Pop Politics – Political Advertising in the YouTube Age
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Since the advent of television, politicians have been using the medium to advertise. Thanks to television commercials – 30-second bits of information used to sell products and services – politicians now sell their ideals and politics in sound-bytes. Candidates use these 30-second spots as mini-narratives in lieu of the larger, more complex narratives of their campaigns. The Presidential Campaign of 2008 is a different kind of race because now, not only do candidates have television, but also the Internet, to display themselves. According to Andrew Chadwick (2006), who wrote the book Internet Politics: States, Citizens, and New Communication Technologies, the Internet creates new areas for community, and thus an increase in political participation (p. 26). In today’s world, fueled by online video forums like YouTube, political sound-bytes have found an entirely original way to mask the intricacies of politics by making an appeal to and through pop culture. However, uniting politics and accepted culture can become ethically problematic if candidates for president become more pop than politics.
For the purposes of this paper, I will be considering Campaign 2008, the presidential primary race that has run from around fall of 2006, which makes it the longest presidential campaign in history. The Presidential campaign for 2008 has been the first presidential campaign to fully embrace the possibilities on the Internet, including YouTube. As many as 18 candidates were campaigning for the 2008 election at one time. Some of the major contenders for the ticket included John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul and Mitt Romney. This paper will address ads infused with popular culture that involve 5 of these candidates: Clinton, McCain, Obama, Huckabee, and Paul. This paper will analyze some of these campaign ads and their employ of popular culture. These ads all appear on the popular Internet video-sharing site YouTube. Because YouTube is public sharing site, both candidates and independent YouTube users have created ads for the presidential campaign, and both utilize pop culture to “sell” their candidate. I will be analyzing each commercial using dirt theory to narrate whether an ethical problem arises from the pop politics found on YouTube. First, however, this paper will provide an overview of political advertising in the media to create a context for this new breed of political advertising. 
Politics and the Media Advertising is key for political candidates, particularly presidential candidates, because advertising is the easiest, quickest plot to reach a large number of targeted voters (Political Advertising, 2005, p. 1). Advertising allows candidates to put themselves and their messages out to the voters to help their voters get to know them both as people and as candidates. Voters must have some awareness of a candidate to help that candidate attract votes. Atkin and Heald (1976) insist that a voter’s knowledge of a political candidate is defined by an individual’s ability to recognize a candidate, their issues, their qualifications, and their personal characteristics (p. 216). Ultimately, candidates strive to be recognizable, relatable, and appealing to their voters, and their most powerful tool is advertising. In the twentieth century, the fastest blueprint for reaching the most voters was the television commercial, and thus television “spot” became an significant Force in political advertising. The Television Effect The television commercial opened a unique chapter in the book of political advertising. The organization of television commercials forced politicians to condense their messages into 30-second “spots.” “Television is an ideal medium for providing the desired emotional connection” because moving images and close-ups resonate with voters (Political Advertising, 2005, p. 2). Commercials provide visuals, and quick, simple messages to fit into the sound-byte format of television commercials. As political ads are crowded in with commercials, politicians, struggling to fit in with the commercial markets, are structuring their messages more and more like advertisements for products. As Jamie Warner (2007) notes “In the past two decades, politicians have increasingly used ‘branding’ techniques of commercial marketers to fair such an end, in the hopes of persuading the citizen/consumer to trust their ‘product’-their platform and policy positions-to the exclusion of all others” (p. 18). Such branding techniques appeal to the emotional rather than the rational, which can garner “automatic, unreflective trust in the branded product, whether that product is a Popsicle, a Palm Pilot, or a political party,” (Warner, 2007, p. 18). Warner (2007) argues that such political branding “is obviously profitable in terms of money and/or power…[but] works to the detriment of the tenets of democratic theory both by talking over viable voices and conversations in the public sphere and by operating through calculated emotional appeals,” (p.18). Moving away from politics toward emotional appeals can be dangerous ground for the voter because, in 30 seconds, an ad might not be able to address both emotion and policy. The Internet brings a new hope. Politicians can now both post their ads and provide extensive information about themselves, which might be an answer to televisions truncated messages The first official political campaign to use the Internet was Bill Clinton’s 1992 election campaign, which featured transcripts of speeches and some biographical information online (Chadwick, 2006, p. 151). In 1996, the candidates launched their own websites (Chadwick, 2006, p. 152) and in 2000, candidates increased online fundraising and advertising, and recruited volunteers for campaigns (Chadwick, 2006, pp. 154-5). Fast-forward to 2008, and we see the fully developed importance of Internet campaigns. Each candidate has their own website with links to biographical information, videos of ads, blogs, fundraising, and extensive texts on their policies. However, the candidates have continued the proliferation of “spots” using the Internet. The candidates link their websites with profiles on numerous popular social sites, which include Myspace and YouTube, the