directly express their thoughts and concerns to policy makers, in effect impacting and influencing public policy.273 The general practice of transferring information has not been altered, only improved with technological advancements.

Obama and Paul are the two candidates to best exemplify new media and non-traditional campaigning tactics within their respective political parties. As shown in the previous chapter, the Fourth Estate coverage of Obama and Paul varied in quantity and quality of coverage and framing. Both were considered underdogs in their respective 2008 primaries (continuing into the

2012 primary for Paul), and both proved that a large following could be built with and without the blessings of media managers.

This chapter of my dissertation argues the new media approaches by Obama’s campaign and Paul’s campaign respectively. The two approaches used by each candidate, briefly

273 Paletz, David L. The Media in American Politics: Contents and Consequences. 2nd ed., New York; London: Longman, 2002, 16-17.

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introduced at the start of this dissertation, consist of Obama’s centralized control approach and

Paul’s spontaneous order to new media. With the assistance of mainstream media news framing

Obama’s campaign in a more positive manner, he could focus his efforts on his new media strategies incorporating social media as a main practice. Paul’s campaign, on the contrary, approached new media from a spontaneous organizational approach, as the treatment of his candidacy was less friendly and the media framing of his campaign was more negative. His campaign relied on the passion and creativity of supporters to fundraise and mass message his policy platforms.

I will first present additional information on centralized control and spontaneous order, as they were only briefly defined in the introduction. I will then analyze Obama’s new media strategies from a centralized control perspective and Paul’s new media practices from a spontaneous order perspective, looking at how the various new media methods played into the structure of their respective campaigns.

Centralized Control versus Spontaneous Order

Understanding the dynamic between media and politics requires an interdisciplinary approach. I incorporate organizational theory and economic theory, because they are two disciplines that best explain centralized control and spontaneous order. The relationship between the two academic fields complement each other by adding a unique understanding of human organizational behavior rooted in economics due to self-interest. The most common assumption by economists is that individuals maximize their self-interest, and that actions, contracts, exchanges, etc., are all governed by competitive self-interest. Organizational structures are

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created and maintained due to the self-interest of the creator(s).274 In the sense of applying these approaches to political campaigns, the root of running for office, the self-interest maximization is garnering enough votes to win an election.

Organizational systems are largely defined by Max Weber and Karl Marx. Doug

McAdam and W. Richard Scott attest that many organizational scholars have opted for the

Weberian perspective rather than the Marxist275 in defining and studying organizational theory.

Weber, a Prussian sociologist and organizational theorist, defined organizational theory as a structure of institutionalized power276 and an efficient practice due to bureaucratic management, hierarchical authority, and clearly defined roles and responsibilities. He wrote that “a bureaucracy is capable of attaining the highest degree of efficiency, and is in this sense formally the most ‘rational’ known means of exercising authority over human beings.”277 To Weber, an organization implementing centralized control was the most efficient way in reaching a unified goal. Workers are in positions of authority based on ability, experience, or seniority, which helps the organization advance seamlessly. And any uncertainties on processes of action would be removed by cohesive adherence to structured rules and regulations.

In differentiating between centralized and decentralized organization, M.C. Barnes, a scholar in organizational theory, explains that centralization is the tendency to withhold authority

274 Organizational theory scholars typically see organizational theory in terms of power and management. See Dennis J. Palumbo and J. Timothy McMahon and G. W. Perritt. 275 McAdam, Doug, and W. Richard Scott, “Organizations and Movements,” Social Movements and Organization Theory, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005, 10. 276 Ibid. 277 Weber, Max, Economy and Society: An Interpretive Sociology, edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, New York: Bedminister Press, 1968, 223.

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from lower organizational units, and decentralization is when decisions are made at lower organizational levels.278 Centralization places power and authority in higher-ups who then delegate responsibilities to others within the organization. It takes on a more bureaucratic and hierarchical approach in authoritative control, but goals tend to be clearer because of the top- down communication structure.279 Decentralization removes the authoritative structure of an organization from top-down communication by allowing individual units, despite their position within the organization, to make decisions that may advance or propel the organization’s mission forward. It provides greater flexibility and adaptation to environmental factors, but can sometimes lack uniformity or cohesion.

From an economic perspective, Austrian economist Friedrich A. Hayek defines

“spontaneous order” against “design order,” or what he calls “organization.” Hayek explains in

Rules and Order:

The made order which we have already referred to as an exogenous order or an arrangement may again be described as a construction, an artificial order or, especially where we have to deal with a directed social order, as an organization. The grown order, on the other hand, which we have referred to as a self-generating or endogenous order, is in English most conveniently described as a spontaneous order.280

The key of Hayek’s economic perspective is the application of his theory to market functions.

Design order is based on conscious human planning, a construction that is centrally organized as a method of maintaining order and control of the market. This allows for an organization to

278 Barnes, M.C., Company Organization, Hoboken: Taylor and Francis, 2013, 96. 279 All aspects that are of the Weberian theory of organizational structure. 280 Hayek, Friedrich A., Law, Legislation, and Liberty, Volume 1: Rules and Order, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1973), 37.

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move as a cohesive unit towards a unified goal, or as Richard Adelstein explains it, as voluntary associations of individuals characterized by a governing objective and some sort of central plan designed to achieve it.281 Spontaneous order is a natural, organic process that arises without any deliberate design or planning.282 It does not come about through imposition, but arises from the interaction of micro-level elements operating spontaneously according to basic principles or rules.283 Although there is no specific top-down organizational structure being followed, the individual units are still moving in the direction of the specified or shared goal.

Organizational and economic theory both explain the concepts of centralized and decentralized control, design and spontaneous order. The difference lies in the how they define the methods of each category. When dealing with organizational theory, the study is of the structure of the institution itself. Structures are implemented for purposes of organizing power and managing relationships.

In this dissertation, the institutions are the two campaigns—Obama’s and Paul’s—that have arranged themselves to function as efficiently as possible given their unique circumstances of different mainstream media coverage and treatment. When dealing with economics, the study is on market operations and the agents within the sphere of analysis. In this case, the agents are the American people who are subjected to all the practices and procedures of the election

281 Adelstein, Richard, “Organizations and Economics,” Journal of Institutional Economics, 6(1), 2010, 40. 282 Skoble, Aeon J., “Natural Law and Spontaneous Order in the Work of Gary Chartier,” Studies in Emergent Order (7), 2014, 307. 283 Chattanooga, W.W. “In Defense of Spontaneous Order,” The Economist. Last modified September 29, 2014, accessed September 5, 2016. http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/09/hayek-and- libertarianism.

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process. The market becomes the media outlets and online platforms in which social and political information, discussion, and debate occurs. Mainstream media dominates the traditional media market, providing media managers more power and influence in directing the political agenda.

But because of the rise in new media, users now have a larger command in directing social and political discussions.

Obama’s Centralized Control Campaign

Obama created a new paradigm for running a presidential campaign in the twenty-first century with his bold and innovative use of new media and technology.284 Howard Dean may have used the Internet to fundraise in 2004, but Obama used the Internet to fundraise, organize, and mobilize supporters in 2008. According to Chicago Tribune journalists Christi Parsons and

John McCormick, “what is sometimes missed in Obama’s story is that his message of change was ideally suited to the new medium of the Internet, with its appeal to young people and independents.”285 His campaign incorporated the use of social media at a time where its popularity was becoming more mainstream. Major social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube were established a few years before Obama’s 2008 campaign, thus provided users some time to become accustomed to new communication platforms and emerging technological applications.286 The platforms became prevalent in everyday use and were strategically used to

284 Clayton, Dewey M. The Presidential Campaign of Barack Obama: A Critical Analysis of a Racially Transcendent Strategy, New York: Routledge, 2010, 136.

285 Parsons, Christi, and John McCormick. “Obama’s Formula: It’s the Network - Technology Helped Campaign Take-Off and Change the Game.” Chicago Tribune, May 24, 2008.

286 MySpace was founded in August of 2003. Facebook was founded in February of 2004. YouTube was founded in May 2005. And Twitter was founded in March of 2006.

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branch out campaign messaging, connect with voters, and organize campaign mobilization in the

2008 election cycle.

The organizational structure of Obama’s campaign team was set up with control being centralized. Obama’s campaign consisted of teams found in typical political campaign groups—a communications team, a scheduling and advancement team, campaign operations, a media team, and other smaller groups that worked on research, identifying and mobilizing volunteers. The traditional organizational structure matched campaign manager David Plouffe’s management style and featured clear lines of authority from department heads to the teams below them.287 The reflection of the Weberian centralized organizational structure exercised campaign efficiency with the goal of getting Obama elected.

New Media Division

Having an organized media team dedicated to new media was in the works well before

Obama won the Democratic nomination. Joe Rospars, who previously worked on Howard

Dean’s 2004 campaign, was hired to be Obama’s online director. The New Media Division

(NMD) was created to focus on alternative media communications, which controlled all communication with supporters.288 Staffers in the NMD, known internally as “triple O,” or

287 De Sio, Henry F. Campaign, Inc.: How Leadership and Organization Propelled Barack Obama to the White House, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2014, 19. 288 Kreiss, Taking Our Country Back, 124.

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Obama’s online operation,289 had three main goals: money, message, and mobilization.290

Running a campaign required financial viability as an indicator of strong support from the electorate. In his 21-month campaign for the White House, Obama raised half a billion dollars online. There were 3 million unique donors who donated online and more than 90 percent were for increments of $100 or less.291 Messaging was critical to allow voters to hear and know what

Obama stood for. Millions of people signed up for updates from Obama’s website and joined a text-messaging program launched by his campaign to receive notifications on events and issues, which helped keep supporters in the loop of campaign strategy. And being able to mobilize supporters to get out the vote was the ultimate decider in a campaign win or loss. The NMD marketed Obama on dozens of social networking sites, applied search engine optimization and search engine marketing strategies,292 segmented and tracked supporter lists, and handled everything related to the Internet.293

Having a web page was preliminary for online presence. Obama’s website, www.barackobama.com, allowed supporters to receive up-to-the-minute campaign updates, pick up talking points, download campaign posters and flyers, make computer-assisted phone calls to undecided voters in swing states, and map out door-to-door canvassing operations in their area. It

289 Fast Company Staff, “01_Team Obama,” last modified February 10, 2009, accessed April 1, 2014, http://www.fastcompany.com/3017999/most-innovative-companies-2009/01team-obama. 290 Kreiss, Taking Our Country Back, 121. 291 Vargas, Jose Antonio. “Obama Raised Half a Billion Online,” last modified November 19, 2008, accessed August 15, 2015. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/11/obama-raised-half-a-billion-on.html. 292 Nate Riggs, “Triple O, the Key to Obama’s Integrated Online Success Online,” last modified August 22, 2008, accessed April 1, 2014, http://www.nateriggs.com/obama-intgrated-online-communication-campaign/. 293 Jennifer Aaker and Victoria Chang, “Obama and the Power of Social Media and Technology,” last modified 2009, accessed April 1, 2014, http://www.europeanbusinessreview.com/?p=1627.

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served as the main hub for information, and his media team worked to direct users on social media sites to it.294 His site also featured an official blog, a campaign schedule, a video channel called BarackTV, and most importantly, a campaign created social networking site called my.barackobama.com (MyBO).295

It is widely acknowledged that Obama won the general election, at least in part, due to his

MyBO site and his appeal to youth. 296 From 2008 to 2012, young adults using social media increased from 63 percent to 83 percent.297 Thus, the importance of using new media to reach a younger generation of voters was paramount and key to Obama’s success.298 Chris Hughes, a co- founder of Facebook, was tapped to help develop the social networking site tailored for supporters to organize and network on and offline. MyBO allowed users to download materials, host a block party, register to vote, access political positions, connect with other supporters, log phone bank calls, write blogs, donate money, post photos, and track one’s level of participation.

Two million profiles were created and registered users created 35,000 volunteer groups.299 The

294 The Triple O used Twitter and mobile content as a means of driving traffic back to the campaign website. Social media platforms served as feeders to a centralized location for campaign content and updates. 295 Harfoush, Rahaf. Yes We Did: An Inside Look at How Social Media Built the Brand, Berkeley, CA: New Riders, 2009, 5. 296 Vernallis, Carol. “Audiovisual Change: Viral Web Media and the Obama Campaign.” Cinema Journal 50, no. 4 (2011): 74.

297 Perrin, Andrew. “Social Media Usage: 2005-2015.” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, October 8, 2015. http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/08/social-networking-usage-2005-2015/.

298 A Gallup election poll shows a breakdown of voters by age for the 2008 general election. Obama received support from 61 percent of voters ranging from 18-29 years old (compared to McCain’s 39 percent), 53 percent of voters ranging from 30-49 years old (compared to McCain’s 46 percent), 46 percent of voters ranging from 50-64 (compared to McCain’s 54 percent), and 51 percent of voters ages 65 and older (compared to McCain’s 49 percent). 299 Oginni, Simon Oyewole, and Joash Ntenga Moitui. “Social Media and Public Policy Process in Africa: Enhanced Policy Process in Digital Age.” Consilience: The Journal of Sustainable Development 14, no. 2, 2015: 161.

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importance of MyBO.com was not only its connective ability in organizing Obama’s volunteers, but it also gave users an unlimited array of ways to participate in the campaign300 through a campaign controlled environment. MyBO facilitated the organizational structure of personal and financial investment in Obama’s campaign through online organization of personal profiles and the ability to donate small or large sums to the campaign cause. It also allowed for supporters to take those connections offline.301

The structure of MyBO.com, being created by Facebook co-founder Hughes, meant it had organizational similarities to Facebook itself. Dubbed “The Facebook Election,” Obama received strong support from the Facebook generation in 2008. Facebook was created by Mark

Zuckerberg in 2004 and thus had a head start on user count and user familiarity over Twitter.

Republican and Democratic presidential candidates used the site, maintaining pages that allowed users to post comments, share news and videos, and connect with other users.302 With no limit on how much text one can post to Facebook, along with the ability to share photos or video links, it allowed for more detailed and in-depth content to be posted and shared. People could also tag other people, places, and pages so that one could easily find more information should they desire to do so. The strong appeal of Facebook was that, initially, users of the platform were linked-in to networks of their college, university, or alma mater. It created a unique and exclusive feel for

300 Green, Joshua. “The Amazing Money Machine: How Silicon Valley Made Barack Obama This Year’s Hottest Start-up,” The Atlantic, 301, 2008: 52-60. 301 Havenstein, Heather. “My.BarackObama.com Stays Online,” last modified November 10, 2008, accessed March 27, 2014, http://www.pcworld.com/article/153628/barack_obama_online.html. 302 Vitak, Jessica, Paul Zube, Andrew Smock, Caleb T. Carr, Nicole Ellison, and Cliff Lampe. “It’s Complicated: Facebook Users’ Political Participation in the 2008 Election.” Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking 14, no. 3, 2011: 107.

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the social networking site. It also meant that Obama’s team could tap into an age group of potential voters who, for some, were likely voting for the first time in a presidential election. It was a perfect place to find a generation of technologically savvy users—a perfect base for

Obama’s team to grow youth support.303

In 2007, Facebook opened its restrictive membership and its user base grew exponentially. It was an ideal tool for online networking and organizing because users were initially categorized by school affiliation and eventually by community (whether by school, by city, or by state). The site enabled individuals to find others with shared political beliefs through features such as political Groups and Pages.304 People could connect with a network of friends, acquaintances, or strangers with common interests and hobbies, and discuss issues with like- minded individuals, and make new connections online and off.

Before winning the Democratic Party nomination, Obama had already attracted a massive online following of around 250,000 members who liked his Facebook page, compared to Hillary

Clinton who only had around 3,200.305 His core supporters could share information and news with their own networks by liking or sharing posts on Obama’s page. The general election campaign’s Facebook presence included official profiles for Barack Obama, Michelle Obama,

303 Recent research by Michael Carpini and William Galston show that new media, especially the Internet, has increased participation among young voters. Media has been associated with greater levels of civic involvement and higher levels of political awareness. 304 Vitak et al., “It’s Complicated,” 113. 305 Dutta, Soumitra and Matthew Fraser. “Barack Obama and the Facebook Election,” last modified November 19, 2008, accessed August 10, 2015. http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2008/11/19/barack-obama-and-the- facebook-election.

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and Joe Biden. It also included additional profiles targeting specific demographics such as

Veterans for Obama and Women for Obama.306

In one study conducted by Julia K. Wooley and Anthony M. Limperos of the College of

Communications and Mary Beth Oliver of the Department of Film/Video & Media Studies from

Pennsylvania State University, they analyzed Facebook posts by Barack Obama and John

McCain during the 2008 election and assessed the portrayal of the two candidates on the social media site.307 Although there were many negative remarks on both candidates—some who thought McCain was too old to run and others who thought Obama was the antichrist—they found that, overall, Obama had more positive support online as opposed to McCain, which was overwhelmingly negative. By the time Obama was announced as the Democratic nominee who would face McCain from the Republican Party, Obama already had more than 2 million supporters on Facebook while McCain had just over 600,000.308

In another study conducted by Juliana Fernandes and her colleagues on Facebook groups and the 2008 presidential election between Obama and McCain, they found an overwhelming number of participants and wall post activity for Obama groups as opposed to McCain groups.

The study also found that online networks translated to offline political activity, because posts often referred to group organizational activities, meetings, watching debates, and other active

306 Harfoush, Yes We Did, 139. 307 Woolley, Julia K, Anthony M. Limperos, & Mary Beth Oliver. “The 2008 Presidential Election, 2.0: A Content Analysis of User-Generated Political Facebook Groups.” New Media, Campaigning and the 2008 Facebook Election. Thomas J. Johnson and David D. Perlmutter (Eds.). New York, NY: Routledge, 2011. 308 Dutta, Soumitra, and Matthew Fraser. “Barack Obama and the Facebook Election,” US News, last modified November 19, 2008, accessed August 19, 2015. http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2008/11/19/barackobama-and-the-facebook-election?page=2.

