A functional analysis of 2008 general election debates.

• Author: Benoit, William
• Position: Essay

INTRODUCTION

The 2008 race for the White House had a number of unusual features. For the first time, an African-American, Barack Obama, was nominated to represent one of the two major political parties--and, for the first time, an African-American was elected president. For only the second time--and the first time in the Republican party--a woman was chosen as the vice presidential candidate (Governor Sarah Palin) for one of the two major parties. For the first time since 1952, no candidate was a sitting president or vice president, another reason to study the messages from this election. In 2008, candidates for the American presidency raised over one billion dollars (Center for Responsive Politics, 2009). Senator Barack Obama Spent over $235 million on television advertising; Senator John McCain spent over $125 million (New York Times, 2008), a new record for presidential candidate advertising spending (Obama was the first candidate to ever decline federal campaign funds for the general election, so he could spend more than the $84 million limit). We cannot simply assume that candidate election messages will remain the same in every campaign. For example, Benoit and Glantz (2012) found that McCain's and Obama's TV spots used more attacks than acclaims, breaking with tradition. Clearly, the campaign messages from this election merit scholarly attention: With such dramatic differences, would this debate resemble past confrontations? This study investigates the general election debates featuring Obama and McCain, using Functional Theory.

Stelter (2008) reports that many people watched the 2008 presidential debates: 55 million viewers for the first debate (September 26), 66 million for the second debate (October 7), and 60 million for the final debate (October 15). Although every debate does not have the same effects (some could be more informative or more persuasive), and although every viewer does not react to a given debate in the same way (viewers tend to be more open to the candidate of their own party), nevertheless debates can have significant effects on those who watch them. A meta-analysis of the effects of watching presidential debates found that debates can increase knowledge of issues, preferences for the candidates' issue stands, agenda-setting, perceptions of the candidates' character, and vote preference (Benoit, Hansen, & Verser, 2003). After a brief literature review, this paper describes Functional Theory (and develops predictions and research questions), describes the method employed, reports results, and then discusses the findings.

Functional Theory has been employed to analyze earlier presidential debates (see Benoit, 2007). Research established that these debates used more acclaims than attacks and more attacks than defenses. Differences were found between incumbents and challengers (incumbents acclaim more and attack less than challengers, particularly when the candidates discussed their records in office). Contrary to popular belief that campaigns lack substance, candidates in presidential debates discussed policy more than character. Functional Theory also determined that when candidates discuss general goals and ideals they are more likely to acclaim than attack. Research on German presidential debates has confirmed that viewers react differently to acclaims and attacks (Reinemann & Maurer, 2005). This theory provided insights into earlier debates and should be applied to the debates of 2008 between Barack Obama and John McCain.

LITERATURE REVIEW

General election debates were held in the U.S. in 1960 and from 1976 to the present (President Johnson did not want to debate in 1964 and former Vice President Nixon did not want to debate in 1968, which explains the hiatus in these years). In most years two or three debates were held, four in 1960 and only one debate between the two major party nominees in 1980. Numerous books (see, e.g., Benoit & Wells, 1996; Bishop, Meadow, & Jackson-Beeck, 1978; Bitzer & Rueter, 1980; Carlin & McKinney, 1994; Coleman, 2000; Dailey, Hinck, & Hinck, 2007; Friedenberg, 1994, 1997; Hellweg, Pfau, & Brydon, 1992; Hinck, 1993; Jamieson & Birdsell, 1988; Kraus, 1962, 1977, 2000; Lanoue & Schrott, 1991; Schroeder, 2000; Swerdlow, 1984, 1987) and many articles (see, e.g., Louden, 2013; Racine Group, 2002) investigate presidential debates. This paper adopts Functional Theory as the theoretical underpinning, so the literature review will focus on those results. Research from the Functional Theory (Benoit, 2007) perspective on general election debates found that candidate statements in debates were mostly positive (57%), with numerous attacks (35%) and some defenses (8%), or refutations of attacks. Incumbent party candidates are even more positive than challengers (64% to 51%); challengers tend to attack more than incumbents (44% to 25%). Debates focused more on policy (issues) than character: 75% to 25%. Democrats tend to stress policy even more than Republicans (64% to 59%), with more emphasis on character by Republicans than Democrats in debates (41% to 36%). Next, we explicate the fundamentals of Functional Theory, which provides the theoretical underpinning of this study.

FUNCTIONAL THEORY

The Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse was developed by Benoit and his associates through a series of studies (see, e.g., Benoit, 1999, 2007; Benoit, Blaney, & Pier, 1998; Benoit et al., 2003; Benoit et al., 2007). Functional Theory posits that citizens vote for the candidate who appears preferable on the criteria that are considered most important to each voter (Benoit, 2007). Candidates can demonstrate their desirability in three ways. First, the candidate can engage in acclaiming or self-praise. The greater the benefits or advantages of one candidate, the more likely that person will appear preferable to voters, compared with opponents. Second, candidates can attack or criticize opponents; as voters become aware of more costs or disadvantages of opponents, those competitors should appear less desirable to voters (of course, it is possible that the source of these attacks can experience a backlash from voters who dislike mudslinging). Finally, candidates who have been the target of attack can defend against (refute) those attacks. The fewer the disadvantages and the smaller the costs associated with a candidate, the more likely that a candidate will appear preferable to opponents. These three options can be seen as roughly similar to cost-benefit analysis, providing information that can help persuade the voter to prefer one candidate (we do not claim that voters systematically quantify the impact of acclaims, attacks, or defenses or perform mathematical calculations to decide their vote choice; acclaims tend to increase one's benefits, attacks may increase an opponent's costs, and defenses can reduce one's costs).

The three functions (acclaims, attacks, and defenses) can be employed on two distinct topics, policy (issues) or character (personality). Policy utterances address governmental action or problems that are amenable to governmental action. Character comments are about the candidates as individuals (personality, leadership experience, and values). Of course, the relative importance of these two general topics of discourse can vary from one voter to another. Functional theory also subdivides the two topics into three forms of policy and three forms of character (see the Appendix for examples of acclaims and attacks on the three forms of policy and the three forms of character taken from the 2008 general election debates).

Functional Theory (Benoit, 2007) predicts that acclaims will be more common than attacks: Acclaims have no drawbacks, but many voters report that they dislike mudslinging (Merritt, 1984; Stewart, 1975) so there is some incentive to moderate attacks. Defenses are expected to be rare (although more common in debates than other forms of campaign media) for three reasons: Most attacks occur where a candidate is weak, so responding to an attack usually takes the candidate off-message; one must identify an attack to refute it and that identification may inform or remind voters of a potential weakness; and attacks may create the undesirable impression that the candidate is reactive rather than proactive. For this reason, and based on results of prior research, we predict:

H1: American presidential debates in the 2008 general election campaign will use more acclaims than attacks and more attacks than defenses.

As the literature review indicated, incumbents tend to be more positive (more acclaims, fewer attacks) than challengers (Benoit, 2007). This is, in part, due to the nature of their record in office: Only the incumbent has a record in the presidency, and that record is arguably the most relevant evidence for how one will perform in that office. Both candidates have a tendency to discuss the incumbent's record more often than the challenger's record. Of course, when incumbents talk about their record in office, they tend to acclaim. In contrast, when challengers discuss the incumbent's record, they are...