Political Persuasion: An Evolution of Political Campaigning Through Media

 Has political media become oversaturated? This is a genuine question for all of my college age folks out there. While I’ve heard about Gen Z being politically motivated, I can’t help but to think the opposite. The more I talk to people, the more I find out they are not interested in voting and are irritated by the constant political ads.  I suppose this could be because we are living in a politically charged world with lots of major events (9/11, War on Terror, #BLM, #MeToo, Israel & Palestine, etc.). I could see why it is easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of political activity and ads constantly surrounding us. While some are motivated, I guess others just disengage.  It worries me if my generation stops voting. What happens then? Maybe I’m just not talking to the right people? What do y’all think?

 Part 3 is a bit of a follow-up to the previous post. One of the scariest tech advanced I believe is deepfakes. Deepfakes allow people’s faces to be manipulated in videos. You can put their face on another body or even make them say things that they’ve never said.  While people make funny memes out of stuff like this, it is becoming more and more impressive. This is terrifying to think about in a political space because politicians could be altered to say or do things in videos of themselves. I dare to say it may even rally the fact-checking websites I previously mentioned.  Those are my thoughts. How about yours?

 Part 2 of this mini-series will focus on AI. As we all know, AI has gotten increasingly popular. Chatboxes such as Chatgpt have proven to be helpful in a multitude of ways.  What I suspect will happen is that AI generated images of politicians will become more common. Because of this, negative or positive propaganda about certain politicians will be everywhere. It will be hard to tell if these ads were even approved by the politician's team and therefore, will cause more confusion and fake information. Those are my thoughts. Yours?

 Now that I have gone over a bit of the history and present of campaigning, I wanted to turn it to the future. These posts are going to be a bit brief as I hope we can start a conversation in the comments about our speculations. The first part I want to mention is VR. VR has come a long way in the past few years and even when Zuckerburg introduced Meta, VR played a big role. In VR, friends are able to hang out, experience realistic games, and much more.  I think that if VR ever went to a political space, it could be very powerful. Imagine putting on a headset and then suddenly being at a rally for your favorite (or least favorite) candidate. Additionally, if a politician could put on a headset and 'meet' supporters face to face, it would change how we view politicians entirely.  Those are just my thoughts on it. What about yours?

In 1949, only 172,000 TVs had been purchased in the United States. By 1953, that number rose to 52 million. This dramatic change in media history allowed politicians another media to reach their audience. Gone were the days where you had to listen to an old guy's voice or read the paper to get politician's ideas.  Suddenly, there was a new medium: the political cartoon. 'I like Ike' was a political ad that showcased different types of people supporting Dwight Eisenhower, while singing a cheery tune. Eisenhower became known as the 'TV President' because of his enthusiastic use of the television. Political cartoons became spectacles because they were short and easy to watch, rememberable, and most people (or at least 52 million) had seen them. Ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmCDaXeDRI4 Source: https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/teacher-resources/recasting-presidential-history/presidency-television-era

 I find that there is a whole lot of negative views about how the internet has made politics worse. While I have touched on a few of the negative side effects of the internet, today I wanted to highlight a very positive one.  The Internet has allowed media to travel very fast, but sometimes when media gets shared over and over again, we lose the truth in reality. This is where websites such as PolitiFact and Factcheck.org come into play. With fact-checking websites such as these, the public are able to find the truth about rumors or scandals of their favorite politician.  Additionally, Data-Journalism has allowed the public, as well as politicians, to estimate and predict election outcomes. This helps politicians know where to focus their energy. It also helps the public to know what to expect or know how their voices are being heard.  Source: https://journalism.uoregon.edu/news/six-ways-media-influences-elections

 Welcome back! I've done a lot of talking about audio media and written media, but now I wanted to shine the light on visual media. As I talked about in my post about Kennedy v. Nixon, visuals definitely play a part in how people view you as a candidate.  Additionally, I would argue that it is important to how the public chooses their news sources. For example, when Hillary Clinton became the first nominated woman for a major political party, multiple news sources chose varying pictures to report the story. Some went with the obvious choice, a picture of her at the podium or waving to supporters. However, lots of sources chose to showcase photos of her husband, former president Bill Clinton, at the podium or waving to supporters. While some could argue that they might have used Bill to familiarize Hillary with his supporters, I would argue that she is quite well known on her own and the for a story about her, a photo of her husband should not be at the focal point.  There...

 Now that I have gone over a few of the historical examples of media influencing campaigns, it's time to look at the negative side. Unfortunately, most social media platforms skew what kind of political ads we see.  Meta have admitted to using our likes as a way to garner certain ads. They do this on both Facebook and Instagram. While this seems like a logical way to gain information on our politics, it can be very dangerous.  Because of how our likes and dislikes are used to show us content, social media becomes an echo-chamber for political discourse. Meaning that if you post something about your political party, those who see it, like it, and interact with it are most likely going to be with those who agree with you. The same goes for campaign ads. Social platforms are most likely going to show you ads for who they suspect you support, based on your activity.  While tailoring certain ads to certain people (pet products, menstrual products, etc.), can be beneficial...