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involvement in campaigning.309 The transition from online information to offline participation was necessary for mobilizing voters to turnout during election day. Facebook was able to serve as a conduit for connecting like-minded supporters for Obama.

Obama’s team also created a Facebook application that would help supporters connect digitally to the campaign. The Facebook application allowed the campaign to access friend lists of supporters who downloaded it. This gave Obama’s team increased access and control to target potential supporters. As Michael Scherer puts it, e-mail connects one person to a campaign, but

Facebook can connect the campaign, through one person, to 500 or more friends.310 It was an important tool for messaging and mobilizing, collaborating and organizing. By reaching out to supporters and connecting them through new technology, Obama’s campaign tapped into a wide network of potential voters. They could control the communication being sent directly to supporters, which served as a great asset of social media.311

Campaign Website as a Central Hub

As previously mentioned, social media sites were used to drive traffic back to Obama’s official campaign website as a central hub for information and organization. When Obama began using Twitter in 2007, it was used for exactly that reason. Twitter was still in its infancy when

309 Ibid. 310 Scherer, Michael. “Friended: How the Obama Campaign Connected with Young Voters,” Time, last modified, November 20, 2012, accessed August 18, 2015. http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/20/friended-how-the-obama- campaign-connected-with-young-voters/. 311 From a non-centralized control perspective, people could create their own content by writing blogs, recording videos, discussing issues with other online users, and network on Facebook with their own friends and the community at large. Although the lines between centralized and decentralized control can shift with social media sites, overall, Obama’s team kept control of the campaign messaging and organization, unifying his supporters.

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the 2008 election cycle took place. The first tweet was sent on March 21, 2006 by programmer

Jack Dorsey, one of the individuals who started Twitter,312 and the site itself was not launched for the public until July 15, 2006.313 As a social media platform based around sending tweets, or messages in 140 characters or less, Twitter meant having to be precise and succinct in messaging. Followers of various accounts could interact with each other by responding to an individual’s tweet with their twitter handle,314 favoriting an individual’s tweet, or retweeting a tweet to their own followers.

Obama’s Twitter account (@BarackObama) was created on March 5, 2007. His first tweet was posted on April 29, 2007, to promote his website. It read: “Thinking we're only one signature away from ending the war in Iraq. Learn more at www.barackobama.com.” The tweet received 315 favorites and 656 retweets. A few days later, Obama tweeted again: “Wondering why, four years after President Bush landed on an aircraft carrier and declared ‘Mission

Accomplished,’ we are still at war?” receiving 219 favorites and 258 retweets.315 To provide some perspective on the account activity in 2007 and 2008, people were tweeting about 5,000 times a day in 2007, and by 2008, that number increased to 300,000.316 During Obama’s first presidential run, the media platform was still growing its user base. The use of Obama’s account

312 MacArthur, Amanda, “The Real History of Twitter in Brief,” accessed August 5, 2015. http://twitter.about.com/od/Twitter-Basics/a/The-Real-History-Of-Twitter-In-Brief.htm. 313 Casti, Taylor. “The History of Twitter, From Egg to IPO,” last modified October 4, 2013, accessed August 7, 2015. http://mashable.com/2013/10/04/history-twitter/. 314 Twitter handle is the term for a user’s account. 315 https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3ABarackObama%20since%3A2007-02-01%20until%3A2008-11- 30&src=typd. 316 Weil, Kevin. “Measuring Tweets.” Twitter Blogs. Accessed March 4, 2017. https://blog.twitter.com/2010/ measuring-tweets.

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was minimal, mainly providing information of where he would be appearing next and providing links to his website for video streaming purposes. Many of his earlier posts received less than 10 likes, which goes to show the influence and reach of Twitter during the start of Obama’s run was still in early development. From the creation of his Twitter account to the day after the

November 5, 2008 election, Obama’s account had a total of 262 tweets.317

Obama’s Democratic primary opponent Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) joined Twitter at a much later date of April 2013, thus she did not even use the platform for the 2008 primary.

And his 2008 general election opponent, Republican nominee John McCain (@TeamMcCain) joined Twitter in April 2007, but did not tweet anything from his account creation to the 2008 general election.318

The fact that Obama had a fairly active Twitter account during the Democratic primary and into the general election in 2008 shows his campaign’s effort to adopt to new media platforms and connect with voters on various social media sites. The use of the site was mainly to direct user traffic back to Obama’s main website, serving as a stream back to a centralized location for finding and receiving information and updates on his campaign.

Obama’s team also used mobile text messaging to collect supporter information and market his campaign website. In mid-June of 2007, Obama’s campaign tweeted: “Launching

317 Solop, Frederic I. “RT @BarackObama We Just Made History: Twitter and the 2008 Presidential Election.” Communicator-in-Chief. John Allen Hendericks & Robert E. Denton, Jr. (Eds.). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010, 41. 318 A search of older tweets between April 2007 and November 2008 pulled no results from https://twitter.com/search?f=users&vertical=default&q=from%3ATeamMcCain%20since%3A2007-03- 01%20until%3A2008-11-30&src=typd&lang=en, but a search on Topsy.com shows the oldest @TeamMcCain post being five years ago. His account @JohnMcCain was changed to @TeamMcCain for his 2010 reelection campaign.

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Obama Mobile text messaging; text 'GO' to OBAMA (62262) to get a free bumper sticker.” The launch of Obama Mobile received 28 retweets and 20 likes, a comparative high following a string of tweets with very few likes or retweets. The text-message campaign was an effective device for collecting millions of voter contacts319 with supporters opting in via text-message.

With a rapidly increasing cell phone user base from 2004 to 2008 of about 55 percent,320 and a high popularity of the communication method with 18-29 year olds at 85 percent,321 using mobile messaging directly connected voters to the campaign.

As people opted-in, the campaign grew their contact list and could organize supporters based on area codes. Although the idea of targeting voters via technology, and in this instance, through their mobile devices is not new, 322 most campaigns utilize automated phone calls, also known as robocalls, to survey voters and rally support. Compared with TV advertising, door-to- door canvassing, and rallies, robocalls also harness modern technology. But the decision by

Obama’s campaign team to use direct text-messaging was an ingenious move that would send information right to the fingertips of their supporters allowing the campaign to directly address their supporters instantaneously.323 Supporters could also easily forward text messages on speech

319 McConnell, Brian. “What Obama’s Text Message Campaign Reveals.” Last modified August 24, 2008, accessed August 7, 2015. https://gigaom.com/2008/08/24/what-obamas-text-message-campaign-reveals/. 320 Kiyohara, S. “A Study on How Technological Innovation Affected the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election: Young Voters’ Participation and Obama’s Victory.” In 2009 Ninth Annual International Symposium on Applications and the Internet, 224.

321 Ibid.

322 Jackson, Kathy Merlock, Harold Dorton, and Brett Heindl. “A Celebration That Defined a Generation: Grant Park, New Media, and Barack Obama’s Historic Victory of the US Presidency.” Journal of American Culture 33, no. 1, 2010: 45.

323 Allowing messaging from the campaign to be sent directly to the hands of supporters put a lot of content control and organization in the hands of the campaign team. It allowed for mass unified messaging to help in growing Obama’s support base.

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locations or donation opportunities to fellow supporters, friends, and family. According to Joe

Rospars, “the reality is there's not a campaign or a political organization right now that has figured out how to smartly use this technology. There's going to be a lot of experimentation.”324

The Triple O was insightful enough to see the potential of technology in electoral politics and used it to their advantage. The transition from one media form to the next, using social media to have voters opt-in to text messages, allowed for cross-platform connection by Obama.

By incorporating a communication tool that many people have and use daily, they broadened their voter outreach and allowed the campaign to connect directly with voters. The campaign’s organization of mobile messaging helped to increase the flow of information, reduce the role of gatekeepers, and extend the participation of politics in the public sphere through new technology.325

After the Obama Mobile announcement, the team continued to post about the campaign trail so that followers would know where Obama’s next appearance would be. On June 3, 2008,

Obama’s tweet, “In St Paul, MN speaking after securing the nomination. Watch the speech live on TV tonight or streamed http://my.barackobama.com/nominee,” received 29 favorites.326 Three days later, Obama thanked Hillary for her work and asked supporters to go to his website to thank her. By driving traffic to his website, people could find out more information on Obama and become better acquainted with his platform. He continued to drive supporters to sign up for

324 Vargas, Jose Antonio. “Text-Friendly Hopefuls Vie For Hearts and Thumbs,” last modified June 30, 2007, accessed August 18, 2015, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2007/06/29/AR2007062902352.html. 325 Hermanns, Heike. “Mobile Democracy: Mobile Phones as Democratic Tools.” Politics 28, no. 2, 2008: 76.

326 Compared to his previous tweets that only received around three to five favorites, 29 favorites on this tweet was considered high.

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his mobile text messaging system and email updates by tweeting that the Vice President

Candidate announcement would be sent by “msg & email.”327 And on August 23, 2008, then

Senator Joe Biden was announced as the VP nominee.328 Using Twitter and mobile text messaging to encourage people to opt-in to his campaign messaging system grew his supporter database and further connected Obama directly with his supporters, removing the need to use traditional media to maintain control of his campaign message. It also signaled Obama’s ability to adapt to social and technological changes of the twenty-first century.

Video Organization and Management

Beyond the two websites, Obama’s official campaign website and MyBO.com, Emmy- award winning producer, Kate Albright-Hanna, lead the video team as the Director of Video for the campaign. She previously worked for CNN’s political division, so she understood the importance and impact video could have on voters. A study conducted by Lee Rainie and Aaron

Smith found that Obama supporters were 64 percent more likely to have watched campaign videos of any kind (compared to 43 percent of Hillary supporters).329 During the 2008 election period, Obama’s YouTube channel reflected the diversity of support he received. It served as an organizational tool to keep, post, and share videos related to his campaign. The Obama campaign used YouTube to spread 14.5 million hours of official video footage — this mass marketing that

327 https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3ABarackObama%20since%3A2007-02-01%20until%3A2008-11- 30&src=typd. 328 This tweet received 63 favorites, a high count considering Obama’s primary winning announcement tweet only received 29. 329 Rainie, Lee, and Aaron Smith. “The Internet and the 2008 Election.” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, June 15, 2008. http://www.pewinternet.org/2008/06/15/the-internet-and-the-2008-election/.

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bypassed traditional media gatekeepers was available because of the Internet and the well-known video platform. According to political consultant Joe Trippi, that quantity of visibility on network television would have cost $47 million.330,331 Creating in-house campaign videos with high production quality and campaign controlled content were important for Obama’s team to drive the message of his candidacy.

Albright-Hanna also stressed the importance of user-generated videos stating, “One of our goals is to get people talking about what’s going on in their lives and why they’re supporting

Barack. We wanted to capture the sense that this campaign is not just about Obama.”332 This took a turn away from the centralized control content creation, but allowed for supporters to become more participatory in the process of his campaign.333 Many of the videos averaged a length of two to three minutes, allowing for viewers to get quick soundbites on why supporting

Obama was the best choice. Alongside the many support videos on YouTube were Obama’s longer speeches or rally events, debate clips, and his guest appearances on talk shows or news station interviews. Video content included the candidate speaking on pressing issues like foreign policy, education, healthcare, and the economy. But they also included more trivial and personable things like his thoughts on Harry Potter, his reflections on fatherhood, and even a clip

330 Fox, Zoe. “The Digital Smackdown: Obama 2008 vs. Obama 2012,” last modified September 23, 2012, accessed August 17, 2015. http://mashable.com/2012/09/23/obama-digitial-comparison/. 331 Miller, Claire Cain. “How Obama’s Internet Campaign Changed Politics,” last modified November 7, 2008, accessed August 17, 2015. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/how-obamas-internet-campaign-changed- politics/?_r=0. 332 Harfoush, Yes We Did, 148-149. 333 Millions of hours of unofficial campaign video footage were created and shared by supporters, voters, and users on YouTube. People not only shared uploaded videos by the campaign, but they also edited them to create their own videos. There were serious videos that sought to appeal to intellect and connect with viewers emotionally. There were also many parodies that were fun and interesting to watch and share.

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of him dancing with Ellen Degeneres on The Ellen Degeneres Show.334 Watching a presidential candidate show both a professional and a personable side helped to normalize him for everyday citizens. Obama’s videos showed him as an American who understood the plight of the middle class because his own experiences helped him relate to everyday citizens. His mixed-race upbringing gave him a sense of what racial issues minorities faced when it came to everyday politics. Obama was not a politician looking to become president for fame or power. Rather he was a Senator seeking the presidency to inspire hope and bring about change for the Americans who were tired of politics as usual.335 This reflected his community organizing experience and helped to unify support in his favor.

The centrally controlled campaign, however, was not without faults. A “no drama” policy, where staff had to focus more on the greater good, sometimes made staff feel stifled and silenced. A former Clinton staffer who joined Obama’s team felt resigned when she expressed her exasperation over an issue that bothered her, stating, “I want to be more forceful, but you guys have this ‘no drama Obama’ thing going on that I don’t want to challenge too aggressively.”336 Being unable to push the boundaries of the more authoritative structure of

Obama’s campaign meant dissent and disruption were kept at bay, but it also sometimes resulted in frustration and resignation. Ultimately, everyone on staff knew that their role in the campaign was to work together to get Obama nominated and elected.

334 Barack Obama’s YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/user/BarackObama. 335 This was a similar reason many supporters were drawn to Ron Paul’s candidacy. Even though he served in Congress for over a decade, he was true to his principles and did not stray to lobby or corporate pressure. 336 De Sio, Campaign, Inc., 23.

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Outside Influence of New Media Projects

The internal organizational structure of Obama’s campaign was clear in authority and centralized in control. Teams were set up to maximize performance, manage content, and control messaging within and without the campaign. But outside influence and new media projects still arose. The following examples were both created by supporters passionate about Obama’s candidacy, and though they fall under a non-centralized control creation category, both were brought in to the official campaign as marketing and campaigning tools.

The first Facebook group in support of Obama, “Students for Obama,” was created in

2006 by Meredith Segal of Bowdoin College337 after she heard him speak at the Democratic

National Convention in 2004. In 2008, the Facebook page was brought on as an official part of the campaign, and the name was eventually changed to “Barack Obama for President in 2008.”

Segal was brought on to serve as the executive director, and they also hired Hans Riemer to coordinate the National Youth Vote effort338 to make sure posted content was controlled and messaging was on point with the official campaign. Many young voters used the social network to share information related to Obama’s campaign, his stances on issues, and appearances in the area.339 Instead of creating their own content to discuss his issues, their focus was on sharing posts by the official campaign on policy positions and upcoming events. By using Segal’s previously created page, the campaign could keep all contacts and supporters who originally

337 Harfoush, Yes We Did, 7. 338 “Students for Barack Obama.” Daily Kos, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/3/30/487133/-. 339 Fernandes, Juliana, Magda Giurcanu, Kevin W. Bowers, and Jeffrey C. Neely. “The Writing on the Wall: A Content Analysis of College Students’ Facebook Groups for the 2008 Presidential Election.” Mass Communication and Society 13, no. 5, 2010: 670.

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liked the page of their own accord and grow the existing group, instead of starting a whole new page from scratch.

Prominent individuals, outside of the purview of Obama’s campaign used new media as a means to indicate their support for Obama. On February 2, 2008, will.i.am from the music group

Black Eyed Peas’ released a music video he produced titled “Yes We Can.” Inspired by Obama’s

“Yes We Can” speech after the New Hampshire primary, the song lyrics were taken from the speech itself. By November 2008, the video had been viewed over 10 million times.340 The video inter-spliced Obama giving his speech with a star-studded cast like John Legend, Herbie

Hancock, Common, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Kate Walsh, Scarlett Johansson, Tatyana Ali, Kelly

Hu, Nichole Scherzinger, and Nick Cannon,341 all who spoke of and sang along with the candidate. The video was highly circulated on social media and generated 1.9 million views in five days.342 With A-listers putting their support behind Obama’s campaign, the video served as a turning point in his campaign and increased his electability against front-runner Hillary

Clinton.343 Media is constantly saturated with celebrity news, and by having so many celebrities back a presidential candidate, Obama’s exposure in entertainment media, alongside traditional

340 Broxton, Tom, Yannet Interian, Jon Vaver, and Mirjam Wattenhofer. “Catching a Viral Video.” Journal of Intelligent Information Systems 40, no. 2, 2013: 243.

341 Melber, Ari. “Obama’s Star-Studded YouTube Music Video,” Huff Post Entertainment, last modified February 2, 2008, accessed, August 18, 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ari-melber/obamas-starstudded- youtub_b_84589.html. 342 Williams, Christine B., and Girish “Jeff” Gulati. “What is a Social Network Worth? Facebook and Vote Share in the 2008 Presidential Primaries.” Boston, MA, August 28-31, 2008. 343 The idea that celebrity endorsements will affect voter outcome and support for a candidate has been studied before. Craig Garthwaite and Timothy Moore look specifically at Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of Obama in 2008. She had never endorsed a political candidate before, but Garthwaite and Moore found that Oprah’s endorsement had statistically and politically significant effects on Obama’s political outcomes by increasing his vote count and campaign contributions from Oprah’s fans.

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news sources, increased dramatically. When will.i.am was asked about what he hoped the piece would achieve, he responded by saying, “I think what it's doing right now is what it was intended to do, and that's people talking about it, suggesting it to friends to watch. You know, did you see this? Oh, my gosh, you need to see this on YouTube.”344 The official campaign had no role in the creation of the video but allowed it to run its course due to the buzz and excitement it created around Obama’s candidacy. The campaign even adopted the music video to play at campaign rallies.

