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5 Responses to “The fruits of community organizing”
Try bitching to an Obama supporter about his changing colors now that he is the nominee, and you might get the response that “they all do that.” Precisely. Where’s the change? It’s where the wind blows the O.
Well then, he’ll have to change his colors again now, won’t he? He finally dumped his preacher (would JFK have done that, not that Cardinal Spelman would have ever damned America?), says he was never part of the corrupt machinery in Chicago (but took their $$), so it’s good to see the press finally calling him on some stuff. We are going to see the full flowering of a media campaign (it’s the message, man), 48 years after JFK looked so convincingly younger and more energetic than the man who needed a shave and a chill pill. I fear we have dumbed down considerably since then too, while the medium now brings us bigger and flatter holes in the wall in high def with movie theater sound. Ahh, what a mix for a media meister. Play on. We’re fools for tools.
Recent studies have shown that voters without any knowledge of candidates can predict election outcomes with 60 to 70 percent accuracy merely by seeing 10 seconds of the candidates in debate excerpts — with the sound off. Similar findings have been found for candidate photographs (using standard black and white headshots).
Like images of weather patterns, candidate images are reliable forms of voter information that can accurately predict election outcomes independent of political factors and even economic conditions. Facial expressions are particularly important nonverbal cues communicated on news broadcasts, and increasingly online through video streams and downloads. They reveal information that shape impressions of candidate character.
Because they do not require advanced literacy skills, audiovisual media play an indispensable role in informing the mass electorate. Research in visual knowledge shows that troubling information disparities between voters based on gender, race and educational differences vanish when political knowledge is measured with the aid of visual cues such as photographs of important public figures, not just their names.
Such trends point to the importance of delivering relevant media coverage to cut through the clutter of a two-year campaign process. Increasingly, this means providing meaningful campaign visuals, which for all but the most dedicated partisans will have a greater impact as stimuli than verbal language.
See my next post. This whole reliance on intuitiveness - “I can see where he’s coming from by his facial expressions” - has occurred at the expense of the populace actually knowing something about history, economics, science, religion and the U.S. Constitution.
July 5th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Try bitching to an Obama supporter about his changing colors now that he is the nominee, and you might get the response that “they all do that.” Precisely. Where’s the change? It’s where the wind blows the O.
July 5th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
The New York Times ripped him a new one in an editorial yesterday for some of his recent flip-flops.
July 5th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Well then, he’ll have to change his colors again now, won’t he? He finally dumped his preacher (would JFK have done that, not that Cardinal Spelman would have ever damned America?), says he was never part of the corrupt machinery in Chicago (but took their $$), so it’s good to see the press finally calling him on some stuff. We are going to see the full flowering of a media campaign (it’s the message, man), 48 years after JFK looked so convincingly younger and more energetic than the man who needed a shave and a chill pill. I fear we have dumbed down considerably since then too, while the medium now brings us bigger and flatter holes in the wall in high def with movie theater sound. Ahh, what a mix for a media meister. Play on. We’re fools for tools.
July 6th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Tell me whatteye say? Interesting home grown article in this morning’s star on the influence of medium on voting behavior.
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080706/OPINION03/807060321/1032/OPINION03
Recent studies have shown that voters without any knowledge of candidates can predict election outcomes with 60 to 70 percent accuracy merely by seeing 10 seconds of the candidates in debate excerpts — with the sound off. Similar findings have been found for candidate photographs (using standard black and white headshots).
Like images of weather patterns, candidate images are reliable forms of voter information that can accurately predict election outcomes independent of political factors and even economic conditions. Facial expressions are particularly important nonverbal cues communicated on news broadcasts, and increasingly online through video streams and downloads. They reveal information that shape impressions of candidate character.
Because they do not require advanced literacy skills, audiovisual media play an indispensable role in informing the mass electorate. Research in visual knowledge shows that troubling information disparities between voters based on gender, race and educational differences vanish when political knowledge is measured with the aid of visual cues such as photographs of important public figures, not just their names.
Such trends point to the importance of delivering relevant media coverage to cut through the clutter of a two-year campaign process. Increasingly, this means providing meaningful campaign visuals, which for all but the most dedicated partisans will have a greater impact as stimuli than verbal language.
July 7th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
See my next post. This whole reliance on intuitiveness - “I can see where he’s coming from by his facial expressions” - has occurred at the expense of the populace actually knowing something about history, economics, science, religion and the U.S. Constitution.