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Introduction

in Inside the Presidential Debates: Their Improbable Past and Promising Future

President John F. Kennedy said that without the televised debates he would not have been elected president in 1960. Going into the campaign, Kennedy was not nearly as well known as Richard M. Nixon, ... More

President John F. Kennedy said that without the televised debates he would not have been elected president in 1960. Going into the campaign, Kennedy was not nearly as well known as Richard M. Nixon, who had been vice president for eight years. Today almost no one remembers the issues the two men discussed, but for better and worse, the Kennedy-Nixon debates changed presidential elections forever, propelling them into the age of television. Three short years after those first televised encounters between Nixon and Kennedy, the latter would be assassinated, and with him went the nascent “tradition” of televised presidential debates. In 1975, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revised its interpretation of the equal time law to make debates possible. With the change in the law, as in 1960, the opportunity for debates in 1976 was fortuitous. This book tells the story of how the televised presidential debates evolved in the United States. It argues that the American system of free expression, and the American system of broadcasting, is unique.Less

The Dilemma: Who Debates?

in Inside the Presidential Debates: Their Improbable Past and Promising Future

The most serious criticism of the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) is that it conspires with the major parties to deny candidates other than the Republican and Democratic nominees the ... More

The most serious criticism of the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) is that it conspires with the major parties to deny candidates other than the Republican and Democratic nominees the opportunity to participate in the debates. Having exhausted their legal arguments before the Federal Communications Commission, minor-party candidates have now taken their legal challenges elsewhere, to the Federal Election Commission and the Internal Revenue Service. The new approach is to argue that the CPD is a “bipartisan” rather than “nonpartisan” organization and is therefore illegal. If the CPD were a bipartisan organization—nothing more than an extension of the Republican and Democratic parties—then the various corporate contributions it receives would amount to illegal campaign contributions to the candidates under federal election law. In 2000 and 2004, Green Party candidate Ralph Nader made this charge repeatedly. That he was able to do so effectively owes in part to his rhetorical gifts, but even more to the controversy surrounding Reform Party candidate Ross Perot in 1996. This chapter examines the problem of whom to include in televised presidential debates.Less

The Political Information Cycle

Andrew Chadwick

in The Hybrid Media System: Politics and Power

Following chapter 3, the emphasis shifts toward deeper exploration of key events and processes that reveal the hybrid media system in flow. Chapter 4 proposes a new approach to political news making ... More

Following chapter 3, the emphasis shifts toward deeper exploration of key events and processes that reveal the hybrid media system in flow. Chapter 4 proposes a new approach to political news making based on what is termed the political information cycle. The chapter examines the mediation of two extraordinary news events during the 2010 British general election campaign: the Bullygate scandal and Britain's first ever live televised prime ministerial debate. It shows how political information cycles are built on news-making assemblages that combine older and newer media logics. Using original data gathered during two intensive periods of live qualitative research, the chapter reveals how the hybrid mediation of politics now presents new opportunities for non-elite actors to mobilize and enter news production through timely interventions and sometimes direct, one-to-one, micro-level interactions with professional journalists.Less

The Commission on Presidential Debates and Its Critics

in Inside the Presidential Debates: Their Improbable Past and Promising Future

Institutionalizing presidential debates had been the goal of the League of Women Voters, but by 1984 it was clear that it simply did not have the clout to succeed. In 1976, 1980, and 1984, the ... More

Institutionalizing presidential debates had been the goal of the League of Women Voters, but by 1984 it was clear that it simply did not have the clout to succeed. In 1976, 1980, and 1984, the debates occurred only after a long period of sporadic negotiations followed by a late flurry of eleventh-hour negotiations between the leading candidates and, in an ever-diminishing role, the League. After the 1984 campaign, two distinguished national organizations, the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Harvard University Institute of Politics, independently conducted detailed studies of the process involved in presidential elections generally and the presidential debates specifically. In 1987, the independent Commission on Presidential Debates was created. Since then, the Commission has institutionalized the presidential debates, but its reliance on the two major parties, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, has drawn sharp criticism from people. However, much of what critics find to fault in the televised presidential debates has nothing to do with the Commission.Less

“If You're Thirty-two Points Behind, What Else Are You Going to Do?”

