Media, New Technology and Character in the 2000 Election

The 2000 election between Democratic candidate Al Gore and Republican candidate George W. Bush was an extremely close contest. While presidential candidates have traditionally paid close attention to the formation of their public images, public image would prove to be particularly important for the 2000 election. With the rise of the Internet, however, a new twist was added to the intricate process of presidential elections. How would the candidates respond to the new medium? The rise of technology, changes in the medium bias, and situational factors concerning character coincided with a heightened effort to control the candidate's images and adapt to changes in media campaign coverage.

The concept of medium bias played an important, if not pivotal, role in the 2000 election campaign. The medium bias emerged in the mid-20^th century as a result of the rising prowess of television in American homes, and it developed into a factor in presidential campaigns. The basis for the medium bias is that television inherently favors certain characteristics in people and displays people and events in a different light than they might be appear otherwise. With regards to campaigns, this means that presidential candidates will often be evaluated by the public according to how they appear on television. Years of examination of the medium bias have indicated that "some candidates appear to do better on one medium, some on another."[i] This was particularly evident in the wake of the 1960 election between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. In the televised debates leading up to the election, Kennedy appeared more physically attractive than Nixon on television. When Americans were asked who they believed had won the debate, the results indicated that people who viewed the debates on television tended to prefer Kennedy whereas people who heard the debates on the radio favored Nixon.[ii] There are others, however, who refute these claims, instead saying that a different issue highlighted the presidential debates. The larger issue, according to one scholar, was that Nixon and Kennedy's campaigns introduced the tradition of negotiating prior to the debates. The two campaigns convened to negotiate what could be asked and what should be discussed during the debate.[iii] Whether the medium bias existed to any extent during the debates, the legacy of the Nixon-Kennedy debates emphasized the medium bias and served as a precursor to the escalated sensitivity of the medium bias in presidential campaigns in years to come.

[v] This does not necessarily mean, however, that potential voters went to the candidates' sites and evaluated them critically. Although many Americans get political information online and Internet use has been correlated with wider exposure to viewpoints, people classified as selective reinforcers, tuned outs, and contrarians tend to pick and choose the arguments to which they are exposed.With the rise of new technology media in the 1990s beginning to eclipse media such as television, newspapers, and magazines, candidates have been forced to consider media biases resulting from the Internet in addition to other media. After the 1996 election, exit polls indicated that "more than a quarter of all voters are on-line and about 10 percent made their voting decisions based upon information collected primarily from the Internet."[iv] Given the spread of the Internet in the U.S. at an exponential rate since the early 1990s, it is only reasonable to believe that the Internet played a larger role four years later in the 2000 election. In fact, research suggests that about 144 million Americans had access to candidate's websites in their homes by the time the 2000 election had arrived.[vi] This effectively means that a considerable portion of the public is not necessarily using candidates' websites to critically evaluate campaign issues or even to fairly evaluate the candidates' characters.

This provided the grounds for a campaign with alternate modes of media biases, as well as a means for the public to access information on the candidates at their own discretion. Previous to the rise of new technologies, citizens could gather information on candidates through a number of ways, including television news, televised debates, newspapers, and magazines. This allowed for candidates to shield themselves and effectively control their public images. If the public desired a deeper insight into a candidate's character, they were forced to rely heavily on televised debates, which provided an opportunity for the public to experience candidates not only in their physical form (as opposed to in written articles about them), but also in potentially vulnerable situations. The Internet would provide another medium to this end, however. No longer would the public have to rely solely on television to gain deeper insight into candidates' characters. The public could hypothetically gain access to candidate websites and others that would give them a chance to formulate personal judgments on candidates' characters. This was largely prevented in the 2000 campaign, however, as Gore, Bush, and their strategists aimed to carefully control their images through a variety of methods.

