Meet the Candidate Videos: Analyzing Presidential Primary Campaign Videocassettes

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Parmelee shows how presidential primary campaign videocassettes serve many functions for candidates on their road to the White House. These videocassettes, which include images and issues often based on polling data and focus groups, are sent out before the primaries to battleground states to establish an initial image of the candidate. A variety of methods are used to explore the videocassettes of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidatesGary Bauer, Bill Bradley, George W. Bush, Steve Forbes, Al Gore, and John McCainwho released presidential primary meet the candidate videos during the 2000 race. Frame analysis, quantitative content analysis, and in-depth interviews with the producers of these videos were employed to provide answers to Parmelee's main research question: What function do candidate videos serve in presidential primary campaigns Findings indicate that these videos, which can run from 5 to 20 minutes in length, serve a clear educational function to explain the candidates' stand on key policy issues. The videoswhich are mailed to voters, journalists, and potential doners, and shown to Democratic and GOP faithful at party functionsalso serve as fundraisers, surrogate speakers, and inoculators. But, while the videos share some common functions, each campaign targets its video to a slightly different audience based on the campaign's overall strategy. Of particular interest to scholars, students, and other researchers involved with American presidential politics and political communications.

Reviews

As technological advances create obstacles for campaign advertisements seeking to reach a mass audience, candidates and their campaigns are placing more emphasis on strategies that take thier message directly to the voter with as little media--and opponent--interpretation as possible. As such, it is timely that John Parmelee focuses on the analysis of an increasingly important campaign communication tool for presidential campaigns, the presidential primary campaign video. The study not only examines how these videos present the candidates, but also attempts to uncover the purposes behind the varied designs.-Presidential Studies Quarterly
The real strength of this book is how comprehensive Permelee is in terms of his historical discussion of these videocassettes and his content description of the 2000 primary videocassete....This book does provide an important contribution to our understanding of the ways in which candidates use image and issue content, symbolic roles, and tools to present themselves to key voters during the important surfacing stage of the primaries.-Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly
"The real strength of this book is how comprehensive Permelee is in terms of his historical discussion of these videocassettes and his content description of the 2000 primary videocassete....This book does provide an important contribution to our understanding of the ways in which candidates use image and issue content, symbolic roles, and tools to present themselves to key voters during the important surfacing stage of the primaries."-Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly
"As technological advances create obstacles for campaign advertisements seeking to reach a mass audience, candidates and their campaigns are placing more emphasis on strategies that take thier message directly to the voter with as little media--and opponent--interpretation as possible. As such, it is timely that John Parmelee focuses on the analysis of an increasingly important campaign communication tool for presidential campaigns, the presidential primary campaign video. The study not only examines how these videos present the candidates, but also attempts to uncover the purposes behind the varied designs."-Presidential Studies Quarterly

Author Bio

JOHN H. PARMELEE is an Assistant Professor of Communications at the University of North Florida. Before joining the academic world, Parmelee was a reporter for Congressional Quarterly and Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine.