Suchergebnisse

This study investigates messages in the surfacing phase of the presidential campaign, through a content analysis of presidential candidacy announcement speeches from the 2008 and 2012 elections. This study applied the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse to nine Democratic announcement speeches from 2008, 11 Republican announcement addresses from 2008, and 12 Republican announcement speeches from 2012. This work extends previous research on announcement speeches from 1960-2004 (Benoit, Henson, Whalen, & Pier, 2007). Overall, announcements from 2008 and 2012 used acclaims (75%) more than attacks (25%) or defenses (0.5%). The same announcements discussed policy more than character (58% to 42%); Democrats in 2008 dis-cussed policy more, and character less, than Republicans in that campaign. General goals and ideals were used more often as the basis of acclaims than attacks in these speeches. These speeches were more negative (25% to 22% attacks) and discussed policy more (58% to 50%) and character less (42% to 50%) than past announcements. In 2008, Democratic speeches discussed Democratic issues more, and Republican issues less, than Republican speeches.

This study performed content analysis on the general election TV spots from Democratic nominee Barack Obama and Republican nominee John McCain in the 2008 presidential campaign. There was no significant difference in function by incumbency, which is not surprising given that neither major party candidates was the sitting president or vice president. Unlike ads from previous years, these ads contained more attacks (65%) than acclaims (34%; and like earlier campaigns few defenses: 1%). These ads stressed policy (58%) more than character (42%). The Democratic candidate, as in previous elections, discussed policy more, and character less, than the Republican candidate. Both candidates had a tendency to discuss Democratic issues generally (and the economy and jobs in particular), but Obama stressed Democratic issues more, and Republican issues less, than McCain. This essay ends with discussion of some of the unique features of the 2008 general presidential campaign.

"This book offers content analyses of candidate campaign messages from the primary and the general election. The chapters examine both new (Twitter, Facebook) and traditional (TV spots, debates, speeches) media employed in this contest. This allows comparison of campaign phases (primary versus general), candidates (Republican primary and Democratic primary candidates; general election candidates), and message forms. The results are compared with data from analyses of previous presidential campaigns"--

This study adopts The Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse to content analyze political campaign web pages produced by mayoral candidates in six large American cities in 2013. Specifically, this analysis examines online campaign communication from Boston, Charlotte, Detroit, Houston, New York, and Seattle. Results of this analysis found that mayoral candidates used their websites to acclaim themselves more often than to attack their opponents or defend themselves against previous attacks. Additionally, these web pages addressed policy topics more often than they spoke about character concerns. The data also reveals important differences between the way incumbents and challengers use their websites in local elections. Differences also exist between the communication choices of winning mayoral candidates and losing mayoral candidates.

News coverage of political campaigns is very important to the political campaign process. Some voters pay little attention to debates or other sources of information about the candidates and their policies. The news is one important source of this information. Newspapers can also supplement and reinforce the information possessed by voters who do attend to campaign messages. This study content analyzed news coverage of the 2008 general election presidential campaign (New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today). Horse race coverage was most common topic (45%), followed by themes about character (32%), and policy (23%). The tone of newspaper coverage was more positive (51%) than negative (39%; 9% of themes reported the candidates' defenses).

President George W. Bush was completing his second (and final) term in office and Vice President Dick Cheney decided not to run for president. Thus, the 2008 American presidential primary is the first "open" campaign (with no sitting president or vice president competing) since 1952 with highly competitive primaries for both major political parties. This study uses content analysis to investigate news coverage (national newspapers, network television news, and local newspapers) of the 2008 American presidential primary campaign. Most themes in the news concerned the horse race (66%) with somewhat more emphasis on the candidates' character (18%) than their policy proposals (15%). The most common topics of horse race comments were campaign strategy (24%), campaign events (19%), polls (17%), and predictions (12%). More news comments were positive (62%) than negative (32%) with few comments about the candidate's defenses (7%). Most comments were unattributed (statements by journalists: 66%); candidates were quoted or paraphrased in about one in five comments; the remaining comments were from supporters (8%) or others (7%).

This study investigates the extent to which candidates in the 2008 presidential primary campaign adhered to the convention wisdom that candidates should stay "on message." Content analysis investigated multiple media (announcement speeches, TV spots, radio spots, debates, candidate webpages, and candidate MySpace/Facebook pages) from 9 Democratic and 12 Republican candidates. Four variables were investigated: functions, topics, party issue emphasis, and own party issue ownership. Although there was considerable consistency across message form, results revealed that 63 of 76 comparisons candidates were not consistent in tone, topic, party issue emphasis, or own party issue emphasis across messages. Post hoc analyses excluding debates (where the candidates have less control over the content of their messages, given the expectation that they will respond to the questions asked) revealed differences even among the message forms over which candidates have complete control over content.