One potential side effect concerning the rise of the Internet is that the public has more power to affect what stories gain attention from media outlets, putting a new spin on the concept of agenda setting in the media. This occurs because the Internet provides a greater variety of news outlets and sources of information for the public, which translates into a greater variety of available stories and information sources, be they articles, videos, or independent websites. In the case of presidential campaigns, this would appear to indicate that the candidates would have less control over their public images than if they were being portrayed through traditional media outlets mainly owned by large corporations. Gore and Bush seem to have avoided the outcome of uncontrollable portrayals during the 2000 campaign, however. Susan Page, USA Today's Washington bureau chief, commented, "The candidates were both inaccessible. They didn't put themselves in uncontrolled contexts. . . . There were very few press conferences and no easy access."[vii] It appears as though the candidates took measures to effectively isolate themselves from the media in the effort to prevent uncontrolled information from being disseminated and any unintended public perception from being formed. It would appear that this control would be difficult to accomplish in a world of new technologies, but of course citizens still maintain selective attention habits. This was emphasized by the presence of the aforementioned selective reinforcers, tuned outs, and contrarians, who together comprise approximately 58% of people with stated positions on candidates.[viii] So it may be easier than one would expect to control the Internet, considering the breadth of users who will reject certain information that may go against the mainstream.

The result of the focus on character in the 2000 election was that Bush gained an edge with the American public. He was viewed as more charismatic than Gore, and this was a key way in which the media affected the election. As character was emphasized, "the news judgments made about the relative importance of personality . . . all worked in Bush's favor."[ix] Evidently, Bush and his strategists succeeded in tailoring a public image for him that bettered that of Gore.

Finally, when the candidates held press conferences and answered questions, the questions were largely controlled. Reporters traveling with the candidates did not join in asking questions, as that role was left to local reporters or a pre-screened group of people.[x] In addition to this careful control of questions during press conferences, the candidates prevented the public from controlling the issues in the campaign, as they might have done through new media technology. Instead, the candidates set the agenda with a concentration on issues surrounding taxes, Social Security, and education.[xi] The careful control of public image created by the candidates and their strategists allowed for a focus on these issues, as the lack of critical questioning during press conferences also likely contributed to the candidates' ability to avoid confronting other issues.

Ultimately, Bush won the election in a close contest, but not before over a month of ambiguity, an investigation into the poll process in Florida, and a Supreme Court decision upholding Bush's presidency by the slim margin of five to four votes. The changes in the campaign process ended up being vital aspects of the campaign for both Gore and Bush, seeing as any mistakes or negligence of campaign techniques could have led to a reversal of fortunes for either party. Yet the candidates carefully controlled their public images and continued to set the agenda for the media, for the most part. The potential for a new media bias-one that would carry ramifications similar to those produced by television decades ago-went largely unfulfilled. But the Internet is still young, and the 2008 election awaits.

[i] Kaid, Lynda Lee. "Political advertising and information seeking: comparing exposure via traditional and Internet channels." Journal of Advertising 31.1 (Spring 2002): 27(9). Academic OneFile. Gale. Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT. 6 Nov. 2007

http://find.galegroup.com/itx/start.do?prodId=AONE., P. 3

[ii] Benoit, William L., and Heather Currie. "Inaccuracies in media coverage of the 1996 and 2000 Presidential Debates." Argumentation and Advocacy 38.1 (Summer 2001): 28(12). Academic OneFile. Gale. Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT. 7 Nov. 2007 . pp. 2-3

[iii] Self, John W. "The first debate over the debates: how Kennedy and Nixon negotiated the 1960 presidential debates." Presidential Studies Quarterly 35.2 (June 2005): 361(15). Academic OneFile. Gale. Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT. 14 Dec. 2007 .

[iv] Connell, 1997. Cited in Kaid, 2002, pp. 1-2

[v] Rumbough ad Tomlinson, 2002. Cited in Kaid, 2002, P. 2

[vi] Horrigan, John; Garrett, Kelly & Resnick, Paul. "The Internet and democratic debate". Pew Internet & American Life Project. 27 Oct 2004. pp. 1-4

[vii] Isabel, Lonnie. "Trying to Scale the `Impenetrable Wall'." Columbia Journalism Review 39.5 (Jan 2001): 26. Academic OneFile. Gale. Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT. 6 Nov. 2007 http://find.galegroup.com/itx/start.do?prodId=AONE. P. 2

[viii] Horrigan, John et al. "The Internet and democratic debate". P. 4

[ix] Cornog, Evan. "Character vs. Policy." Columbia Journalism Review 39.5 (Jan 2001): 54. Academic OneFile. Gale. Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT. 6 Nov. 2007. P. 2

[x] Isable, Lonnie. "Trying to Scale." P. 2

[xi] Ibid., P. 3