Another well-known video released on June 13, 2007 was the “Crush on Obama” music video. Song writer Leah Kauffman said she was just trying to make something funny,345 and within a few days of posting, it was watched over 3.3 million times. The value of online video made it easier for people to share information quickly and for free. YouTube allowed for user generated content to increase Obama’s visibility, assist with making messaging accessible and interesting to the electorate, and by doing so, caught the attention of many who previously may not have been under Obama’s camp of support. In the words of Steve Grove, YouTube’s head of news and politics, "I think it's fair to say that this is the first election YouTube has played a critical role in helping the president-elect to reach audiences and get people out to vote.”346

344 Will.i.am. "Producer Will.i.am's Obama Video A Hit." Interview by Michael Martin. Audio blog post. NPR, 08 Feb. 2008. Web. 19 Aug. 2015. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18809048. 345 Tapper, Jake. “Music Video Has a ‘Crush on Obama,’” ABC News, last modified June 13, 2007, accessed August 19, 2015. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3275802&page=1. 346 Schwab, Nikki. “In Obama-McCain Race, YouTube Became a Serious Battleground for Presidential Politics.” US News. Last modified November 7, 2008, accessed August 18, 2015. http://www.usnews.com/news/campaign- 2008/articles/2008/11/07/in-obama-mccain-race-youtube-became-a-serious-battleground-for-presidential-politics.

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Another example of a project that was initially outside of the official campaign’s reign was Obama’s famous Hope poster. Created by supporter Shepard Fairey, who was inspired to use his artistic abilities to help the campaign, the poster was separate from direct control under

Obama’s campaign team, although he did seek approval before beginning the project. Many who are unaware assume the image was simply a spontaneous fan production that was then spontaneously circulated on the Internet. Fairey, a graphic designer and street artist, wanted to do something for Obama that would help him win the presidency. He had previously been arrested for creating and putting stickers and posters in unlikely and illegal places as a means of guerrilla style marketing, but wanted to make sure he did not get in the way of Obama’s official campaign.

A few weeks before Super Tuesday 2008, Fairey contacted a friend who was plugged-in with the prominent Democrats in Obama’s circle about creating a poster. Obama’s campaign called to give him a green light to make a poster and distribute it in his guerrilla style fashion.347

Fairey took a photograph taken by the Associated Press, simplified the lines and geometry, and employed a patriotic palate of red, white and blue; in less than a week his iconic Obama poster was created. He made an artwork that was presidential and inspirational. “He is gazing off into the future saying, ‘I can guide you,’” explains Fairey of his creation.348 The image not only went

347 Shepard Fairey. "What’s with That Obama Poster?" Interview by Alex Cohen. Audio blog post. NPR, 07 Apr. 2008. Web. 20 Aug. 2015. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96224796. 348 Booth, William. “Obama’s On-the-Wall Endorsement.” The Washington Post, last modified May 18, 2008, accessed August 20, 2015. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/05/16/ ST2008051602005.html.

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viral349 and appeared all over the internet, it was a huge success in marketing Obama. In a personal letter, Obama thanked Fairey:

I would like to thank you for using your talent in support of my campaign. The political messages involved in your work have encouraged Americans to believe they can help change the status quo. Your images have a profound effect on people, whether seen in a gallery or on a stop sign.350

The campaign sold 50,000 official posters; a San Francisco streetwear company produced T- shirts; grassroots organizations disseminated hundreds of thousands of stickers; and a free downloadable version generated countless repetitions.351

The iconic and artistic image of Obama became synonymous with hope for the future of

American politics. The manifestation around Fairey’s Hope poster inhabited social change and political hope. What many believed to be a spontaneous creation by an avid Obama supporter was in fact a planned and vetted idea through the official campaign. Fairey first sought approval before creating the image that would become iconographic. Obama himself also served as a cultural icon. His candidacy and iconicity resides not in determinacy but in ambiguity, not in racial identity but differential hybridity.352

349 Viralness is the traction that stories and videos gain. Social media’s exponential reach means stories or videos can go viral fairly quickly, often within hours of initial reports, but they can also fade quickly as well. 350 Booth, William. “Obama’s On-the-Wall Endorsement.” The Washington Post, last modified May 18, 2008, accessed August 20, 2015. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/05/16/ ST2008051602005.html. 351 “Now on View: Portrait of Barack Obama by Shepard Fairey.” Last modified January 17, 2009, accessed August 20, 2015. http://face2face.si.edu/my_weblog/2009/01/now-on-view-portrait-of-barack-obama-by-shepard- fairey.html. 352 Mitchell, W. J. T. “Obama as Icon.” Journal of Visual Culture 8, no. 2, 2009: 127.

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These emerging Internet tools greatly influenced Obama’s ability to share his political platform and build his support base. With prior experience in community organization, Obama’s approach to politics was based on consensus building, listening to people and their needs, and trying to find common ground.353

New media played a large role in how Obama ran his campaign. Turning to social media and new technologies to increase voter awareness and build campaign support required planning and organization. With the development and growth of users on social media, new media outreach became a top priority. The surge of internet users who received political information online was at an all-time high in 2008. According to the Pew Research Center, 74 percent of internet users took part in getting news and information online during the 2008 election cycle.

This represented 55 percent of the entire adult population, and marked the first time the Pew

Internet & American Life Project found that more than half the voting-age population used the internet to connect to the political process during an election cycle.354 With more of the adult voting population going online to access political information meant that it would be wise for the

Fourth Estate to incorporate new media methods in interacting with their consumers and that campaigns would be smart to have a larger online presence for disseminating information about presidential candidates.

353 Wilson, Barack Obama: This Improbable Quest, 4. 354 Smith, Aaron, “The Internet’s Role in Campaign 2008,” last modified April 15, 2009, accessed July 25, 2015. http://www.pewinternet.org/ 2009/04/15/the-internets-role-in-campaign-2008/.

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Netscape founder and Facebook board member, Marc Andreessen, states, “I think it is very significant that [Obama] was the first post-boomer candidate for president. He was the first politician I dealt with who understood that the technology was a given and that it could be used in new ways.”355 Whether it was providing a platform for people to connect with other supporters on My.BarackObama.com, providing scheduling information of the campaign on Twitter, exponentially increasing campaign reach by tapping into friends lists on Facebook, or sharing videos of speeches and appearances on YouTube, Obama’s team always drew supporters back into connecting with the official campaign to keep control at the helm. Obama’s use of social media networks as tools and models for disseminating vital information from the campaign directly to the public rendered traditional news media irrelevant.356

Paul’s Spontaneous Organization Campaign

On the Republican side, Paul was a black sheep candidate in the 2008 Republican primary. Despite Paul’s lack of support from the political establishment or media managers, he was omnipresent on the Internet. As other Republican candidates looked to harness the Internet, the Internet found Paul. According to Technorati, an online advertising platform, "Ron Paul" was one of the web's most searched-for terms357 for a Republican candidate running in the 2008

355 Carr, David. “How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks’ Power,” last modified November 9, 2008, accessed March 17, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.html?_r=0.

356 Jackson, Kathy Merlock, Harold Dorton, and Brett Heindl. “A Celebration That Defined a Generation: Grant Park, New Media, and Barack Obama’s Historic Victory of the US Presidency.” Journal of American Culture 33, no. 1 (2010): 44.

357 Spiegel, Brendan. “Ron Paul: How a Fringe Politician Took Over the Web.” Wired, June 27, 2007. https://www.wired.com/2007/06/ron-paul/.

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election. News about Paul had a prominent presence on Digg358 and Reddit,359 two online communities that allow users to generate content and discuss topics of interest. Reddit user

TechnicsSL posted, “[Paul] had a lot of support in 2008, especially online. Digg,360 self- proclaimed as the front page of the Internet, and Reddit,361 a site that allowed users to hold the primary role in creating content with open discussion and participation instead of administrators facilitating the website, were almost always full of Ron Paul articles on the front pages.”

Erietemperance wrote, “The front page of Reddit was 90% Paul for about 7 months.”362

Speaking on his Internet popularity, Paul said, “We always knew it was supposed to be important. My idea was you had to have someone who was a super expert, who knew how to find people. But they found us.”363 Much like how Obama’s campaign organized internally to approach new media and the Internet to create a presence online, Paul assumed similarly that his

358 Digg was founded in November 2004 by Jay Adelson and Kevin Rose. According to the website, they use proprietary data sources and a crack editorial team to cut through the clutter of the Internet and make sense of the noise to provide the most relevant and compelling content. It is reported in a piece by Alexis Madrigal in The Atlantic that Digg was sold in July 2012 for an astonishingly low price of $500,000. Digg was supposed to be the future of all media by allowing users to curate the web and remove gatekeepers of the Internet. But the site itself ran into issues of finding a balance between giving up content control and trusting the power of users in their community. Users could vote up or down on a submitted story, but the stories that eventually ended up on the front page of the site was still selected by a traffic algorithm curated by website editors. 359 Reddit was founded in June 2005 by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian. Self-touted as the front page of the Internet, Reddit is a source for what is new and popular on the Internet. Users can provide content and the community votes whether the content is good or not. 360 Paul had about 160,000 mentions, more than the next four most popular candidates combined. 361 Reddit played an important role in online discussion of Paul’s candidacy and his ideology of limited governemtn and free market economics. Much like Paul’s free market perspective in allowing a laissez faire approach, or a hands off approach to the market economy without a controlled system, the site complemented his philosophy. 362 “What was Ron Paul’s 2008 Campaign Like?” Reddit. Accessed September 11, 2016, https://www.reddit.com/r/ronpaul/comments/m9429/what_was_ron_pauls_2008_campaign_like/. 363 Seelye, Katharine Q., and Leslie Wayne. “The Web Finds Ron Paul, and Takes Him for a Ride,” New York Times. Last modified November 11, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/world/americas/11iht- 11paul.8279651.html?_r=0.

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team would have to find someone fluent in social media to build and grow his online campaign.

Instead, Paul found the opposite. He continues in a video interview:

The Internet, I think, is it. Doesn’t mean you can do everything on the Internet, but it might be the real organizer. The Internet has been spontaneous for us. Our candidacy is different, we’re philosophically motivated, and we’re not top down. We try our best to be well organized, but the truth is we have trouble keeping up with the spontaneous organization of groups around the country.364

Paul’s campaign focused on what they did best—maintaining a consistent, philosophically motivated message of dwindling civil liberties and growing government powers that did not change from one crowd or voter base to another. His consistent message pulled in supporters, who found Paul through online networks.

Paul’s treatment by the mainstream media resulted in organically formed support groups across America. People who rallied behind him as their chosen candidate looked to new media and creative means of discussing and supporting their chosen candidate. If traditional media and establishment Republicans were not allowing Paul a seat at their table during the primary, if journalists were more interested in sharing their opinions on Paul instead of researching his voting record and reporting fairly, supporters would use unconventional and non-traditional campaign methods to promote Paul’s candidacy. In both 2008 and continuing into 2012, the spontaneous organization of grassroots supporters used guerrilla tactics both online and offline to campaign for their political hero. They self-organized outside of the traditional structure of political and presidential campaigns, using new media to connect, discuss, and activate politically.

364 “Ron Paul on the Internet and Freedom,” YouTube. RonPaul2008dotcom. Last modified September 10, 2007, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c76yeqQY2ms.

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Supporters at the Helm

The spontaneous organization around Paul’s candidacy served as a great asset during the election cycles of 2008 and 2012, when mainstream media did not afford Paul even campaign coverage. It also indicated the free forming media ecology that developed on its own accord in the larger discussion around media and politics. As other Republican candidates were making gains with traditional media appearances, Paul’s movement made good use of new media platforms.

Lev Manovich states the new media revolution is a shift of all culture to computer- mediated forms of production, distribution, and communication; it is a convergence of two separate historical trajectories: computing and media technologies.365 New media allows for us to transcode information, or translate messages from one format into another.366 Lisa Gitelman argues that new media is simply an ongoing renegotiation of media, of inscriptive media finding alternative ways of communicating.367 Touching on Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin’s notion of remediation, or the claim that all media ‘remediates’ other forms of media, and that the idea of new media is really just forms of remediation, Gitelman agrees that new media is doing exactly what its predecessors did: present themselves as refashioned and improved versions of other media.368 New media does not typically displace or replace another as much as it

365 Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001, 19-20.

366 According to Manovich, a new media object is not something fixed once and for all, but something that can exist in different, potentially infinite versions. 367 Gitelman, Lisa. Always Already New: Media, History, and the Data of Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006.

368 Ibid, 9.

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complicates and renegotiates its operation within the working system of media ecologies. When a new technology or medium is created, it must find a way to fit within its environment, competing or complimenting one another, or else it may perish.

Paul supporters were great at using new media to remediate information on Paul due to the lack of traditional media coverage on his candidacy. They used it to introduce and promote

Paul, fundraise online, and discuss and deliberate important issues relating to policy, platform, and politics. Turning to social media, alternative media, and non-traditional approaches to campaigning, political grassroots activists spurred a spontaneous movement to get Paul the

Republican nomination for president.

Introducing and Promoting Paul

The online video platform, YouTube, played a critical role in getting the word out about

Paul’s no-nonsense character and steadfast principles for liberty. It allows users and viewers to easily upload, search, and comment on videos. It bypasses the control of mainstream media managers and empowers users to create and share content as they please. Paul supporters used

YouTube to share videos of the congressman from his early stints in Congress, and even created their own endorsement videos for online circulation. Campaigns could also use the platform for outreach and advertising. By posting videos of personal stories, debate clips, interviews, speeches, and more, candidates invite viewers directly into their lives creating a direct connection. Brian Doherty writes in Ron Paul’s Revolution, “The YouTube avenue was

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important. Very important. The most common answer to the question ‘How did you get into Ron

Paul?’ from his devoted activist was, without question, ‘Someone sent me a YouTube video.369’”

During early December 2007, Paul, was polling at 4 percent among Republican primary voters.370 His top five YouTube videos pulled in over 2 million views with nearly 40,000 subscribers. To compare, Giuliani was polling at 22 percent among Republican primary voters at the same time, and his top five YouTube videos received a combined 585,269 views. 371 Many of

Paul’s videos on his official channel were of old speeches he gave in Congress on issues such as foreign policy, the economy, the role of the Federal Reserve, as well as the dwindling civil rights and freedoms of Americans due to growing government powers. Other videos consisted of news media interviews with unprofessional media treatment and debates clips showing just how little speaking time Paul received.

“Land of the Free”

In one of the earliest supporter created campaign videos for Ron Paul titled “Land of the

Free,”372 a comparison is made between the Boston Tea Party of 1773 that spurred the American

Revolution and the rise of Ron Paul’s restoration of American freedom after his announcement

369 Brian Doherty, Ron Paul’s Revolution: The Man and the Movement He Inspired (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2012), 102-103. 370 CBS News, New York Times. “The Republican Race: Sweeping Changes,” December 2007. http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/ pdf/campaign2008/dec07a-reps.pdf.

371 Raby, Mark. “Analysis: The YouTube Effect – Changing the Face of Elections.” Last modified December 7, 2007, accessed July 22, 2016. http://www.tomshardware.com/news/youtube-effect-changing-face- elections,4522.html. 372 GHoeberX. “Land of the Free” YouTube. Posted November 15, 2007, accessed July 25, 2016. https://youtu.be/IsDlO2Lr_cg.

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to run for presidency in March of 2007. It draws on the comparison that Americans have had enough of big government, and that citizens would have to act to incite change. Included in the video is an interview clip with American journalist George Stephanopoulos, who asks Paul:

“What’s success for you in this campaign?” Paul responds by saying, “What’s success? Well, to win…” only to be curtly and abruptly cut off by Stephanopoulos’ saying matter-of-factly,

“That’s not going to happen.” With the cards stacked against Paul’s candidacy, his uphill battle would require time, effort, and dedication.

With overlaying audio describing how the mainstream media kept Paul out of the polls and constantly reporting he had no support, the video edits together massive crowds of Paul supporters holding signs in support of his run. The juxtaposition of audio and visual images paints two sides of Paul’s campaign—the mainstream news media repetitively stating Paul’s lack of support and the actuality of grassroots activists signifying their strong support in Paul’s favor.

With almost 3,000 likes and 600 comments to date, most comments under the video are in support of Paul’s candidacy. User BestofRonPaul says, “This is where it all started in 2007. Dr.

Paul is the Father of the original Tea Party.” Adnan Shilleh writes, “If it wasn’t for this video, I wouldn’t know about Ron Paul.” And txliberty states, “Once you understand what real freedom is about, you can’t go back. I don’t know who made this video, but they did an excellent job.”

Traditional media did not cover Paul’s candidate in the traditional sense by providing candidate background on news networks or discussing policy positions between political pundits and policy experts. So, the importance of new media, such as the use of YouTube to serve as a medium for campaign information, played an important role in information dissemination. The comments under this video show the impact it had on individuals and how they found out about

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Paul’s candidacy. If social media sites were unable to share content such as this, a lot of voters would have no idea who Paul even was.

“Ron Paul: A New Hope”

Another top 2008 video on Paul titled “Ron Paul: A New Hope” by eLIB3RTY has over

2.2 million views. The video opens with Paul introducing himself at a debate calling himself “a champion of the Constitution.” It then cuts to CNN’s Jeff Cafferty’s introduction of Paul’s candidacy. Cafferty states:

You get the sense that the county is desperate for someone to show us the way, not the old way, not the same way, but a new way. Ron Paul who raised more than $5 million in the third quarter, trailing not far behind fellow Republicans like John McCain and Fred Thompson. Ron Paul who has a huge internet following. He’s a congressman, a physician who has delivered more than 4000 babies. Ron Paul has been married to the same woman for 50 years, which means he doesn’t come to race with the assorted baggage that some of the other candidates for the White House do. So here’s the question: Should more people be listening to what Ron Paul has to say?373

The introduction of Paul was refreshing compared to how he was normally referenced by media managers. Cafferty provided background information on Paul’s personal career and life, some of his accomplishments from campaigning like fundraising totals in comparison to other frontrunners, and rhetorically asked if voters should give his candidacy a fair chance if they want something different than the status quo politician.

373 It was a refreshing biographical approach to introducing Paul compared to the negative media framing surrounding his run. Cafferty approached the matter objectively, stating facts about Paul’s background. He was critical of where Paul stood in comparison to other candidates. And he was neutral in asking if more people should consider his candidacy due to his background, polling, and experience.

