The New World of Electoral Politics and What it Means: an Introductory Essay
| Publication year | 2017 |
The New World of Electoral Politics and What It Means: An Introductory Essay
Reuben Guttman
Paul J. Zwier
Emory University School of Law
It has been sixty-six years since the election of 1960 ushered in television as a controlling medium in presidential races, while opening the era of the sound bite. Somewhere along the way, or so it seems, the sound bite became more important to journalists and voters alike than the rigorous analysis of issues typically found in the printed words of newspapers and magazines.
Fast forward to the 2016 election, and innovation has changed the landscape of electoral politics once again. The Internet, the sixty-six-character tweet, and YouTube are now the controlling mediums; we have entered an era where everyone is a journalist. Just as George Eastman's mass marketing of the first Kodak camera in 1888 turned millions of consumers into photographers, pocket phones have turned the masses into reporters. Anyone can post/tweet a message, photo, or video across the globe. Events are recorded and reported in real time.
Amateur journalists have documented the joys of life and brought attention to the dark underbelly of society with harsh videos, revealing the sometimes violent and discriminatory treatment of minorities. At the same time, sixty-two years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, after we had presumably witnessed the end of cross burnings, internet forums promoting racial and anti-Semitic messages remind us that discrimination and hatred festers beneath the surface of our culture, even at a time when our Commander in Chief is a black man. And, as the Internet has provided insight into the subsurface of our culture, it has allowed those operating beneath the subsurface to disseminate information that is often inaccurate, and sometimes, blatantly divisive.
The emergence of amateur journalism has seemingly correlated with the diminishing impact of traditional news sources as thought leaders for the electorate. Consider this: in selecting Donald Trump as President of the United States, millions of Americans ignored the advice of the editorial boards of every major American newspaper, including USA Today. USA Today did not endorse a candidate, but counseled against a vote for Trump. In fact, Regional newspapers, like the Atlanta Journal Constitution, similarly refused to endorse Trump.
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Against this new backdrop, the 2016 campaign was...
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