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1992 Heralds 'Electronic Populism'
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10418 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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2 / 1993 |
2,078 Words |
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Diana Own And Michael Robinson
Diana Owen is assistant professor of government at Georgetown
University. Michael Robinson is associate professor of
government at Georgetown University and a fellow at the Times
Mirror Center for the People and the Press. |
On February 2, 1992, Ross Perot made political history by declaring on CNN's Larry King Live his availability to run for president if drafted by the American people. In June, Bill Clinton, in an effort to jump start a stalled campaign, wailed his saxophone to the tune of "Heart-break Hotel" on the Arsenio Hall Show. A week before the election, and 10 points down in the polls, President George Bush accepted an invitation to appear on MTV's "presidential Forum." These three watershed events in the presidential campaign of 1992 epitomize the rise of a new era in electioneering, a phenomenon that Time media critic Christopher Ogden labeled "electronic populism."
In the age of the mass media campaign, which began around 1960, presidential aspirants traditionally have engaged in "news management" by staging media events that news organizations--especially the networks--would be obliged to cover. This strategy produced political communication that was increasingly mediated.
However, in the new world of "electronic populism," Ogden contends, presidential candidates "breeze past the established media to get where the voters are." While candidates in this past election did engage in news managements, they also made an unprecedented number of appeals through popular media channels. "Infotainment" media--talk shows, music television, print and electronic personality magazines--and the "soft news" they conveyed became the rage in political campaigning.
This new development in electoral politics raises some important questions. To what extent did the new rules of campaigning alter the behavior of presidential candidates? To what degree did the prominence of soft news sources change the manner in which the electorate received its information?
Did infotainment politics affect voters' attitudes toward candidates? And, to what extent did political "entermation" (information presented in an entertainment format) supplant the role of traditional journalism in the 1992 campaign? Is this new strategy of campaigning a good thing, or is it "bad news"? Finally, what is the future role of electronic populism in the political process both within and outside the campaign arena?
The collective answer to these questions is that electronic populism has, to varying degrees, impacted on each of the major actors involved the candidates, the voters, and the mainstream press. Candidates' campaign behavior changed markedly after Ross Perot made his unorthodox bid for the
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