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The video continues with a montage of interviews on Paul’s principles and policy stances, public appearances at Republican events, and supporters voicing the reason they support him. The music in the background implies a hopeful, inspiring future for Paul’s campaign and the American people. Then the tone then briefly changes, showing police removing a Paul supporter at a local GOP convention and a man with the words “Patriot

Act” duct taped over his mouth. Intercut with quotes by prominent political figures—like

James Madison on tyranny, Benjamin Franklin on liberty, and Martin Luther King Jr. on peace—Paul speaks on the problem of America’s interventionist foreign policy in terms of cost in dollars and of lives lost. This shift in video tone denotes the struggle and battle

Paul and his supporters had to face against the Republican party establishment and the

Fourth Estate.

The last third of the video returns to a more uplifting spirit as an indication that despite the constant challenges facing Paul’s candidacy, there is still optimism for the future. Information on Paul receiving more military support than any other Republican presidential candidate374 provides hope that his views on American foreign policy are being heard by the people and supported, even by our own military members. This is particularly significant due to the anti-military, isolationist rhetoric that was pushed by media managers about Paul’s non-interventionist foreign policy perspective. Although

Paul’s foreign policy views may not have been supported by the Fourth Estate or faithful

374 Paul’s 2012 campaign received more campaign donations from active-duty military than all other presidential candidates, including Obama, combined with over $150,000 in the fourth quarter alone. Among the GOP candidates, Paul received 87 percent of the donations from active-duty military, while Romney and Gingrich received around $10,000 each.

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GOP Party members, many of those who wear the uniform and serve our nation were in support of his views. Photos of supporters with pro-Ron Paul signs across the nation also show the unity and diversity of individuals gathering to promote his candidacy despite the lack of coverage in traditional media.

The video ends with a list of Paul’s voting record and Congressional practices including, but not limited to: never voting to raise taxes, never voting for an unbalanced budget, never voting to increase the power of the executive branch, voting against the Patriot Act, voting against regulating the internet, voting against the Iraq war, and not participating in the lucrative

Congressional pension program.375 The video pieces together Paul’s candidacy around his desire to change a failed foreign policy practice that has resulted in more harm than hope for America, includes photos of supporters who like his anti-government and pro-freedom message, and provide video and audio proof of his consistent principles as a politician. It covers the distrust voters have in the Fourth Estate due to lack of media coverage and media framing by providing footage of media treatment disparities on different candidates. But it also creates hope by including footage of Paul supporters rallying around the candidate despite the lack of fair mainstream news coverage.

Supporter created videos, such as “Land of the Free” and “Ron Paul: A New Hope” were important assets to Paul’s candidacy. Even though they existed outside of Paul’s official campaign purview, the passion individuals had for Paul resulted in spontaneous approaches to new media and methods for sharing their support of his run for presidency. Organically created

375 “Ron Paul: A New Hope.” eLIB3RTY. Last modified October 10, 2007, accessed September 11, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG2PUZoukfA.

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content also helped to pull in a wide range of supporters who may not have otherwise heard of

Paul’s run if they only tuned-in to mainstream media news. "I was on YouTube looking for some sort of guitar video or something," an ardent supporter of Ron Paul told PBS a while back, by way of explaining how he came to his candidate years ago. He ended up stumbling upon the

"Ron Paul: A New Hope" video. "[Paul] was just speaking truth," concluded the guitar-video- hunter.376 People who may not have even wanted to search for political content or information on the presidential election were exposed to Paul’s consistent principles and uphill battle against the political and media establishment.

“What If?”

By the 2012 presidential election, Paul was a better known candidate, but still had a battle against media managers in securing fair and even coverage. Going into the 2012 primary election, America’s foreign policy and national defense were two of the top issues being discussed. Another YouTube video that assisted in sharing Paul’s platform was of a speech he gave on the House floor titled “What If?”377 In less than 4 minutes, Paul asks his colleagues in the House of Representatives a series of rhetorical “what if” questions that center around

American interventionism in the Middle East and the idea of war undermining personal liberty and economic freedom. The series of questions can be easily reworded by removing the questioning “what if” aspect and be rephrased to indicate Paul’s perspective on foreign policy

376 “Ron Paul’s Pointless Internet Presidency,” Yahoo! News, last modified March 15, 2012, accessed September 11, 2016, https://www.yahoo.com/news/ron-paul-s-pointless-internet-presidency.html. 377 Tripps, Matty. Ron Paul’s What If? Remastered, 2009. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqAF-Alc7CM.

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and economic freedom. Questions like: “What if our foreign policy of the past century is deeply flawed and has not served our national security interest?” would then become “our foreign policy of the past century is deeply flawed and has not served our national security interest,” or “What if all war-time spending is paid for through the deceitful and evil process of inflating and borrowing?” would become “all war-time spending is paid for through the deceitful and evil process of inflating and borrowing.” Paul’s speech resonated with viewers of the video, causing some to rethink the attack in New York City on September 11. User NoiseCollector commented:

“I used to laugh at this guy… I stopped laughing a few minutes ago. Although I would have launched every ICBM we had on 9/12, he may have a point.” Other viewers understood the underlying principle that motivates Paul’s perspective on politics and policy. User mbear14 stated: “Fiscal policy and foreign policy are synonymous with Dr. Paul, for which I agree. It all revolves around the question he always asks, ‘what the role of government ought to be?’”378 Paul closes the speech answering his last two questions: What happens if my concerns are completely unfounded? Nothing. But what happens if my concerns are justified and ignored? Nothing good.379 His plea to Congress to rethink the actions of America’s foreign policy practice were unanswered, but the considerations left impressions on viewers who were exposed to a different foreign policy perspective not discussed on mainstream news media.

378 The comments are some of the first few that were posted when the video was uploaded 7 years ago. 379 Tripps, Matty. “Ron Paul’s What If? Remastered.” Last modified March 2, 2009, accessed September 11, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqAF-Alc7CM.

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“Armed Chinese Troops in Texas!”

Last of Paul’s well-known videos is one created by The Revolution Political Action

Committee in support of Paul titled, “Armed Chinese Troops in Texas!”380 The video questions what Americans would do if a large, foreign military were based in Texas. If armed military troops were patrolling our streets in military vehicles under the auspices of keeping us safe or promoting democracy without adherence to U.S. law or the Constitution. The video ends with

Paul’s voice synced with text:

Shutting down military bases and ceasing to deal with other nations with threats and violence is not isolationism, it is the opposite. Opening ourselves up to friendship, honest trade, and diplomacy is the foreign policy of peace and prosperity. It is the only foreign policy that will not bankrupt us in short order, as our current actions most definitely will. I share the disappointment of the American people and the foreign policy rhetoric coming from the administration. The sad thing is, our foreign policy will change eventually as Rome’s did when all budgetary and monetary tricks to fund it are exhausted.381 The video serves as a reminder of what differentiates Paul from the other Republican presidential candidates. The American military and governmental practice of intervening in the civil and political affairs of other countries has resulted in an interventionist foreign policy382 supported by many in the Republican Party. But Paul’s perspective on foreign policy takes on more of a

Jeffersonian approach383 in refraining from American involvement in the internal policy affairs

380 TheRevolutionPAC. Armed Chinese Troops in Texas!, 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKfuS6gfxPY.

381 “Armed Chinese Troops in Texas!” The Revolution PAC. Last modified October 6, 2011, accessed September 11, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKfuS6gfxPY. 382 There are moral and legal debates as to whether intervention or non-intervention approaches are best to address humanitarian, civil, or political issues. In the political understanding of intervention, it requires the use of force against an oppressive group. 383 Thomas Jefferson, founding father of these United States and former President and Secretary of State, opposed the aggressive pursuit of American interests abroad through military means. He believed in peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations and entangling alliances with none.

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of other countries. Paul believes the foreign policy and expansive military practices of the United

States are executive encroachments on liberty and create more conflicts384 due to unintended consequences of blowback385 than they solve. Should military intervention be necessary and required, Paul advocates for following the Constitution and the proper channels of going to war—with a declaration from Congress386 and not an arbitrary decision by the President.

To date, “Armed Chinese Troops in Texas!” has over 1.3 million views and almost 8,000 comments.387As indicated by comments pulled from the video thread, Paul’s foreign policy stance appealed to many different individuals. User Sovereign stated: “I’m from the UK and this commercial gives me chills. You guys really [explicative] by not electing Ron Paul. He’s one of a million that would of turned America round for the better.” Another user Rohan Pandey wrote:

“That moment when you’re a democrat and agree with everything they’re saying, then ralize at the end that it’s from Ron Paul’s presidential campaign…” And only a year ago, user youngbloodx commented: “As a Chinese man who lives in Texas, I support Ron Paul.”

These two videos reference a major appeal that set Paul apart from other neoconservative, pro-war Republicans. His anti-war, anti-interventionist foreign policy position stemmed from his youth of witnessing friends and neighbors going off to fight undeclared wars

384 Mead, Walter Russell. “The Tea Party and American Foreign Policy: What Populism Means for Globalism.” Foreign Affairs 90, no. 2, 2011: 28–44. 385 The term “blowback” was first used by the Central Intelligence Agency in March 1954 in an operation to overthrow the government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran. It refers to the unintended consequences of covert military operations by the American government against foreign nations and their governments. 386 "On The Road With Ron Paul." All Things Considered, December 29, 2011. Literature Resource Center (accessed March 4, 2017). 387 TheRevolutionPAC, Armed Chinese Troops in Texas!

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and never returning home. The impact it had on families was direct and devastating. For Paul, being pro-military meant bringing our troops home instead of occupying foreign land and only going to war with a constitutional declaration from Congress. These ideas were counter to

George W. Bush’s practices following 9/11.

Paul’s candidacy, although muted from mainstream media news, reached a wide and broad audience with the assistance of YouTube. Ask any Paul supporter about either of these two videos (or even all four discussed in this section), and, more than likely, they will have seen them all. These videos, as well as many others, created outside of Paul’s official campaign team by supporters and PACs, helped spread Paul’s message and candidacy in a way that traditional media and its media managers did not allow.

Non-Traditional Methods of Introduction and Promotion

Paul activists also turned to non-traditional campaign methods to reach voters and spread the campaign message of limited government and fiscal responsibility. The Ron Paul rEVOLution logo, the Ron Paul Blimp, the Ron Paul Super Brochure, the Ron Paul Anthem, and a documentary made to highlight the 2007-2008 campaign, For Liberty: How the Ron Paul

Revolution Watered the Withered Tree of Liberty,388 were individual projects led by grassroots activists who decided to work around typical campaign methods and traditional media.

From a traditional perspective of presidential campaign organization, these developments may seem disorganized, random, and obstructive to the goal of organizing voters to get to the

388 For Liberty: How the Ron Paul Revolution Watered the Withered Tree of Liberty, dir. Corey Kealiher and Chris Rye, 2009.

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polls, but Paul was not afforded the assistance of the Fourth Estate in fair coverage of his campaign. Short changed by media managers, the challenges Paul faced in campaigning resulted in non-traditional methods of outreach and information dissemination. The spontaneous organization of each project allowed for multiple campaigning methods to occur simultaneously; independent of each other but also working together to further the goal of getting Paul’s name into the public. The following creative means helped more voters learn about Paul’s candidacy, his perspective on pertinent issues, and the philosophy he practices.

rEVOLution Logo

The famous rEVOLution logo (with the “evol” slanted and reversed to spell “love” backwards) associated with Paul’s candidacy was a creation by a Libertarian Party activist,

Ernest Hancock, from Phoenix, Arizona. The logo was originally used by Hancock himself for a

2006 campaign for the Libertarian Party for Arizona’s secretary of state position. He was a strong believer in Paul’s consistent and principled career and wanted to do what he could to help get the word out about Paul’s campaign. At first, the official campaign originally did want or like the word “revolution” being associated with Paul since he was already considered a “fringe” candidate due to his foreign policy views and ideas on monetary policy that differed greatly from establishment Republicans. His campaign staff wanted the campaign logo and signs created the traditional way, being created and approved in-house. But Paul supporters took on the role of

‘revolutionaries’ in the ground fight for freedom and adopted Hancock’s campaign strategy of

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doing “whatever they wanted to spread the word about Ron Paul”389 through decentralization. A beauty of Paul’s campaign and of his supporters was the anti-authority position. Eventually the campaign adopted the logo and even began putting them up behind Paul at events.390

After Paul’s 2008 campaign, he published The Revolution: A Manifesto,391 a book about his political values and the principles of liberty. Since his 2008 run, the term ‘revolution’ became attached to Paul’s candidacy, with supporters and activists referring to the movement he spurred in advocating for smaller government, personal liberties, and economic freedom, among others, as the Ron Paul Revolution.

Ron Paul Blimp

The Ron Paul Blimp, with the message “Who is Ron Paul? Google Ron Paul” on one side and “Ron Paul Revolution” on the other, launched on December 14, 2007 from North Carolina to

Washington, New York and Boston, before heading to New Hampshire for the January 8, 2008 primary. The innovative approach to advertising for the candidate was also not an official campaign sanctioned stunt. Former California Libertarian Party official, Jerry Collette, and former Federal Election Commission chairman, Brad Smith, managed the effort through donations by Paul supporters (about $280,000).392 The envision behind it was that mainstream media, particularly local television stations, would cover the blimp by broadcasting its movement

389 Doherty, Ron Paul’s Revolution, 112. 390 Ibid, 113. 391 Paul, Ron. The Revolution: A Manifesto. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2008.

392 Beam, Christopher. “Blimpin’ Ain’t Easy.” Slate. Last modified December 21, 2007, accessed July 28, 2016, http://www.slate.com/blogs/trailhead/2007/12/21/blimpin_ain_t_easy.html.

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through the city. The PR stunt would generate millions of dollars’ worth in free publicity. 393 And anyone interested in following the blimp otherwise could do so on RonPaulBlimp.com and view live streaming coverage via JustinTV.394 It was an idea that would force indirect coverage of

Paul’s campaign, and hopefully the message on the blimp would incite viewers to Google Ron

Paul.395

Paul’s campaign did not think the money spent on a blimp was the best use of funds.

Campaign spokesman Jesse Benton said: “We’re not doing a blimp because traditional political wisdom maybe doesn’t say that’s the best way to spend money.”396 The official campaign was still functioning and practicing traditional campaigning methods. It was Paul’s avid supporters who were the ones developing creative and non-traditional tactics to get Paul’s name out to voters. The spontaneous approach to new media methods was driven by activists and allowed by

Paul without official campaign pushback. The decentralized methods were unique and all worked differently and independently of each other with the same aim of getting Paul elected.

393 Vogel, Kenneth P. “Ron Paul Blimp Charts Unprecedented Course.” Politico. Last modified December 6, 2007, accessed July 28, 2016, http://www.politico.com/story/2007/12/ron-paul-blimp-charts-unprecedented-course- 007245. 394 Stirland, Sarah Lai. “Ron Paul Blimp Flies.” WIRED. Last modified December 13, 2007, accessed July 28, 2016, https://www.wired.com/2007/12/ron-paul-blim-1/. 395 A Google Trends search of the term “Ron Paul” during December 2007 found an increased search of the candidate from a popularity count of 53 at the end of November to a high of 97 on December 17, 2007. His name search spikes again at a popularity count of 100 on January 4, 2008. 396 Doherty, Ron Paul’s Revolution, 115.

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Ron Paul Super Brochure

Other supporters took it upon themselves to produce the Ron Paul Super Brochure. It included basic information about the candidate, his views on hot topic issues like foreign policy, immigration, healthcare, jobs, taxes, and more. Curt Schultz, Erik Michael, and Mark Ferguson worked together to create and organize the mailer that was funded by other Paul supporters.

Anyone could go to superbrochure.com and purchase specific precincts in targeted states for direct mail delivery. Activists could also purchase them by the box to hand out as unofficial campaign literature. According to the website: “After your purchase, your name is tagged to the list of voters selected. From there, we take care of the rest with no additional cost. We handle postage, processing, fees, and mailing. You don’t have to do anything.”397 Within 21 days that the Ron Paul Super Brochure hit mailboxes in Iowa, RealClearPolitics.com showed Paul’s poll numbers increase from 11 percent to 24 percent. Within 10 days of going out to voters in South

Carolina, Paul’s poll numbers increased from 8.5 percent to 15 percent.398

The simplicity of the Super Brochure idea worked to reach many voters unaware of

Paul’s candidacy due to media misinformation and lack of coverage. People have the option of tuning into television news to watch coverage of the presidential campaign, but direct mail puts something tangible in the hands of a potential supporter. The method of direct mail for campaign literature is not new. Typically, mailer designs and content are created by the campaign or with the assistance of a campaign consultant. However, those who supported Paul turned the

397 Super Brochure FAQ. Super Brochure. Accessed July 29, 2016, http://www.superbrochure.com/faq/. 398 “Our Story,” Forever Free. Accessed July 29, 2016, http://www.foreverfree.com/our-story/.

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traditional, centralized campaign approach of direct mail into a non-traditional, decentralized campaign method. The organizational method of online funding to distribute the direct mail with the funder’s name, personalizing the mailer, indicated that a supporter cared enough about Paul to fund the mailer to a potential voter. The Super Brochure was created by a Paul supporter for

Paul supporters without the assistance of the official campaign, and proved to be influential in sharing information about Paul to potential voters. The creative ideas did not end here.

Ron Paul Anthem

Paul inspired artists of all backgrounds. Some of his musically inclined supporters wrote songs about him, and more importantly, about the principles of liberty and freedom. One of the most popular songs about Paul is by singer and supporter Aimee Allen. She wrote an unofficial

Ron Paul anthem in 2008 that helped created excitement and unity around the candidate. The chorus sings:

Ron Paul! Save our constitutional rights Ron Paul! We’re not gonna give up the fight Ron Paul! Start a revolution And break down illegal institutions399

Keywords in the chorus such as “constitutional rights” and “illegal institutions” focus on Paul’s views on the unconstitutionality of many government agencies and foreign policy actions, as well as the growing government powers that result in the dwindling personal liberties. Other lyrics include topics of the Patriot Act infringing on our Fourth Amendment rights, bringing our

399 “Aimee Allen: Ron Paul Revolution Lyrics.” Accessed July 29, 2016, http://lyrics.wikia.com/wiki/ Aimee_Allen:Ron_Paul_Revolution.