in Inside the Presidential Debates: Their Improbable Past and Promising Future

The 1960 temporary exemption to the Equal Time law provided by Congress marked the formal beginning of televised presidential debates in the United States. That they happened at all, however, owed ... More

The 1960 temporary exemption to the Equal Time law provided by Congress marked the formal beginning of televised presidential debates in the United States. That they happened at all, however, owed largely to the fact that no incumbent president was a candidate in the 1960 election. Three presidential elections would pass before another fortuitous set of political circumstances made it possible for the televised debates to happen again. The 1976 election presented an ideal climate for change. While there was a Republican incumbent, President Gerald Ford, he faced great initial difficulties in the campaign because of the Watergate scandal and his unpopular pardon of Richard M. Nixon. He needed to debate to close the gap. His Democratic challenger, Georgia governor Jimmy Carter, was also eager to debate. However, the demands for equal time from the many minor-party candidates remained a problem. The Federal Communications Commission under Chairman Richard Wiley reviewed the legislative history behind both the 1959 amendments and the 1960 exemption and concluded that Congress had meant to exempt debates from the equal opportunity doctrine.Less

How to Improve the Presidential Debates

in Inside the Presidential Debates: Their Improbable Past and Promising Future

The 2008 presidential election was the first in fifty-six years—since Dwight D. Eisenhower ran against Adlai E. Stevenson in 1952—that American voters did not have a choice on their ballots that ... More

The 2008 presidential election was the first in fifty-six years—since Dwight D. Eisenhower ran against Adlai E. Stevenson in 1952—that American voters did not have a choice on their ballots that included a sitting president or vice president. The election occurred in the midst of a communications revolution in which more than 70 percent of American households had Internet access and 90 percent of Internet users were registered voters. They could get their news and political information from Web sites maintained by television and cable news organizations, candidates, political parties, advocacy groups, and non-partisan voter education groups. While the Internet has the potential to improve the character of U.S. politics by providing more and better-quality information to more people, Internet use by itself will not produce “better” democracy or “more informed” citizens, either in nation-states or globally. In this new media and political environment, one thing is certain: televised presidential debates are more important than ever before. This chapter offers five recommendations to make presidential debates more substantive and useful to voters.Less

How Adlai Stevenson Put John F. Kennedy in the White House

in Inside the Presidential Debates: Their Improbable Past and Promising Future

In 1955, two of the most powerful men in the United States, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, both suffered heart attacks. Eisenhower decided to run again ... More

In 1955, two of the most powerful men in the United States, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, both suffered heart attacks. Eisenhower decided to run again in 1956, while Adlai E. Stevenson, former Illinois governor, entered the primaries and won his party's nomination. The two electoral contests between Eisenhower and Stevenson were a turning point in presidential campaigns. Both traveled the country meeting voters, but the Republicans made extensive use of television, too. In 1959 Stevenson wrote an article about television and politics for This Week magazine. The following year, he proposed the establishment of what he hoped would become a national institution, a great debate for the presidency: televised presidential debates. That fall, Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Massachusetts senator John F. Kennedy would have four televised debates. The state of Illinois played a major role in determining the outcome of the 1960 presidential election, won by Kennedy.Less

Presidential Debates and “Equal Opportunity”

in Inside the Presidential Debates: Their Improbable Past and Promising Future

From the vantage point of the twenty-first century, it is easy to overlook the fact that much of the long controversy surrounding the presidential debates in the United States had nothing to do with ... More

From the vantage point of the twenty-first century, it is easy to overlook the fact that much of the long controversy surrounding the presidential debates in the United States had nothing to do with the debates themselves but with legal controversies involving the broadcasting of the debates. While Congress in 1960 changed the law temporarily to make the televised presidential debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon possible, it left on the books the legislation that had the practical effect of making further such debates impossible until well after 1960. When the law finally did change, it was not Congress that changed it but the Federal Communications Commission and the federal courts. The Federal Radio Act and the one that replaced it, the Communications Act of 1934, created what is known as the “equal time” rule in Section 315. This chapter examines Section 315 and the “equal opportunities” or “equal time” rule.Less

The Political Information Cycle

Andrew Chadwick

in The Hybrid Media System: Politics and Power

Following chapter 3, the emphasis shifts toward deeper exploration of key events and processes that reveal the hybrid media system in flow. Chapter 4 proposes a new approach to political news making ... More