video-sharing site. On YouTube, candidates post their television ads as well as other ads and videos. In this way, the Internet not only encourages the candidates to expound upon their policies on their websites, but also to share a greater number of their videos and ads. YouTube YouTube was launched in spring of 2005. As Cloud (2007 )in Time insists, YouTube became a phenomenon because “it was both easy and edgy,” (p. 2). Now YouTube has become an Internet staple. With 71 million users who look as many as 2.5 billion videos a month, presidential candidates cannot ignore YouTube’s rising importance in spreading information through its video-sharing platform (Breslau, 2008). Campaign 2008 will be the first presidential election where YouTube will play a major role. As an article in The Economist states, “Campaigns are…more interesting these days. The droning, top-down television ads touting a candidate’s virtues and his rival’s vices are now supplemented by far more creative message-making,” (“YouTube Politics…, 2008, par. 6). Independent users too have the opportunity to let their voice be heard, and that voice has frequently turned political. “Activists everywhere are recognizing the power of citizen-produced and Web-distributed videos as the ultimate testimony,” (Naim, 2007, 103). User produced media has become so prolific that it has started to influence politics. In fact, the U.S. government has forbidden its soldiers from posting videos (which might inspire criticism of the military) (Naim, 2007). Though YouTube has opened up a new realm of political discourse, the sheer amount of videos have also forced viewers to be more discerning (Naim, 2007). What should we believe of what we’ve seen on YouTube? From these questions, YouTube has created a strong call for reliable sources of information (Naim, 2007). YouTube is also a place that people go for entertainment, so entertainment is a astronomical factor in YouTube videos. Therefore, “The most clever [political] bits get spread around the Web and picked up by TV,” (Breslau, 2008, par. 3), so the entertainment value of the videos has become an increasing anxiety. To make messages more entertaining, candidates have often turned to pop culture, which many people look to for their entertainment. However, at some point, the message gets lost in the fun. At some point, the politics become lost in the midst of the entertainment and spectacle. Popular Culture Popular culture is one of the most prominent venues for entertainment and spectacle, which is why, on YouTube, political advertisements continually invoke it to sell their message. Politicians have to appear alongside the entertainment industry both on television and the Internet, so to compete, politicians have invoked elements of popular culture into their advertisements. Kidd (2007) defines popular culture in three ways: “the people’s culture,” fame or popularity, and well-liked culture (2007, pp. 71-2). The people’s culture implies a folk culture, produced by the people (Kidd, 2007, p. 71). Popular culture is also about fame and celebrity (Kidd, 2007, p. 72), which is where films, television, sports, and the people we recognize from them become a part of popular culture. Kidd also mentions that popular culture is about a favorite culture that involves a wide range of “shared cultural products that include “widely shared values and beliefs,” (2007, p. 72). Accepted culture, then, is an eclectic mix of people, celebrity, and symbols that are recognizable to a large group of people, and these many facets allow popular culture to create and enjoy social boundaries (Kidd, 2007). “Popular culture offers a complex system of identity creation and separation,” (Kidd, 2007, 76). Thus, by using popular culture, politics is able to tap into these social spheres, which helps the voter identify with the candidate via their common language of popular culture. However, if pop culture helps to create a social identity, then we must consider what that “pop identity” does to the politician. Is that identity really in line with who they are? Such analysis can lead to ethical issues because there is a generation gap between politicians and the most prolific consumers of popular culture. Young people are most knowledgeable and influenced by modern popular culture, and politicians’ appropriation of that culture on YouTube is their appeal to this indispensable demographic. You Tube and The Young Voter YouTube, like many of the other new Internet sites, caters to a younger demographic. According to the Neilson NetRatings (2006), users between 12-17 years old have a 142-composition index (average is 100), so youth make up a large majority of YouTube’s viewership. Twelve to seventeen is the age just before voting age, so it follows that younger voters would be the ones that spend the most time on YouTube. The Generation X voter-a member of the young, middle-class-is much more savvy and more likely to tune out traditional advertising messages (Leiss, 2005, 481). Therefore, Gen X voters are going to be less receptive to typical political advertising messages, so candidates and independent users must use alternate methods. Gen X viewers reflect ads “upon the entertainment it frames itself around; it is part and parcel of that entertainment,” (Leiss, 2005, p. 482). Thus, advertising is made to be entertaining to attract the attention of the Gen X viewer, and in a similar fashion, political advertising uses entertainment and pop culture to attract the Gen X voter, which creates a particularly “dirty” build of political advertising that presents potential ethical problems. Method This paper will focus on presidential campaign ads featured on YouTube: three ads from political candidates and three from independent users. I will analyze how dirt is used within the ad and how that dirt creates ethical problems within that ad. Dirty Politics Because the younger generation of voters are grand more savvy viewers, political candidates must net increasingly new and entertaining ways to attract the young voter. This leads to the increasingly dirty politics available on YouTube. Dirt, defined as “matter out of place” or an spot where one portion of culture leaks into another, (Wenner, 2007, 112) has crowded into YouTube advertisements, and, as previously discussed, this dirt comes chiefly from