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troops home and ending the wars abroad, as well as ending the Federal Reserve System. So “Ron

Paul for President!” she sings.

Like will.i.am creating a music video in support of Obama’s campaign, Allen wrote a song dedicated specifically to the election of Ron Paul and including the important policy positions and ideas he had about domestic and foreign issues. These non-traditional approaches to campaigning shows the passion supporters have for their presidential candidate and serve as marketing material to increase exposure. Gushing about Paul, Allen said, “You just want to hug that guy. He’s so humble that even he’s surprised at his success.” And when asked about what

Paul is like in person, she mentioned that Paul said what she did for the revolution was more powerful than any of his speeches.400

Ron Paul Documentary

According to John Grierson, a pioneering documentarian, documentary concerns itself with representing the observable world called the raw material of actuality. 401 He defined documentary as “the creative treatment of actuality.”402 The documentarian draws on past and present actuality—the world of social and historical experience—to construct an account of lives and events. A primary motivation is realism or ‘recording reality’: capturing the reality of life

400 D’Auria, Jon. “A Change in Weather for Aimee Allen.” The Grixer. Accessed July 30, 2016, http://www.thegrixer.com/ aimeeallen.html. 401 For Grierson, there were two established principles of documentary: social responsibility and excellence of craftsmanship. It was not simply to be observed but to elicit a response to be acted upon. Film scholar Jack Ellis describes Grierson’s perspective as such: “Citizen education was the broad necessity, film the chosen medium, documentary its special form.” 402 Hardy, Sir. Forsyth. John Grierson: A Documentary Biography. London; Boston: Faber and Faber, 1979, 13.

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means the object is present in the text because of its function in the historical world. The non- traditional campaigning project and documentary For Liberty: How the Ron Paul Revolution

Watered the Withered Tree of Liberty worked to do exactly that—record a reality that was not presented by the Fourth Estate. Because media managers’ news media documentation of Paul’s presidential campaign was not an accurate reflection of reality, the documentary provided a historical record and reflection of his candidacy from the perspective of the Fifth Estate.

For Liberty follows Michael Maresco and a group of grassroots activists as they embark on a 280 mile walk for freedom. In the documentary, Maresco and his group meet with supporters in various cities, showcasing the unique, bizarre, and groundbreaking projects they undertake as they brush aside traditional campaign methodology.403 The documentary is interspersed with the group’s travels, short clips that are frequently cited as evidence of Paul’s unfair media treatment, and interviews with Paul supporters. Supporters talked about why they decided to become involved in politics, why they supported Paul’s run for presidency, and the non-traditional campaign tactics they used to spread his campaign message. Ed Vallejo, an activist from Arizona, said, “We had to become our own media. Internet was our major driving force.”404

The impact the documentary had on viewers is difficult to directly measure, as it was largely circulated by word of mouth or at Paul meet-up events, but the film has a 78 percent

403 For Liberty, 2009. 404 Ibid.

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rating on Rotten Tomatoes,405 and a 9.0 out of 10 stars on the Internet Movie Database.406

Reviewer stamper-49 writes of the documentary: “Chris Rye does a great job showing the spark that kindled a fire for freedom in the hearts of millions.” Another reviewer Dixon Cannon, states:

“I have followed Dr. Ron Paul since 1988 and find him to best represent my view in Congress.

What a surprise to find a documentary film about him, his campaign for liberty and the impact he is making on the political scene.”407 For Liberty was a unique way of sharing the plight of Paul’s campaign during his 2008 run for president and a reminder of what to consider going into the

2012 election.

Raising Funds

An important aspect of political campaigning is the ability to raise funds. Following the lines of non-traditional methods of campaigning, the newest form of online fundraising was initiated and invented by a Paul supporter. Paul was not nominated by the Republican party in

2008, but he did set new records for online fundraising and viral outreach. The advent of the moneybomb,408 a concept of raising funds online as quickly as possible also known as a one-day fundraising frenzy,409 was created by Trevor Lyman, a then-37-year-old music promoter.410

405 Rotten Tomatoes is an online movie and TV show ratings site. 406 The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is a site dedicated to movie, television, and celebrity updates and content. 407 “Ratings & Reviews for For Liberty: How the Ron Paul Revolution Watered the Withered Tree of Liberty.” IMDb, n.d. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1525356/reviews?ref=tturv.

408 An online fundraising technique that is still being used by current politicians for fundraising efforts online. 409 Frank Davies, (2008-01-20). “Primary preview: Ron Paul’s anti-war bid Powered by Net Activists.” Mercury News Washington Bureau. 410 Relying on a multitude of small amount donations within a 24-hour period, the concept of the moneybomb event was pioneered by Paul’s supporters when he ran for president in 2008.

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Lyman had no official ties to the campaign and had no political experience before he engineered the innovative model.411 The first moneybomb took place on November 5, 2007. Ron Paul supporters took to the Internet to fundraise for the candidate on a day synonymous with Guy

Fawkes, an English dissident in the 1600s whose attempt to blow up Parliament was foiled.

Historian James Sharpe notes that Fawkes is sometimes toasted as "the last man to enter

Parliament with honest intentions,"412 a thought many Paul supporters believed about Paul and

Congress.

In 24 hours, a total of $4.3 million was collected from about 37,000 unique donors—the largest sum ever collected online in a single day by a GOP candidate at the time.413 On

December 16, 2007, another moneybomb was held on the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.

Almost $6 million was raised, breaking their previous moneybomb record,414 with over 24,940 new donors contributing. Although Paul demonstrated he had the ability to raise funds, quickly and from small donors, and his candidacy had large grassroots support, he still lacked mainstream media coverage. This feat was touched upon by a few news sources like Politico415

411 Vogel, Kenneth P. “’Money bomb’: Ron Paul Raises $6 Million in 24-hour Period.” Politico.com. Last modified December 17, 2007, accessed July 21, 2016. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2007-12- 17-ronpaul-fundraising_N.htm 412 Sharpe, James A. Remember, Remember: A Cultural History of Guy Fawkes Day. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005, 6. 413 Kuhnhenn, Jim. “Paul’s Money Draws Attention.” The Guardian. Last modified November 7, 2007, accessed July 21, 2016. http://web.archive.org/web/20071212203936/http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,- 7055741,00.html. 414 Rabinowitz, Michelle. “Ron Paul Supporters Raise $6 Million in One Day for Republican Presidential Hopeful.” MTV News. Last modified December 17, 2007, accessed July 21, 2016. http://www.mtv.com/news/1576580/ron- paul-supporters-raise-6-million-in-one-day-for-republican-presidential-hopeful/. 415 Martin, Jonathan. “Ron Paul’s ‘Money Bomb,’” Politico, November 5, 2007, http://www.politico.com/ blogs/jonathanmartin/ 1107/Ron_Pauls_Money_Bomb.html.

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and ABC News,416 but only as an online article and not reported on television by mainstream media news networks.

Paul’s campaign continued using the moneybomb concept for online fundraising in 2012.

The first-quarter, before Paul announced his candidacy, he pulled in $3 million.417 He raised $4.5 million in the second-quarter.418 And in the third quarter, he raised over $8 million with over

100,000 unique donors.419 With his 8 online moneybombs, along with other traditional methods of fundraising efforts, Paul raised a total of $40.6 million for his 2012 bid for presidency.

Despite Paul’s successful method of raising funds and pulling in more donations from active- duty military members420 than all other Republican candidates combined, the media continued to overlook his candidacy.

As a form of crowdsourcing, the concept of the moneybomb developed outside of Paul’s campaign strategy during his 2008 run, but was embraced by his team for the 2012 Republican primary. Crowdsourcing refers to a new method of funding by requesting funding from many individuals, usually with a future product or equity in return.421 In the case of Paul’s candidacy, the equity would be his successful nomination. An interesting facet of Paul’s fundraising practice

416 Wolf, Z. Byron. “Who Are Ron Paul’s Donors?” ABC News, November 6, 2007, http://abcnews.go.com/ Politics/Vote2008/ story?id=3822989&page=1. 417 Barr, Andy. “Ron Paul’s $3M Pot of Gold.” Politico, March 31, 2011. http://www.politico.com/story/2011/03/ ron-pauls-3m-pot-of-gold-052317.

418 Gabriel, Trip. “Iowa a Test of Ron Paul as Mainstream Candidate.” The New York Times, July 26, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/27/us/politics/27paul.html.

419 Burns, Alexander. “Ron Paul’s Third-Quarter Haul: $8M.” Politico, October 5, 2011. http://www.politico.com/ story/ 2011/10/ron-pauls-third-quarter-haul-8m-065219.

420 Even with Paul’s unpopular non-interventionist foreign policy stance within the Republican Party, he still received the most donations from active duty military members. 421 Mollick, Ethan. “The Dynamics of Crowdfunding: An Exploratory Study.” Journal of Business Venturing 29, 2014: 1.

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was that it developed from a decentralized and organic structure of a supporter wanting to help the campaign. Because of its success in crowdfunding a large amount of funds in a brief time, it was adopted by the campaign as an official fundraising strategy, centralizing its organization and planning of future moneybombs.

Deliberation and Discussion

The lack of content in both quality and quantity surrounding Paul’s candidacy or policy positions in the Fourth Estate meant his perspectives were not being circulated for debate or discussion and thus could not be considered by the American voting public. Paul supporters had to turn to online networking means of deliberating and discussing Paul’s platform, proposed policies, and principles.

‘Reality Check’ on Paul

With the ability of video sharing on YouTube, one of the avenues that played a vital role in discussing Paul’s campaign was Reality Check,422 a short news segment by producer and reporter Ben Swann who worked at a Fox News affiliate in Cincinnati, Ohio. Because the program was only aired locally in Cincinnati, access to Reality Check initially depended on local residents recording the segment with their smartphones or cameras and then uploading them to

YouTube to be shared outside of the Cincinnati geographical network.423 Eventually, the news

422 As of February 1, 2017, Ben Swann’s YouTube channel has been removed from the site. There is conjecture as to why his account was pulled, but there is no concrete reason for its removal. 423 Localism, as a component of the public interest standard put forth by the FCC, as discussed in Chapter Two, plays a significant role in the Reality Check segments. Swann’s news pieces were directed at this local audience,

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station realized the high demand for the show, and videos were uploaded directly to the Fox19-

WXIX website.424,425

As an award-winning journalist, and a local one at that, Swann approached the presidential election with standards and criteria that should be expected from the Fourth Estate— educational, factual, and neutral journalistic reporting. His profession and previous years of reporting experience426 provided him a sense of credibility and integrity in covering the election cycle. Swann covered the 2012 presidential primary and election in a way that mainstream media did not. Swann was fair when researching candidates’ voting records, and he took time to look at the history of their careers. He put together hard hitting journalism in short news segments that were clear to understand and factual in nature. An example of such was his discussion on the campaign process from an educational viewpoint, explaining the difference between a presidential caucus and primary.427,428 He talked about the delegate process and whether they are bound or unbound to a presidential candidate during the convention nominating process.429

but due to the informational content and journalistic integrity of topics he covered, people who were motivated to share his news reports turned to the sharing ability of YouTube. 424 The news station is not owned by Fox network or NewsCorp. 425 Driving website traffic to Fox19-WXIX allowed for traffic analysis to be determined. Monitoring website traffic allows for useful patterns to be reveals, such as how many new individuals are accessing the site and from what location. 426 He has two regional Emmy awards and three Edward R. Murrow awards (which are awarded for excellence in electronic journalism). 427 spoony2112. Reality Check: Ben Swann on Delegates and Caucus Problems, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=42ZnZ05kiBo.

428 nospinmedia. Ben Swann Explains Missouri Delegate Election Fraud Reality Check Ron Paul, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=94XumhCBkTM.

429 Rand Wing. Reality Check: Bound Delegates May Not Be Bound After All, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=T6lUuHCb1oY.

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Typical mainstream news networks assume viewers are already aware of the process and all the intricacies in the American political process.

One of his news segments, “An Endorsement for Fairness in Dealing with Ron Paul,” questioned the lack of media attention given to Paul’s candidacy. Following the 2012 Iowa straw poll in which Paul tied for first place with Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich, Paul was still ignored by the mainstream media. Swann spoke to the facts of Paul’s candidacy, specifying that his coverage on how Paul was treated by the mainstream news media was “not an endorsement” of the candidate, but rather an “endorsement for fair coverage,” because “there is no question the congressman isn’t getting it.” Swann mentions the 90 second debate time Paul received in the GOP debate in South Carolina, asking viewers if they thought it was fair coverage.430 By approaching Paul’s candidacy with an unbiased and neutral stance, it increased

Swann’s credibility as a news reporter in the eyes of Paul supporters. When the Fourth Estate failed to cover informational content and news coverage of Paul’s campaign, the fact that Swann was even mentioning Paul was important enough to consider tuning in.

For newcomers to the political process, trying to understand the primary and caucus process can be daunting. It is easy for the electorate to watch mainstream media news and follow the highs and lows of candidate campaigns. Short media clips that are often taken out of context create drama or intrigue, and often include cliffhanging remarks to create a desire to tune in later for the full story. But many Paul supporters learned that to get quality news coverage on the 2012 election meant tuning in to Swann’s Reality Check. Swann covered multiple candidates, reported

430 Swann, Ben. “Reality Check – An Endorsement for Fairness in Dealing with Ron Paul,” Cincinnati News. Last modified February 22, 2012, accessed July 27, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_NhcUbE9J8.

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on the facts of what voters needed to know about policies, issues, and candidate voting records.

Although Swann initially got pushback from Fox19-WXIX’s corporate office for his segments, he continued to fight for honest journalism and was eventually given more room to report431 as more people tuned in to watch his coverage of the presidential election.

Swann’s Reality Check consistently filled four of the top five traffic-generators for the

Fox 19 site with traffic from all over the country and all over the world,432 a result of what he says “has a lot to do with social media.”433 Swann’s biography on the website

VoicesofLiberty.com claims that he has the largest Facebook following of any local journalist in the nation and is larger than many national network anchor. His Reality Check series has over

10,000,000 video views on YouTube and is watched in over 140 countries.434

Swann’s investigative journalism and coverage of Paul’s candidacy was far from being orchestrated by media managers at his local news station or by Paul’s official campaign. His

Internet-famous Reality Check came about from a research project due to a marketing firm’s study of Cincinnati’s viewership. Its creation and intention was to simply serve a local market.

According to Swann, “there was an opportunity in our market to do ‘Snopes-style

431 “Ben Swann AMA Www.benswann.com • R/Libertarian.” Reddit. Accessed April 24, 2017. https://www.reddit.com/r/Libertarian/comments/1h5bic/ben_swann_ama_wwwbenswanncom/.

432 According to a radio interview with Swann. 433 Wemple, Erik. “Cincinnati anchor goes deep on Paul campaign.” Washington Post. Last modified January 19, 2012, accessed July 27, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/blogs/erik-wemple/post/cincinnati-anchor- goes-deep-on-paul-campaign/2012/01/19/gIQAN4WWBQ_blog.html. 434 “Ben Swann.” Voices of Liberty, n.d. https://voicesofliberty.com/video/voices-video/ben-swann/.

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journalism.’”435 Due to the quality of content Swann was covering in his Reality Check segments, and with the connective ability to share video on YouTube, the videos went viral within the Paul community.436 Swann became a go-to journalist for Paul supporters during the

2012 presidential election cycle.

RonPaulForums.com and DailyPaul.com

Beyond social media, Paul supporters also turned to alternative media437 to create their own websites to discuss campaigns, elections, news, current events, and the liberty movement.

Two sites developed from a spontaneous approach by Paul supporters to cover his candidacy:

RonPaulForums.com and DailyPaul.com. If mainstream new media would not provide content and analysis they could value or trust, proven by the way they threated Paul and his ideas,438 they would get their news from alternative sources—each other.

According to the website RonPaulForums.com, the site is “an independent grassroots outfit not officially connected to Ron Paul but dedicated to his mission.” The ideals of liberty,

435 Wile, Anthony. “Ben Swann on the Liberty Rising Truth in Media Project and the State of US Journalism.” The Daily Bell, July 14, 2013. http://www.thedailybell.com/exclusive-interviews/anthony-wile-ben-swann-on-the- liberty-rising-truth-in-media-project-and-the-state-of-us-journalism/.

436 Nils Gustafsson calls this “viral politics,” or images and messages that are consistent with existing world views of audiences. 437 Alternative media institutions see itself as part of a project to establish new ways of organizing media. The alternative challenge the traditional methods of communication and seek to new space for exsistance. Leah A. Lievrouw’s Alternative and Activist New Media identifies five genres of alternative and activist media (culture jamming, alternative computing, participatory journalism, mediated mobilization, and commons knowledge) that revolve around user participation. In comparing alternative media to social media, social media sites are communities of users who create profiles for the purpose of building, maintaining, and interacting with other users through text, image, or video. 438 Doherty, Ron Paul’s Revolution, 169.

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justice, and free markets serve as core principles on the site. The forum served as an online space dedicated to facilitating discussion and initiatives that promote honest and free markets, as well as securing individual liberty and justice for all. Users of the site self-moderate and create the content to be posted, and discussions grew organically through voluntary participation. The general categories on the home page include Start Here, Liberty Movement, News & Current

Events, Think Tank, and Lifestyles & Discussions, with additional threads on the site that break into sub-forums and then threads. The Ron Paul sub-forum on the site hosts over 122,000 threads with almost 1.5 million posts.439 This virtual space for online political participation encouraged engagement, giving participants a sense of investment in the campaign, if only through open dialogue.

