Abstract
Political marketing employs a constellation of mediums: but television remains the supreme gift to politicians, with their presence assured in every home, and political marketing is largely a television activity. It is even employed in minor campaigns. According to David Garth, television ‘can take someone who’s relatively unknown and make him a visible factor’.
‘When he has been drawn out of his own sphere, therefore, he always expects that some amazing object will be offered to his attention; and it is on these terms alone that he consents to tear himself for a moment from the petty, complicated cares which form the charm and the excitement of his life.’
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes and References
Griese, N.H., ‘Rosser Reeves and the 1952 Eisenhower TV Spot Blitz’, Journal of Advertising, vol. 4, no. 4, Fall 1975, pp. 34–8.
McGinnis, Joe, The Selling of the President, 1968 (New York: Trident Press, 1969).
Seymour-Ure, Colin, The American President: Power and Communication (London: Macmillan, 1982).
Crotty, William J. and Jacobson, Gary C., American Parties in Decline (Boston and Toronto: Little Brown and Co., 1980).
Sabato, Larry, The Rise of Political Consultants: New Ways of Winning Elections (New York: Basic Books, 1981).
Blumenthal, Sidney, The Permanent Campaign (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982).
Nimmo, Dan, The Political Persuaders (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1970).
Diamond, E. and Bates, S., New York, 1 October 1984.
Perry, James M., The New Politics (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968), pp. 116–17.
Diamond and Bates, New York, 1 October 1984.
These examples from Edwin Diamond and Stephen Bates, ‘Hot Spots’, New York, 15 Feb. 1988.
Ranney, Austin, Channels of Power (New York: Basic Books, 1983).
Arterton, Christopher, ‘Communications Technology and Governance’, Dec. 1985, in Project on New Communications Technologies.
McKay, David, American Politics and Society (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1983).
Kristol, Irving, Two Cheers for Capitalism (New York: Basic Books, 1978).
Further Reading
Atkinson, Max, Our Masters’ Voices (London: Methuen, 1984), for discussion of range and subtlety of television’s demands; of the differences between a live and a televised performance style, and how oratory is ill-suited to television (pp. 175–6).
Bakshian, Aram, Winning the White House (Bolton: Ross Anderson Publications, 1984), for discussion of Mondale’s use of satellite (p. 94).
Barber, James David, The Pulse of Politics (New York: W. W. Norton, 1980) for discussion of candidate gaffes, particularly Carter and ‘ethnic purity’ (pp. 194–9).
Flanigan, William M., Political Behaviour of the American Electorate (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1968, 1977), for discussion of how Kennedy defused the issue of his Catholicism.
Hodgson, Godfrey, All things to all men (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1984) for description of Lyndon Johnson’s difficulties with television (p. 176).
MacNeil, Robert, The People Machine (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1968) for viewpoint on the triviality of television (pp. 35, 41); blandness of television news (pp. 39, 60); lack of serious social documentary coverage (pp.81, 82); inability to explore the ‘why’ factor (p. 57); television as escapism (pp. 13, 14); news as entertainment (p. 21); Nixon-Kennedy debates (pp. 168–72); Nixon’s telethon (p. 198); Kennedy’s campaign film (p. 200); anti-Goldwater commercials (pp. 207, 208).
Saldich, Anne Rowley, Electronic Democracy (New York: Praeger, 1979) for assertions about the political effects of television: claims that it hinders reasoned discussion (p. 42), weakens parties and conventions (p. 43) and makes democracy more cynical (p. 40).
White, Theodore H. The Making of the President 1964 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1965), for description of the Goldwater campaign’s non-mediable ranting aggression, its excellence at the administration level but poverty in the area of speechwriters, media men and so on.
Copyright information
© 1990 Nicholas J. O’Shaughnessy
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
O’Shaughnessy, N.J. (1990). Television. In: The Phenomenon of Political Marketing. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10352-2_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10352-2_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-10354-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-10352-2
eBook Packages: Palgrave Business & Management CollectionBusiness and Management (R0)