Following chapter 3, the emphasis shifts toward deeper exploration of key events and processes that reveal the hybrid media system in flow. Chapter 4 proposes a new approach to political news making based on what is termed the political information cycle. The chapter examines the mediation of two extraordinary news events during the 2010 British general election campaign: the Bullygate scandal and Britain's first ever live televised prime ministerial debate. It shows how political information cycles are built on news-making assemblages that combine older and newer media logics. Using original data gathered during two intensive periods of live qualitative research, the chapter reveals how the hybrid mediation of politics now presents new opportunities for non-elite actors to mobilize and enter news production through timely interventions and sometimes direct, one-to-one, micro-level interactions with professional journalists.Less

The process of frame-building

Marina Dekavalla

in Framing referendum campaigns in the news

Chapter 6 attempts to explain the prominence of these frames in the media coverage, based on insights from interviews with broadcasters and their sources. It proposes five factors which played a role ... More

Chapter 6 attempts to explain the prominence of these frames in the media coverage, based on insights from interviews with broadcasters and their sources. It proposes five factors which played a role in shaping media frames: the influence of political campaigns, professional routines relating to balance, journalists’ views of their own role in the coverage of a contested issue, broadcasters’ perceptions of what attracts audiences and what constitutes a contribution to public debate, as well as previous experience of covering election campaigns. The discussion is contextualized within broader academic literature about frame building.Less

The media framing of the referendum

Marina Dekavalla

in Framing referendum campaigns in the news

Chapter 5 looks at which frames were most prominent in the media coverage of the referendum. The frames identified earlier are traced in the coverage of the end of the campaign on BBC Scotland and ... More

Chapter 5 looks at which frames were most prominent in the media coverage of the referendum. The frames identified earlier are traced in the coverage of the end of the campaign on BBC Scotland and STV, the two broadcasters that produce dedicated content for audiences in Scotland. This is complemented by an analysis of newspaper articles in ten Scottish daily and Sunday newspapers. The strategic game and policy frames were the two most dominant frames in both television and newspaper coverage, with the game frame becoming more prominent as the referendum date approached. The chapter concludes by discussing the democratic implications of representing the referendum as a strategic competition between political sides and as a decision about policy.Less

Conservative Revival and the Rise of ‘Others’: Elections, 2010–15

David Denver and Mark Garnett

in British General Elections Since 1964: Diversity, Dealignment, and Disillusion

This chapter examines the closely fought elections of 2010 and 2015, the first of which produced the first British coalition government since 1945 in a period which saw the continued fragmentation of ... More

This chapter examines the closely fought elections of 2010 and 2015, the first of which produced the first British coalition government since 1945 in a period which saw the continued fragmentation of the party system and the rise of United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and the Scottish National Party (SNP).Gordon Brown succeeded Tony Blair as Prime Minister in 2007, and initially impressions were favourable. However, almost as soon as Brown had decided against a ‘snap’ election to exploit his popularity, events turned against him and his party. The worldwide global financial crisis, which began in 2007, hit Britain particularly hard, and like Major’s Conservatives in the previous decade New Labour lost its reputation for economic competence. The Conservatives, under David Cameron who proclaimed himself ‘the heir to Blair’, won the largest number of seats in the 2010 election, which was particularly noteworthy for the introduction of televised leader debates. However, the 2010 contest resulted in a ‘hung parliament’ and a coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. The key events of the ensuing five years are examined, including the introduction of a Fixed-Term Parliaments Act which purportedly deprived Prime Ministers of the right to call elections at times of their own choosing. There were also referendums of Electoral Reform (2011) and Scottish independence (2014), in which the status quo was upheld without seeming to put an end to either question. In particular, the SNP continued to prosper despite the 2014 result, and in the 2015 general election it won almost all of the Scottish parliamentary seats. In England, UKIP had become a very serious threat both to Labour and the Conservatives, who had imposed unpopular cuts in public expenditure (‘austerity’) in response to the financial crisis. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats had lost much of their electoral appeal during their ill-fated alliance with Cameron’s Conservatives. The overall result of the 2015 election was an overall victory for the Conservatives, but by a margin which left Cameron vulnerable to Eurosceptics within his party.Less