Michael Nystrom, creator of DailyPaul.com set up the website after hearing Paul speak at an event in mid-January of 2007. As stated by Nystrom, “Initially my duties were to put content up on the site because there weren’t that many people in the early days.” Eventually, people began submitting stories, information, and media content to the site. The site was used to debate issues, point out media inaccuracies involving coverage of their favored candidate (and the other

GOP candidates), and organize themselves for unofficial campaign work.440 DailyPaul.com formed out of a market vacancy of media coverage of Paul, and developed into an organizational site for information, networking, and offline activism. Though the site formed spontaneously, it

439 “Ron Paul Forums.” Ron Paul Forums. http://www.ronpaulforums.com/forum.php.

440 Seelye, Katharine Q., and Leslie Wayne. “The Web Takes Ron Paul for a Ride,” The New York Times. Last modified November 11, 2007, accessed September 11, 2016, www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/us/politics/ 11paul.html.

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transitioned from being curated by Nystrom to giving supporters the freedom to submit news, updates, and other findings related to Paul and allowing the site to self-sustain.

New media technologies and increased Internet access aided in the growth of these organic sites developed by supporters who were not officially attached with Paul’s campaign441 and were frequented by advocates of Paul’s message. These two sites serve as examples of new media projects that allow people to work around the fixity of traditional media technologies and institutional systems to negotiate, manipulate, and blur the boundaries between interpersonal interaction and mass communication.442 The ability and practice of media as an interactive exchange of knowledge and information is particularly important in the process of social and political change because it supports or provides conditions for participation, which is an essential element of alternative and activist new media.443 As a platform of public space and discussion, both sites allows for added communicational means. The connective assistance brought together people from across the nation, and even internationally, who were advocates of Paul’s political philosophy and practice. The lasting effect of ronpaulforums.com and dailypaul.com continued well past the campaign season.444

441 The spontaneous approach of Paul supporters creating these sites strongly differs from the controlled approach of Obama’s campaign media team having created My.BarackObama.com specifically for connecting Obama supporters during 2008. 442 Lievrouw, Alternative and Activist New Media, 5.

443 Ibid, 13. 444 DailyPaul.com shut down at the beginning of 2015, but RonPaulForums.com is still active.

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The ability for Paul supporters to turn to new media for communication, connectivity, and creativity assisted in the creation of a spontaneous organizational structure and non- traditional campaigning methods. There was low quantity and quality of information about Paul on traditional media outlets, causing Paul and his supporters to rely heavily on new media platforms to spread his message. Media managers never intended for Paul’s candidacy to gain steam and used any opportunity they could to discredit his chances of winning the Republican nomination. But the effects of the unintended consequences of leaving Paul out of national coverage was a rise in alternative media solutions that changed the environment and practice of presidential electoral politics due to the decentralized organization of Paul supporters. They organized spontaneously in different cities, brainstorming sporadically and developing campaigning ideas that were tried and tested in various voting markets. Good ideas were shared via online networks and used across the nation. Although many of the citizen-driven approaches to media were not officially sanctioned by Paul’s campaign, they arose and were eventually embraced because passionate supporters wanted to work and campaign for a candidate they truly believed in.

Conclusion

The 2008 and 2012 presidential election cycle saw two of the most innovative and digitally connected campaigns with candidates Barack Obama and Ron Paul. Their approaches to new media and non-traditional campaigning to reach the electorate were influenced by the role traditional media played in covering their respective campaigns—Obama using a more

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centralized control approach and Paul turning to spontaneous order, largely initiated by his passionate supporters.

Media managers, who serve as gatekeepers of information on traditional media outlets, provided more coverage of Obama during the Democratic primary when he was up against

Hillary Clinton and even going into the general election against John McCain. Increased media exposure allowed for higher name recognition.445 This allowed Obama to focus his internal team’s efforts on organizing his campaign and efforts of outreach via new media technologies.

The inclusiveness and connectedness that Obama’s controlled campaign created resulted in a stunning transformation of restoring hope in the hearts of many Americans and a readiness to change the future for the better. Obama’s 2008 campaign delivered traditional messages in nontraditional ways and gathered and managed an impressive army of volunteers446 both online and off. Hughes, co-founder of Facebook and creator of MyBO.com, helped to produce a centrally controlled environment which assisted in organizing Obama’s volunteers and gave users an unlimited array of ways to participate in the campaign.447 From MyBO.com to the various social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, Obama dominated his competitors in all online arenas garnering record support from youth voters who make up a large

445 R. Morris Coats and Tomas R. Dalton say that name recognition affects the cost of running for an elected office and the probability of winning. A high level of name recognition can also deter potential political competitors. In the case of the 2008 Democratic Primary, Hillary Clinton had the advantage of a high level of name recognition, not just in the United States, but around the world. Obama’s challenge against the former First Lady and New York Senator indicates the power new media and the global connectivity of social media can be in transmitting information to mass audiences. 446 Kate Kenski, Bruce W. Hardy, & Kathleen Hall Jamieson. The Obama Victory: How Media, Money, and Message Shaped the 2008 Election, New York: Oxford University Press, 2010, 307. 447 Joshua Green. “The Amazing Money Machine: How Silicon Valley Made Barack Obama This Year’s Hottest Start-up,” The Atlantic, 301, 2008: 52-60.

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percentage of online users. The tightly controlled media campaign assisted Obama in many ways—controlling the outgoing media content and messaging that was shared over the Internet and making sure the use of his likeness was calculated and precise as with the iconic Hope image. By focusing his digital campaign strategy on using online tools and social media, people could make real-world connections448 and change politics from ground up. With the help of traditional and new media, Obama centrally organized his campaign and emerge victorious with the historic nomination to be America’s first Democratic African-American presidential candidate and eventual president.

The Fourth Estate was not as fair to Paul, who was also an unfavored candidate by the

Republican Party establishment. Paul was largely missing from political coverage by mainstream news media. Having trouble receiving even exposure in traditional media networks, he had a steep uphill battle against the GOP field of contenders and the mainstream media, both set on his withdrawal from the Republican Primary. Paul, without much assistance from media managers, turned to new media, and with an open approach to campaigning and spontaneous organization, was met with a vibrant, enthusiastic support group of grassroots activists.

The spontaneous organization of Paul supporters as a grassroots effort in response to how the media approached his candidacy brought forth a wave of non-traditional and innovative campaign tactics. Social media was used to organize in-person meetings based on political interest and locality. Alternative media was used to set up forums and sites for discussion of

Paul’s candidacy, his platform, but also his philosophy and other connected topics as well. And

448 Heather Havenstein, “My.BarackObama.com Stays Online,” last modified November 10, 2008, accessed March 27, 2014, http://www.pcworld.com/article/153628/barack_obama_online.html.

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creative media was used in all sorts of fashions to get Paul’s name out there to the voting public.

Paul has said of his 2008 campaign:

Traditionally in politics, and I was told early on when I first got in politics, you develop your logo and you stay uniformed. Everyone does this, and you put this on every piece of literature, and your TV, and bumper stickers, and everything else… I kept remarking the characteristic of our campaign was there was no characteristic. It was miscellaneous, spontaneous, homemade, and all shapes and sizes and colors. And it turned out that it was not uniformed and everybody knew it, but it didn’t seem to hurt us.449

Paul’s original understanding of political campaigns was a traditional approach, the tried and true tactics of the past of being internally organized and staying uniform in messaging. But he was also up against a non-traditional approach of political campaigning when media managers ignored his candidacy.

As a free market advocate, Paul easily embraced giving up control and allowing the spontaneous campaigning by his avid supporters to occur without direct oversight, input, or micromanaging. The non-official campaign for Paul grew out of spontaneous organization by activists that aligned with his political philosophy. The timing of his presidential run coincided with the developing media ecology and growing use of new media. Staying relevant by adapting to new voter practices meant incorporating social media and new technologies into voter outreach tactics.

Both Obama and Paul invigorated voters from diverse backgrounds and political leanings. They connected with the electorate on a deeper level of political understanding with the assistance of new media, and inspired creative means of Internet campaigning. In Digitized Lives

449 For Liberty, 2009.

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by Thomas Vernon Reed, he mentions the term “presuming” to name the process by which culture consumers have become culture producers because of the Internet.450 User-created content and videos create new forms of interaction and participation. Supporters of both candidates took on the role of presumers, both producing and consuming political content for new media. Obama and Paul paved the way for innovative social media use for gathering information, organizing volunteers, campaign messaging, and getting the electorate involved in the political process. Their campaigns showed what could be possible with and without the blessings of media managers and support of the Fourth Estate. The two candidates approached new media from very opposite perspectives of organization, and both were successful in their own rights—one being the first African-American President of the United States of America, and one creating a lasting political movement and legacy dubbed the Ron Paul Revolution.

450 Reed, Thomas Vernon. Digitized Lives: Culture, Power and Social Change in the Internet Era, (New York, NY: Routledge, 2014), 43.

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CHAPTER SIX

THE FUTURE OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

“Just because you do not take an interest in politics, doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.” — Pericles

The future implications of new media trends and practices in American presidential electoral politics is an ongoing process of evolving media ecologies due to constantly developing new technologies and campaign adaptations of strategic application processes. This dissertation has focused on the intersection and negotiation of disciplines around the developing mediated world of presidential electoral politics. Pulling from communication studies, economic and political perspectives, organizational methods, and new media theory, I supplement these academic fields with an interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary approach to understanding and studying media and politics.

The two cornerstones I focus on in my dissertation, television and the Internet, have been incorporated by presidential candidates into their campaign strategies, and both have dramatically altered how voters consume political news and participate in presidential elections.

The 1960s saw a shift in voter consumption of political news and in how presidential contenders depicted themselves with television being introduced as a new medium for presidential debates.

According to Carl P. Leubsdorf, television influences public perception of presidential candidates and requires a frequent reassessment by the news media of what viewers want to see.

Most people will only ever see a still or moving image of a candidate, as opposed to seeing a

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candidate in a public appearance in person, 451 so a voter’s perception will be affected by how news media frames a candidate. Not only did television increase political participation with the first nationally broadcasted presidential debate between John F. Kenny and Richard Nixon, but it also impacted elections by amplifying the impact of image at the expense of the issues.452 Those who tuned in to the television broadcast of the debate were more persuaded by a candidate’s looks rather than rhetoric, and those who listened to the radio broadcast of the debate had to pay attention to words and focus on content of ideas.453

The shift that occurred during this time frame of traditional media dominance to new media prominence brings forth the implications that media and politics have when it comes to spectacle versus substance. By moving politics into a realm of the moving visual image, a medium previously associated with entertainment and celebrities, it has the ability to shift the dynamic of our approach to the cultural product of media and the understanding of politics as one beyond substance. Daniel Boorstin refers to this cultural domination and fascination with image and simulation as the “human pseudo-event,” which is fabricated for the media and evaluated in terms of media coverage and visibility rather than its bearings in substance or reality.454 Negotiating the spectacle of politics and balancing the importance of political

451 Leubsdorf, Carl. P. “The Reporter and the Presidential Candidate,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 427, 1976: 2. 452 Hellweg, Susan A. Televised Presidential Debates: Advocacy in Contemporary America, New York: Praeger, 1992, 45.

453 Kraus, Sidney. “Winners of the First 1960 Televised Presidential Debate Between Kennedy and Nixon.” Journal of Communication 46, no. 4, 1996: 78.

454 Elteren, Mel. “Celebrity Culture, Performative Politics, and the Spectacle of ‘Democracy’ in America.” Journal of American Culture 36, no. 4 (2013): 263.

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substance is a challenge that Americans who participate in electoral politics455 must address in order to be conscious and responsible consumers, and now perhaps producers, of media and politics.

In discussing traditional media formats that indicate the past technologies, still useful and necessary, of presidential electoral politics, they are quickly becoming integrated into and with new media forms that have exploded with the twenty-first century move to digitization. A careful balance between traditional media coverage and new media practices are outcomes of the evolving ecology of media and politics. Methods of communicating and influencing voters, public perceptions of candidacies, and management of informational exchange between campaigns and the electorate all explain part of the renegotiation of power and the need for balance between the declining Fourth Estate and the rising Fifth Estate.

In Chapter Two, I take a deeper look at the history of traditional media and how print, radio, and television were used by presidential candidates to reach the electorate. I focus particularly on television as a media turning point for strategic campaigning. Television as a ubiquitous medium, permeating U.S. households, gave rise to a nationally trusted Fourth Estate, with an all-time high of media trust during the Watergate Scandal and Vietnam War period. But as federal government regulations worked to monitor media practices and ownership in the name of promoting public interest, the interference in the media market only led to consolidation within the industry. Decreasing the competition of ownership also led to a decline in diversity of

455 There is a counter argument that some individuals consciously decide to not participate in the electoral political system as a means of protest or as a personal decision of responsibility.

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programming and perspectives being broadcasted. To quote Nobel Prize winning economist

Milton Friedman from an interview he had with PBS in December of 1975:

One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results. We all know a famous road that is paved with good intentions.456

Friedman applies this quote to two groups, the well-meaning sponsors, or the do-gooders, and the special interests, or the monopolistic craft trade unions, who use the well-meaning sponsors in their favor.457 In the instance of the Federal Communications Commission regulating the broadcasting industry, the public interest goals served as the foundation for government intervention. The honorable and meaningful intention of increasing competition, promoting diversity, and supporting localism through tighter government control for the greater good of society has, in my argument, unfortunately helped to create the media oligopoly we currently witness. Government involvement in regulating, de-regulating, then re-regulating the media industry has allowed for large media corporations to buy out and remove new media market competitions and muffle voices and opinions that may be contentious against their own interests.

Falling away from the public interest standard set by the FCC, media consolidation has resulted in less content and ownership competition, diversity, and localism. The lack of diversity in mainstream news media is problematic, and provides additional strain during presidential election season. In the structure of traditional media, media managers hold a tremendous amount of power in deciding which candidate gets covered, the quality and quantity of coverage the

456 “Notable & Quotable: Milton Friedman,” The Wall Street Journal, last modified October 6, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/ articles/notable-quotable-milton-friedman-1444169267. 457 Friedman’s statement is a specific reference to economic outcomes, particularly that of the minimum wage, but has been applied to many government policies and programs of similar nature.

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candidate receives, and how a candidate is framed (positively, neutrally, or negatively). Media owners and operators are not supposed to insert their personal beliefs and biases when reporting coverage on politics, unless doing so in an opinion piece. News media coverage of presidential candidates, political events, and public policy should conform to canons of “professional journalism”458 that include a code of ethics on the rights and responsibilities of the Fourth Estate.

The Fourth Estate should ideally serve as a watchdog on government, keeping elected officials and government administrations transparent and honest, while watching out for the interests of the people.459 But that role of the Fourth Estates responsibility is gradually changing with the increased access and expanded use of new media.

As I argued in Chapter Three of this dissertation, and as mentioned above, the dwindling trust in the Fourth Estate is one of many reasons for the tightening of media ownership and can be partly attributed to the regulatory-deregulatory influence of the FCC. It has been problematic for the natural forming of the media ecology that is dependent on a continuous renegotiation of all influencing factors—market demand, user preferences, government intervention, etc. As the control of mainstream media becomes smaller, we are witnessing a lack of diversity in news programming, with voters tuning-in to the same five 24-hour news networks (CNN, Fox News,

MSNBC, ABC News, and NBC News) for presidential news coverage. Each station caters to a demographic of viewers, and studies have shown that the media slant does affect viewer

458 Kahn, Kim Fridkin, and Patrick J. Kenney. “The Slant of the News: How Editorial Endorsements Influence Campaign Coverage and Citizens Views of Candidates.” American Political Science Review 96, no. 2 (2002): 381.

459 Kovach, Bill. The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect. 1st rev. ed., Completely updated and rev, New York: Three Rivers Press, 2007.

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perceptions of government and in the case of presidential election cycles, how they view candidates depending on the angle and degree of coverage.460 As presidential historian Doug

Wead puts it, “There is no news anymore, news is gone. Television is entertainment.”461

Mainstream news media’s focus is less on news and more on viewership, less on investigative journalism and more on sensationalism.462 The amount of substantive, policy driven information in news coverage of presidential campaigns has been declining since the introduction of televised debates in the 1960, and the number of Americans attending to the news has fallen.463

The focus of Chapter Four was around the media treatment and framing of two candidates, Barack Obama and Ron Paul, and how their approaches to new media strategies were influenced by how media managers covered their campaigns. Obama and Paul were both lesser known politicians going into the 2008 presidential election cycle and had contentious primaries against well-known politicians. Obama was scrutinized at the beginning as being too inexperienced in public policy and foreign affairs to be considered a serious contender against

Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Paul was considered too fringe and extreme in his views in comparison to the other Republican candidates. But as the national attitude shifted away from support of establishment candidates and career politicians, instead turning to a favor of change

460 Such studies include: “The Slant of the News: How Editorial Endorsements Influence Campaign Coverage and Citizens’ Views of Candidates” by Kim F. Kahn and Patrick J. Kenney; “The Dynamics of Racialized Media Coverage in Congressional Elections” by Nayda Terkildsen and David F. Damore; and “The Mass Media and the Public’s Assessments of Presidential Candidates, 1952-2000” by Martin Gilens, Lynn Vavreck, and Martin Cohen. 461 For Liberty, 2009. 462 The practice of sensationalism peaked in the 1890s with yellow journalism. Tabloids, drama and gossip laden news served as guilty pleasures of readers and viewers, who can occupy a subjective and contradictory landscape. 463 Gilens, Martin, Lynn Vavreck, and Martin Cohen. “The Mass Media and the Public’s Assessments of Presidential Candidates, 1952–2000.” The Journal of Politics 69, no. 4, 2007: 1172.

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and statesmanship, the two candidates were faced with growing popularity within the electorate.

The Fourth Estate changed their tune in the quantity and quality of how they covered Obama’s candidacy.464 Oddly in the Republican Primary, Paul who was vastly different than his

Republican counterparts, received no increase or positivity in media coverage. Despite the challenges both candidates faced against frontrunners in their political party, Obama and Paul were able to harness the connective power and organizational ability of new media platforms.

In Chapter Five, I discuss how their approaches to new media varied as a result of media treatment and framing. The use of the Internet for presidential campaigns dates as early as

1994.465 Internet standards for political campaigns have risen since the second shift, moving media and politics into the online realm of additional interactive participation. But it was the

2008 and 2012 elections that made a name for Internet use by presidential candidates (namely

Obama and Paul). Obama approached new media from a centralized control perspective and Paul from a spontaneous organizational approach. Their respective approaches to new media had both advantages and disadvantages in relation to how their official campaign was organized and operated. Their ability to use vastly different organizational methods yet still achieve desirable results is the beauty and power of new media.

The 2008 and 2012 presidential cycle saw Obama’s skillful, organizational use of social media to mobilize the youth vote. Obama received more favorable coverage allowing him to

464 As mentioned in Chapter Three, media framing in favor of Obama played an important role in how voters perceived Obama’s candidacy. Because of a high amount of coverage on Obama, his name recognition increased. Because of the increased positive stories about him in comparison to the negative stories, more people viewed him in a positive light, as the hope and change the country needed following the 8-years of Bush’s Administration. 465 Bimber, Bruce A. Campaigning Online: The Internet in U.S. Elections, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, 3.

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focus more on the internal organization of his campaign. The structured and managed organization of Obama’s campaign presented clear communication channels and managed relationships. His team used new media from a centralized control perspective, keeping goals clear and teamwork uniform. Obama’s Triple O team oversaw the digital media aspect of the campaign, creating their own political-social networking site MyBO.com to connect and organize supporters. Their presence on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube worked in unison to drive visitors back to the campaign’s official website as a central hub for information and updates. Social media was overseen by an expert in the field, whether it was the creation of a new connective platform like MyBO.com or the development of video content for sharing on YouTube. And new media creations that were not created by Obama’s official campaign in-house, like the Hope poster and the will.i.am video, were eventually brought on as an official aspect of the campaign.

The wide-reaching web of Obama’s organizational structure was not without faults or supporter input, but was predominantly internally driven with a top-down approach to organization. Having assistance from media managers with the centralized control new media strategy, Obama was successful in clinching the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 and eventually winning the general election.466

Media managers and the establishment Republican Party were both challenges for Paul’s campaign and his supporters in 2008 and 2012. Paul received less favorable media coverage, even on conservative outlets, resulting in a spontaneous approach to new media fueled by his

466 Having already built a strong support base in 2008, his re-election in 2012 was less of a challenge against his political party, and more of a focus against the eventual Republican nominee.

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supporters. They turned to social media and alternative media as means for messaging and mobilizing independent from Paul’s official campaign.467 Activists and supporters used non- traditional campaigning methods, raising funds online through moneybombs and creating online forums for debate and discussion, among other creative means for getting the word out about

Paul. The spontaneous organization of supporters also extended to other online networks that formed in support of Paul with the connective assistance of Facebook and Meetup. These sites allowed political activist groups to organize local activities such as sign-waves,468 block walks, or fundraising events. With over 1,140 Paul Meetup groups in 900 cities and more than 67,000 members, the groups operated independently from the campaign and moved their activism from online discussion to offline efforts.469 New media allowed for an expression and connection that helped their ability to adapt to traditional media challenges. Although his presence in traditional media was minimal, his name was widely circulated and discussed on the Internet.

In an ever-changing political climate of the twenty-first century, there is no doubt that media technologies are essential, strategic tools in the race for the White House, and because of them, Obama and Paul both created lasting legacies. Shifting from a dominantly traditional media saturated society to one that incorporates and negotiates traditional and new media, the literacy of media and politics by the American electorate is imperative to understanding the

467 The lack of scholarly studies and academic information covering Paul’s candidacy resulted in my focus in studying Paul to rely on cultural texts such as presidential debates he participated in, the various, creative methods of campaigning that his supporters used. 468 Sign waves were planned gatherings of supporters and activists who would bring posters to wave at busy traffic intersections in support of Paul. 469 Seelye, Katharine Q., and Leslie Wayne. “The Web Takes Ron Paul for a Ride,” The New York Times. Last modified November 11, 2007, accessed September 11, 2016, www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/us/politics/ 11paul.html.

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process of presidential electoral politics. New media has allowed for an ease and openness to participate that was not previously available to the masses when traditional media was the dominate practice and source of information. New media provides candidates opportunities for reaching the electorate directly and more cost efficiently470 in comparison to traditional media methods. It raises standards for political campaigns by increasing participation and providing a more interactive approach from the electorate, should they so choose to participate. In the traditional media method, voters open a newspaper, turn on the radio, or switch to a television station to receive information on the presidential election. The action is minimally participatory, and the communicated content is unidirectional. But the Internet gives users a more active process in seeking out and partaking in the political conversation, either through means of browsing news, sharing information, or creating content.

An increasing number of Americans are receiving their news from other outlets outside of traditional media with more influential factors of consideration like social media networks and alternative media perspectives. As of 2015, 84 percent of American adults use the Internet, an increase from a little over 50 percent in 2000.471 Just as we have discussed the importance of the

Fourth Estate to practice honest and fair journalism in covering all presidential contenders and serve as a trustworthy watchdog of government, the voting public also needs to do their part in researching and engaging in the political process beyond consumership of information. Being

470 Holman, Craig B., and Luke P. McLoughlin. “Buying Time 2000: Television Advertising in the 2000 Federal Elections.” Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, 2001.

471 Perrin, Andrew, and Maeve Duggan. “Americans’ Internet Access: 200-2015,” Pew Research Center, last modified June 26, 2015, http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/06/26/americans-internet-access-2000-2015/.

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aware of potential media biases and the power of media framing are concerns we must have as politically active adults participating in politics.

The growth and expansion of new media platforms in politics challenge the traditional media networks and the role of media managers in the Fourth Estate. There is a steady decline in trust in the Fourth Estate, aligned with the timing of new technology development increasing information access and connectivity. These factors allow for the rise of the Fifth Estate to significantly impact the environment of media and politics. Social and alternative media allows for presidential candidates and citizens to bypass the gatekeepers of traditional media and connect directly. The disruption of traditional media’s unidirectional channel of communication with the introduction of Internet renegotiates the ecology of media and politics.

The 2016 Presidential Election472

The 2016 presidential primaries in both political parties reflected media framing similarities from 2008 and 2012. During the Democratic Primary, there were claims of media bias in favor of Hillary Clinton and against Bernie Sanders. Sanders supporters complained about the lack of media coverage of his candidacy (much like Paul supporters did in 2008 and 2012). In the Republican Primary, the news media latched on to Donald Trump’s celebrity status, shifting the conversation around his reality TV theatrics into electoral politics.473

472 For purposes of my dissertation, the boundary I set for closing is the Democratic and Republican primaries, before the 2016 general election. As the current Trump administration is ongoing, the information that could be covered and updated is changing on a daily basis. My dissertation’s focus is on the 2008 and 2012 election cycles, and thus, I include the 2016 election as consideration for future media and political interaction. Because the 2016 election was fairly recent, academic and scholarly studies on the presidential campaign is somewhat limited, thus I turn to news sources for additional and relevant content. 473 Ouellette, Laurie. “The Trump Show.” Television & New Media 17, no. 7, 2016: 647.

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The Democratic Primary of 2016 was largely a race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie

Sanders. Following the previous 8 years under Obama’s administration and the historic first

African-American president of the United States of America, there was growing support for the

2016 election to be the year the U.S. elected its first female president. According to a Gallup poll by Justin McCarthy in 2015, 92 percent of Americans said they would vote for a well-qualified woman nominated by their party for presidency.474

The primary was largely contested, and Sanders was faced with similar challenges as

Paul did in 2008 and 2012. Sanders and his supporters questioned the lack of media coverage on his candidacy, referring to it as the “Bernie Blackout.” As an outspoken socialist, people still turned up to his rallies in great numbers and supported him with unprecedented numbers of small campaign donations.475 His views on big business proved to be unfriendly to media mangers at a time where the mainstream, corporate-run media still controls the airwaves. He said that corporate-owned media is inherently against his candidacy due to democratic socialist views on issues and policy.476 A Harvard study by Thomas Patterson confirms Sanders struggled to get media attention, receiving only two-thirds of the media coverage afforded to Clinton. But it also found that he received more positive news coverage than did Clinton.477 Despite the tradeoff, a

474 McCarthy, Justin. “In U.S., Socialist Presidential Candidates Least Appealing.” Gallup.com, June 22, 2015. http://www.gallup.com/poll/183713/socialist-presidential-candidates-least-appealing.aspx.

475 Gallagher, Tom. “Feeling the Bern.” New Labor Forum 25, no. 2, 2016: 21-22.

476 DeCosta-Klipa, Nik. “This Harvard Study Both Confirms and Refutes Bernie Sanders’s Complaints About the Media,” Boston Globe, last modified June 14, 2016, https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2016/06/14/harvard- study-confirms-refutes-bernie-sanderss-complaints-media. 477 Patterson, Thomas E. “News Coverage of the 2016 Presidential Primaries: Horse Race Reporting Has Consequences,” Shorenstein Center, last modified July 11, 2016, http://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage- 2016-presidential-primaries/.

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Sanders supporter, Eric Ewald, created a petition on Moveon.org calling out the National Public

Radio (NPR) for blatant media bias in favor of Clinton. The petition reads:

NPR: You should be ashamed of yourselves. You are just as guilty as all the rest of the corporate-owned media. When you're not ignoring Bernie Sanders you are minimizing him. National PUBLIC Radio--PUBLIC, get it? You are supposed to report the news, not try to influence it. Do your job and report unbiased news.478

Ewald provided background information stating that NPR covered Clinton in 76 stories in 2015 and only 14 stories on Sanders. The frustration in uneven coverage resulted in the petition receiving more than 10,000 signatures.

During the past two presidential election cycles, voters already witnessed how Ron Paul was handled by the Fourth Estate. For the behavior of mainstream news media to continue another election cycle with Bernie Sanders adds to the reasoning of dwindling trust in the Fourth

Estate. Some people argue that Sanders’ media blackout mirrors that of Ron Paul’s, and Paul has noted that he feels a “kinship” with Sanders, as the two occasionally agree on certain policies and oppose special interests to big businesses. In an interview on Politicking with Larry King,

Paul said about Sanders:

We’re both against corporatism. We’re both against the special benefits to big business. His answer to that wouldn’t always be the same. Mine would always drift to the free markets. His would drift to ‘well we need more government to redistribute wealth,’ but we could both attack subsidies to business or the military industrial complex. In that sense, there is a kinship.479

478 Ewald, Eric. “Tell NPR to Stop Ignoring and Minimizing Bernie Sanders,” MoveOn.org, http://pac.petitions.moveon.org/ sign/tell-npr-to-stop-ignoeing. 479 Hagen, Lisa. “Ron Paul: I Feel ‘Kinship’ with Sanders,” The Hill, last modified May 20, 2016, http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/280763-ron-paul-i-feel-kinship-with-sanders.

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Among other similarities they shared, Sanders also drew in large crowds of young voters and supporters excited around his candidacy. More than 2 million voters under the age of 30 voted for Sanders in the primaries and caucuses in 21 states. Clinton and Trump received a combined total of less than 1.6 million.480 But his youth support was not enough to win him the nomination, and ultimately, Clinton received more delegates, leading her to the nomination victory.

In the Republican race, the media was enthralled with Trump’s entertainment value and high ratings he brought in. As a reality TV celebrity best known for his role on NBC’s The

Apprentice, Trump presented the same person on his reality show as his bid for presidency, which has its advantages and disadvantages. His authentic reality star behavior—appearing bellicose, off-the-cuff, and spontaneous—breaks the expected, curated behavior481 of a typical presidential candidate. Patterson’s report found that media coverage of Trump’s campaign was higher than not only the other GOP candidates, but also the Democratic candidates as well.482

Although there was a large Republican Primary field of candidates including John Kasich, Ted

Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, Jim Gilmore, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Rick

Santorum, Rand Paul, and Mike Huckabee (with another handful who withdrew before the primaries—George Pataki, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, and Rick Perry), the study analyzed media coverage from January through June of 2016 of Trump, Cruz, Rubio,

480 Blake, Aaron. “More Young People Voted for Bernie Sanders than Trump and Clinton Combied—By a Lot,” The Washington Post, June 20, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/20/more-young- people-voted-for-bernie-sanders-than-trump-and-clinton-combined-by-a-lot/. 481 Dubrofsky, Rachel E. “Authentic Trump.” Television & New Media 17, no. 7, 2016: 664.

482 Patterson, Thomas E. “News Coverage of the 2016 Presidential Primaries: Horse Race Reporting Has Consequences,” Shorenstein Center, last modified July 11, 2016, http://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage- 2016-presidential-primaries/.

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Kasich, and included Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. The study also found that the even though the Democratic Primary lasted five weeks longer than the Republican

Primary, the Republicans received more media coverage because of an obsession with Trump.

When it came to the general election, after Trump secured the Republican nomination, media coverage of Trump was analyzed from a team at the Data Face by Jack Beckwith and

Nick Sorscher.483 In studying 21,981 articles about the 2016 election, they found that Trump’s name appeared in more than half of the article headlines. But the only media outlet to cover

Trump more positively than Clinton was Fox News. Other media outlets like The New York

Times, The Washington Post, Politico, and others were more favorable to Clinton’s candidacy.484

Trump may have had a higher quantity of media coverage, but the quality of it was not always positive. Trump has argued that he’s not “running against Crooked Hillary” but instead is

“running against the crooked media.”485

The move away from quality coverage of the 2016 presidential campaign by the Fourth

Estate is both predictable and puzzling. Mainstream news media is driven by readership, listenership and viewership, well provided by Trump’s campaign. The sensationalism of

Trump’s candidacy plays out like a reality television show, but instead of strictly entertainment, it has become a political reality. The Fourth Estate, by providing him plenty of air time and

483 Beckwith, Jack, and Nick Sorscher. “Trump and the Media: A Text Analysis.” The DataFace, August 15, 2016. http://thedataface.com/trump-media-analysis/.

484 Sides, John. “Is the Media Biased Toward Clinton or Trump? Here is Some Actual Hard Data,” The Washington Post, last modified September 20, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/09/20/is- the-media-biased-toward-clinton-or-trump-heres-some-actual-hard-data/. 485 “Bias Alert: Media Looks Inward, Deems Slanted Trump Coverage Warranted,” Fox News, last modified August 25, 2016, http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/08/25/bias-alert-media-looks-inward-deems-slanted-trump-coverage- warranted.html.

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coverage on non-issues, fed into his candidacy, proving to be another reason faith and trust in their proper roles and responsibilities is falling.

At the same time, the media treatment of Clinton was also predictable but puzzling. Her

2008 run was met with media and voter interest until Obama swept the nomination from her.

Considering that Clinton was the Democratic presidential nominee and was challenged by a former supporter of hers, Sanders, her 2016 run has been met with lukewarm reception.

Mainstream news media was fairly unconcerned with Clinton’s 263-day streak of not holding a press conference486 or the fact that the Clinton Foundation’s contribution records including corporate media groups like Comcast, Time Warner, and Viacom, as well as Carlos Slim, the

Mexican telecom magnate and largest shareholder of The New York Times Company, and James

Murdoch, the chief operating officer of 21st Century Fox.487

The problem of the Fourth Estate not doing their job through inaccurate reporting, lack of reporting, reporting on unsubstantial subject matter, ultimately becomes an issue for the

American electorate who rely on news media for presidential campaign information. Most of the media coverage on the 2016 primaries did not even cover political policies, leadership abilities, or historical stances of social and political issues (which only amounted to 11 percent of media coverage). Instead, coverage in both dominant political parties was largely devoted to which

486 Cillizza, Chris. “It’s been 263 Days Since Hillary Clinton Last Held a Press Conference. That’s a Dangerous Precedent,” The Washington Post, August 24, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- fix/wp/2016/08/24/hillary-clinton-still-has-no-good-answer-on-why-she-hasnt-held-a-press-conference-in-263- days/. 487 Gerstein, Josh, Tarini Parti, Hadas Gold, and Dylan Byers. “Clinton Foundation Donors Include Dozens of Media Organizations, Individuals,” Politico, May 15, 2015, http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/clinton- foundation-donors-include-dozens-of-media-organizations-individuals-207228.

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candidate had competitive game (56 percent) and explaining the campaign process to voters (33 percent).488 If there is any complaint or reporting now about lack of policy experience or leadership qualifications coming from journalists, or the rise of an unworthy candidate, the

Fourth Estate needs to take some responsibility due to their highly influential role as media managers.

The 2016 presidential election also saw less focus overall on campaign use of new media,489 but still incorporated social media into the election process. The first presidential debate between Clinton and Trump was broadcasted on traditional TV channels, but also live- streamed on social media sites YouTube, and for the first time on Facebook and Twitter.490 The debate pulled in an estimated 84 million viewers, making it the most-watched debate ever.491

Despite the high viewer count, voters were faced with two candidates they did not trust in 2016.

A June 2016 Rasmussen poll found that 45 percent thought Trump was less honest even than most politicians, and Clinton surpassed him with 46 percent.492 With two untrustworthy candidates to pick from, American voters were threatening not to vote, not voting for someone

488 Patterson, Thomas E. “News Coverage of the 2016 Presidential Primaries: Horse Race Reporting Has Consequences,” Shorenstein Center, last modified July 11, 2016, http://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage- 2016-presidential-primaries/. 489 This could be due to both Clinton and Trump being well-known and well-funded that they do not require the assistance of new media for name recognition or fundraising purposes. 490 Castillo, Michelle. “Clinton-Trump First Presidential Debate is the Most Viewed Ever,” CNBC, last modified September 27, 2016, http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/27/clinton-trump-first-presidential-debate-is-the-most- viewed-ever.html. 491 Kennedy, Merrit. “Clinton-Trump Showdown is Most-Watched Presidential Debate,” NPR, last modified September 27, 2016, http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/27/495692196/clinton-trump-showdown- is-most-watched-presidential-debate. 492 Peterson, Joel. “The Real Reasons Clinton and Trump Lost America’s Trust,” Fortune, August 4, 2016, http://fortune.com/2016/08/04/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-trust/.

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but rather voting against another, or pondering third-party candidates as a protest vote. The loss of voter trust in politics also translates to a loss of trust in the news media who framed these candidates in ways that allowed them to clinch their respective party’s nomination. And with an already declining trust of media and political institutions, the line between media and politics is becoming harder to find.

Fall of the Fourth Estate and Rise of the Fifth Estate

The Fourth Estate has only reinforced reasons for declining American trust in media with their treatment of primary candidates in the Democratic Party, Republican Party, and even third party candidates. We are already seeing a change in how news is being reported and process with the passage of time, the altering landscape of media technologies, and a generational shift of media preferences of voters.

The distrust Americans have in the Fourth Estate is already at an all-time low. According to a Gallup poll, only 32 percent say they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media, whereas last year it was 40 percent.493 A report put out by the Media Insight Project stated:

Over the last two decades, research shows the public has grown increasingly skeptical of the news industry. The study reaffirms that consumers do value broad concepts of trust like fairness, balance, accuracy, and completeness.494

Jonathan M. Ladd, author of Why Americans Hate the Media and How It Matters, attributes the decline of trust to three things: the general decline in confidence in all American institutions, the

493 Swift, Art. “Americans’ Trust in Mass Media Sinks to New Low,” Gallup. Last modified September 14, 2016, http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx. 494 Visser, Nick. “Hardly Anyone Trusts the Media Anymore,” Huffington Post. Last modified April 18, 2016, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trust-in-media_us_57148543e4b06f35cb6fec58.

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polarization of political parties and a move to partisan outlets, and changes in technology allowing new news sources to come into existence.495 The consolidation of media ownership has visibly translated to a lack of diversity in mainstream media and a lowered standard of journalistic integrity. When journalists become less objective in their reporting, when news becomes less about researching and reporting facts and truth, people will turn to other methods and platforms for information. “Citizens need information,” says DePauw University communications professor Jeff McCall. He continues:

They need to get it from the media. The First Amendment was set up to create a media that served as a surrogate role for the public, and if the public is not engaged and they move on and they're not consuming news and they're only getting news from Facebook or about pop culture or things like that, it's really a disservice and it hurts our democracy a lot.496

Political knowledge is a function of opportunity, motivation, and ability,497 and a consistent finding in communication studies and literature is that higher political knowledge is positively associated with increased news media use.498 More and more people are receiving their news from other outlets outside of traditional media means, as the report found that 87 percent of people get their news on Facebook. People are more likely to trust information put out by people they know—friends and family sharing news online. With the explosion of social and alternative

495 Kauffman, Gretel. “Why Americans’ Trust in the Media is at an All-Time Low,” CS Monitor. Last modified September 16, 2016, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2016/0915/Why-Americans-trust-in-the-media-is-at-an-all- time-low. 496 “Public Trust in Media is Important for Our Democracy, Prof. Jeff McCall ’76 Tells TV’s O’Reilly Factor,” DePauw University, last modified September 18, 2014, http://www.depauw.edu/news-media/latest- news/details/31208/. 497 Carpini, Michael X. Delli, and Scott Keeter. What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press), 1996.

498 Neuman, W. Russell. The Paradox of Mass Politics: Knowledge and Opinion in the American Electorate. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986.

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media means for increased citizen journalism, and with mainstream news media standards being questioned by viewers, trust is shifting away from the Fourth Estate and more towards the Fifth

Estate.

Cable television is still the dominant source for news information, but it is seemingly complemented by social media platforms. Users of Twitter and Facebook are exposed to a lot or some political information. Twitter has 310 million monthly active users,499 and has cemented itself as a digital soapbox, and a place for politicians to engage directly with people.500, 501

Facebook has 1.59 billion users502 as of January 2016503 and has more recently included political action, such as sharing if one is registered to vote or has voted following an election, as a suggested status update. The growing trend of accessing digital news could be a result of more users joining social media sites, the increased number of news networks and journalists creating pages on Facebook and accounts on Twitter online for people to follow. Or it could simply be the result of new generation adapting quicker to developing media technology. Despite the increased use of social media in political participation, these platforms have not replaced traditional media, but have instead changed how voters approach political communication and presidential

499 Frier, Sarah. “Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage,” Bloomberg Technology, last modified June 2, 2016, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-02/snapchat-passes-twitter-in-daily-usage. 500 Lee, Dave. “How Twitter Changed the World,” BBC News. Last modified November 7, 2013, http://www.bbc.com/news/ technology-24802766. 501 It is also important to note that of the 310 million Twitter users, not all users are politically active or even American, of voting age, and registered voters. The inclusion of the statistic is to indicate that the social media site is highly popular. 502 Similarly with Twitter, the inclusion of the statistic of Facebook users is to indicate the highly popular social media site, as not all users are politically active or even American, of voting age, and registered voters. 503 Constine, Josh. “Facebook Climbs to 1.59 Billion Users and Crushes Q4 Estimates with $5.8B Revenue,” Tech Crunch, last modified January 27, 2016, https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/27/facebook-earnings-q4-2015/.

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campaigns.504 But there are still concerns of the workings of new media development and the acquisition of social media platforms by media corporate conglomerations and by other social media companies.

Pierre Bourdieu, French sociologist, argued that the lack of access among the general populace to the tools necessary for political participation has resulted in the concentration of political power.505 New media provides an option outside of the traditional norm, but has increasingly seen integration into traditional media ownership. In 2005, MySpace, created in

2003, was bought by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation for $580 million. Then in 2006,

Google sought to sell ads on MySpace in a $900 million deal.506 Google also purchased

YouTube in October of that year for $1.65 billion.507 YouTube, which launched in February

2005, currently has over a billion users, almost one-third of all people on the internet.508 More recently in 2012, Facebook purchased Instagram for $1 billion even though the photo-sharing app produced no revenue. And most recently Facebook bought WhatsApp, a mobile messaging app which has upwards of 450 million users around the world, for $19 billion.509 The cross- pollination and acquisitions of media companies by media companies, and the consolidation of

504 Enli, Gunn. “Twitter as Areana for the Authentic Outsider: Exploring the Social Media Campaigns of Trump and Clinton in the 2016 US Presidential Election.” European Journal of Communication 32, no. 1, 2017: 52.

505 Bourdieu, Pierre. Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991, 172.

506 Rushe, Dominic. “MySpace Sold for $35 Million in Spectacular Fall from $12 Billion Heyday,” The Guardian, June 30, 2011, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/jun/30/myspace-sold-35-million-news. 507 La Monica, Paul R. “Google to Buy YouTube for $1.65 Billion,” CNN Money, October 9, 2006, http://money.cnn.com/ 2006/10/09/technology/googleyoutube_deal/. 508 “Statistics,” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.html. 509 Covert, Adrian. “Facebook Buys WhatsApp for $19 Billion,” CNN Money, February 19, 2014, http://money.cnn.com/2014/ 02/19/technology/social/facebook-whatsapp/.

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social media companies following in the steps of traditional media mergers may be indicative of mediated politics, political media, the Fourth Estate, and the Fifth Estate of the future.

The explosion of social media platforms and the popularity of new networking options has become a market for increased media competition to develop the next, new platform or application. It has worked to provide diversity, not only in the sense of ownership and content, but increased networked diversity—allowing for users of different ethnicities, ages, genders, socioeconomic statuses, political affiliations, etc., to occupy digital realms of existence and discuss similar interests, debate important issues, and interact online. And it has helped to prompt localism by encouraging actors to not only participate in online politics, but move the activism into offline and local spaces.

As Internet users continue to rise, moving away from traditional media viewing practices and formulating alternative audience behavior (digitally and mobile oriented), people will seek out new routes of communicative means that examines hierarchical dominated traditions, requiring a renegotiation of the structure of media and breaking through the concentrated political power. As Amy Mitchell, Pew Research Center’s Director for Journalism Research, states it:

As social networking sites recognize and adapt to their role in the news environment, each will offer unique features. These different ways of connecting with news have implications for how Americans learn about the world and their communities, and for how they take part in the democratic process.510

510 Lichterman, Joseph. “New Pew Data: More Americans are Getting News on Facebook and Twitter,” Nieman Lab. Last modified July 14, 2015, http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/07/new-pew-data-more-americans-are-getting- news-on-facebook-and-twitter/.

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As traditional media users supplement political information with new media networks, social media may one day surpass television as the main source of political and presidential news. This also means not only are voters consuming and sharing news, but they are also finding more outlets for increased participation through creating content and serving, to an extent, as citizen journalists.

Citizen journalists or participatory journalists, those without professional training, feel compelled to do journalism not because they see the ethos of professional journalism as illegitimate, or because they want to invent a new form of journalism, but because they believe that professional journalists are not doing their jobs. Citizens become informed not by consuming information but by interacting, discussing, and mutually influencing others with the information. New forms of participatory journalism consider connectivity, interactivity, and community as essential to the practice of journalism and the production of news, and stress the fading distinctions among information providers, reporters, editors, and readers made possible by internet technologies.511 The ecology of media and politics is an ongoing evolution, with many complex and intricate parts. The drawbacks of losing trust in the Fourth Estate does not mean that trust is directly invested in the Fifth Estate. As a non-professional category of news journalism, the nature of citizen journalism—hyperlocal, lacking professional oversight or editing, or training in the norms of reporting512—is one that still needs time to develop and incorporate into current cultural, social, and political standards.

511 Lievrouw, Alternative and Activist New Media, 121.

512 Kaufhold, Kelly, Sebastian Valenzuela, and Homero Gil De Zúñiga. “Citizen Journalism and Democracy: How User-Generated News Use Relates to Political Knowledge and Participation.” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 87, no. 3–4, 2010: 522.

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The electorate’s role is simply changing from being media consumers of unidirectional media channels to media participants and actively engaging in receiving, discussing, or debating news on new media platforms. The added means of communication provides media abilities and practices for individuals to exchange knowledge, experience, and information in hopes of improving social and political conditions. The idea of consensus-building through rational and inclusive debate, by German sociologist and philosopher Jürgen Habermas,513 emphasizes the digital deliberative democracy model, focusing on how citizens use online discussion spaces to produce critically informed public opinions.514 Not only is having the ability to participate important, but the desire, drive, and motivation to actively participate is paramount. In the twenty-first century, digital media networks and online environments are central to the construction of lived social and cultural worlds, creating new categories of action and shared understanding.515 If political participation online is meaningful and empowering,516 then the electorate has a responsibility to be actively involved offline as well. As the line between the media and politics continue to blur, we must become more aware of the interconnectedness of online and offline worlds.

513 Habermas, Jürgen. The Theory of Communicative Action. Boston: Beacon Press, 1984.

514 Dahlberg, 2011, 860.

515 Couldry, Nick. Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice. Cambridge; Malden, MA: Polity, 2012.

516 Charles, Alec. Interactivity 2: New Media, Politics and Society. Second edition. Oxford, England: Peter Lang Oxford, 2014.

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Conclusion

The growth and evolution of media and politics will continue to shape the importance of our literacy, participation, and study of the field. The gradual fall of the Fourth Estate and the rise of the Fifth Estate may result in a new era of political practice that we have become so accustom to—reshaping of media participation in politics, new voter technology practices, and potentially one day moving away from the dominating two-party system. Matt Silverman of

Mashable predicted a shift to interactive media and away from television,517 which we are slowly witnessing with the new generation of voters using social media to actively participate in political discourse. David Plouffe, who served as campaign manager for Obama, predicts additional technological advancements such as a move to online voter registration and perhaps even digital voting in the future.518 And Michael Lind, author of Land of Promise: An Economic

History of the United States, thinks in the 2020s and 2030s, the two-party system will be different than the current partisan parties we understand now, a “reassembling of new

Democratic and Republican coalitions.”519

The future of media and politics, with its infinite possibilities as media technologies continue to grow and develop and political policies continue to change and reflect social shifts to reflect cultural priorities, is a future every new wave of applicable voting generations must be

517 Silber, Matt. “4 Predictions for the Future of Politics and Social Media,” Mashable, last modified December 29, 2010, http://mashable.com/2010/12/29/predictions-politics-social-media/#qp72XkTNnSqS. 518 Plouffe, David. “David Plouffe on Politics of the Future: Avatars and Digital Voting,” The Wall Street Journal, last modified July 7, 2014, http://www.wsj.com/articles/david-plouffe-on-politics-of-the-future-holograms-and- digital-voting-1404763516. 519 Lind, Michael. “This is What the Future of American Politics Looks Like,” Politico, last modified May 22, 2016, http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/2016-election-realignment-partisan-political-party-policy- democrats-republicans-politics-213909.

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aware of. Understanding the past of how media competition, diversity, and localism has shifted from the original intent, which unfortunately was not clearly defined to begin with, will hopefully allow us to better shape the path of such standards for media in the future. Media and political literacy in differentiating between spectacle and substance, knowing the role of the

Three Estates, the watchdog profession of the Fourth Estate, and the rising citizen journalism of the Fifth Estate, provides opportunities to experience and influence the dynamic of political change.

The two case study campaigns in this dissertation serve as a starting point for future practices of new media methods and applications in presidential electoral politics. They show that despite media framing treatment one may receive from traditional mainstream media, the openness and connectivity of new media allows for organizational methods that can compete with traditional campaign strategies. The two organizational approaches used by Obama and

Paul each have their advantages as well as their drawbacks. The importance is being able to adapt to changes and challenges as necessary and to genuinely connect and care about constituents.

We have seen the controlled and organic growth of media and politics through studying past presidential elections, and can only learn from the past to look to the future. The complex systems of technology, society, economics, politics, power, will constantly be growing and evolving to form practices of participation and organizational structures. Perhaps the move away from traditional media for political participation will one day be replaced with new media interactions, much like what we have already been witnessing with the translation of online networks into offline activism. Perhaps the move away from partisanship politics will one day be

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replaced with issue based social and political movements pulling in diverse coalitions of support.

As we look to the future of presidential electoral politics, many issues must still be addressed to create a better relationship between campaigns, news media, and voters. We need to demand honesty and integrity from political candidates. We need to demand fair and unbiased reporting from journalists and reporters. And we need to demand literacy and positive participation from the electorate. No matter how media technology advances or political power changes, media will always be political and politics will always be mediated.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

H. Stacy Chen received her PhD from The University of Texas at Dallas in Aesthetic Studies.

She has a Master of Arts and Bachelor of Arts from Baylor University in Communication

Studies and Film and Digital Media respectively. She has experience in education, politics, and performance, all of which are her deepest passions.

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CURRICULUM VITAE

H. Stacy Chen

Education

University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas, Texas Ph.D. in Humanities, focus in Aesthetic Studies, 2017

Baylor University, Waco, Texas M.A. in Communication Studies, 2009 B.A. in Film and Digital Media, minor in Corporate Communications, 2007

Teaching Experience

University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas, Texas Teaching Assistant, Understanding Film Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014 Teaching Assistant, Exploration of the Arts Fall 2012, Spring 2013 Teaching Assistant, Introduction to Humanities Fall 2011, Spring 2012 Teaching Assistant, Understanding Film Fall 2010, Spring 2011

Baylor University, Waco, Texas Graduate Instructor, Production Methods 1 Fall 2008, Spring 2009 Teaching Assistant, Theatre Arts Department Fall 2007, Spring 2008

Conferences, Seminars, and Trainings

• Panopticon: Surveillance, Suspicion, Fear at Lincoln University Apr 2016 Presentation: Disrupting the Status Quo: Breaking Identity Politics with Ron Paul’s Revolution • DFW Asian Americans Citizen Council Dec 2015 Presentation: The Importance of Getting Involved in Politics as an Asian American • Young Americans for Liberty, Texas Regional Conferences Apr 2015 • Digital Frontiers Conference at Texas Women’s University Sept 2014 Presentation: New Media in Electoral Politics: From TV to Internet • Students for Liberty, Dallas Regional Conference Oct 2014, Oct 2013 • Young Americans for Liberty, National Convention Jul 2014, Aug 2013 • DFW Chinese Alliance’s Civic and Political Participation Training May 2014 Presentation: Civic Participation 101

• “Growth of Government” Advanced Topics Seminar May 2014 Institute for Humane Studies invited graduate student attendee • “Spontaneous Order” Advanced Topics Seminar Nov 2013 Institute for Humane Studies invited graduate student attendee • Digital Frontiers Conference at University of North Texas Sept 2013 “Birds-of-a-Feather” Session Topic: Internet Politics • “Liberty & Society” Summer Seminar Jul 2013 Institute for Humane Studies accepted student applicant • “Bridging Disciplines & Communities” Annual Humanities Conference at Oklahoma State University Apr 2013 Presentation: The Digital and the Humanities • Research, Art, and Writing Symposium at UT Dallas Mar 2013 Presentation: Intertextual Narrative and the Action Heroine: Gazing at Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Resident Evil • Research, Art, and Writing Symposium at UT Dallas Mar 2012 Presentation: A Shamanic Perspective of "The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers” • Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities Jan 2012 Presentation: Superhero and Shaman: Elements of a Superhuman • Research, Art, and Writing Symposium at UT Dallas Apr 2011 Video Presentation: “First Time”

Travel Grants

The Mises Institute Student Scholarship, Mises Circle in Houston Spring 2013 Betty and Gifford Harris Travel Grant Spring 2012

Organization Memberships

South Central Modern Language Association Graduate Student Member (2016) Graduate Student Association at University of Texas at Dallas Member (2009–current), Membership Chair (2011–2012) Asian Students Association at Baylor University Graduate Advisor (2008–2009), President (2007–2008), External Vice President (2006– 2007), Historian (2005–2006)

Research Interests

Media: Digital Technologies, Social Networking, Media and Politics, Philosophy and Economics, New and Alternative Media Film: Screenwriting, Film and Video Direction, Politics and Society, Film and Dance Communications: Interpersonal, Non-Verbal, Corporate Dance: Chinese Classical, Contemporary, Hip-hop, Modern, Ritual