popular culture. Dirt creates power in advertising messages (Hartley, 1984, 122) by transferring meaning and importance into those messages (and onto particular products) that wouldn’t be there in a “clean” message. Thus, dirt lends persuasive power to political messages that wouldn’t be found in a “neat” advertisement. Dirty Pop Detecting the dirt from pop culture can be difficult because it is such an expansive category, but for the purposes of this paper, I will confine this paper to the “fame, celebrity” aspect of pop culture that comes from the media: television, music, movies, etc. Increasingly, presidential candidates are using this aspect of pop culture dirt to sell their message to a hipper and advertising-savvy audience. Three particular realms of dirt stick out in our analysis of dirty pop: concepts of wintry, celebrity, and humor. The Put A Question To of Cool. The popularity and fame of celebrities and other aspects of popular culture are made that way by the elusive conception of cool. Cool, according to John Street (2003) is not simply being popular, but being popular in a particular way (96). Our culture places a high value on conceptions of cool, so politicians play on this idolization by attempting to form themselves appear cool as well. “Chilly represents being in charge and in touch (Street, 2003, 96). ‘Cool’ is historically an opposition to authority, are usually associated with an indifference to politics, and usually have the qualities of “narcissism, ironic detachment, and hedonism,” (Street, 2003, 96). However, Street (2003) notes, “While the belief of ‘cool’ links to the discourses of representation, the thought itself derives from popular culture…” (p. 96), which is why what is cool is what we find in pop culture. All of these are qualities politicians can’t embody or they would be harshly criticized, so they must align themselves with images and messages that represent them as chilly without making themselves out to be disinterested or self-absorbed. In fact, Street (2003) points out that politicians are rarely cool because they sacrifice too much of their personal pleasures in the rigors of campaigning and politics. Thus, to be seen as “cool” politicians must align themselves with someone or something that is considered cool, which often leads them to dip into popular culture. Dirty Celebrity. Celebrity is a powerful force in advertising. Choi and Rifon (2007) cite a witness of advertising messages that reports that 20% feature celebrities (Choi & Rifon, 2007). Celebrities attract attention to an advertisement and also bring a level of credibility to a message because the public recognizes and trusts celebrities (Choi and Rifon, 2007). Further, youth often scrutinize up to celebrities as role models (Choi and Rifon, 2007). Celebrities often bring dirt into advertisements because they themselves are “out of place.” For example, Bill Cosby, who used to appear in JELLO commercials, had nothing to do with the flavored gelatin, but he brought a credible, celebrity presence to the product. Celebrities bring with them dirt from their other areas of pop culture, particularly the areas from which they are known. Using our Bill Cosby example, he brings dirt from his family-oriented television show, The Cosby Show, which brought family dirt into the JELLO advertisements. Sometimes, celebrities bring unwelcome dirt into an advertisement. Therefore, in political ads, it is important to analyze how celebrity is venerable within an ad, what dirt that celebrity brings into the ad, and what that dirt brings to the politician’s image. Funny Dirt. Another aspect of dirt, humor, has been liberally used in advertisements. Humor “is known to cut through the thickest audience resistance, and is believed to secure attention, engagement, liking, and positive affect towards the brand,” (Leiss, 2005, 434). Ads geared towards young audiences often employ humor as a way to break through cynicism (Leiss, 2005). Humor is a particularly tricky aspect of dirt because it isn’t always dirt. Humor can be an important aspect of personal character, and voters might be relieved to leer that candidates can take a joke. However, humor isn’t always unprejudiced about the joke. Humor can trivialize messages and is thought to gash credibility (Leiss, 2005). Therefore, there is a point at which humor dirt might trivialize a political message, which can be detrimental to the democratic process. If politics are too long trivialized, people might not bother to vote and our democracy might be weakened. Thus, a sense of humor in a candidate must be taken with a grain of salt because it can be a powerful force that harms rather than helps in choosing a President. Favorite culture is by no means entirely ethically problematic; in fact, it is a vital and unavoidable part of our capitalist culture (Kidd, 2007). However, popular culture can become ethically problematic when mixed with politics, so such problems require careful analysis. Ethical problems arise when we can identify some hurt that is being done. In the case of politics, ethical harm is being done when the influence of popular culture undermines the political system. Politics are a vital part of keeping our society running smoothly, and terrible choices in politics can cause big problems for a large portion of the population. For example, slow political response to Hurricane Katrina increased the catastrophic effects, so harm to politics or the political system can have major consequences. Little amounts of popular culture dirt might be harmless and do what politicians intend: demonstrate candidates as ‘cool’ and ‘in touch.’ However, too much popular culture dirt can dirty the political system itself. Popular culture can deflect attention, trivialize messages, and misrepresent candidates, all of which can undermine democracy. Therefore, in my analysis, I will analyze each individual ad to determine whether or not the dirt involved does hurt to the democratic process. Candidate Sponsored Ads Presidential candidates in the 2008 campaign have used YouTube to its fullest extent. Each candidate has their beget YouTube account and has posted a great variety of videos from campaign speeches to video blogs to advertisements. From this proliferation of videos, I have chosen specifically ads that have references to popular culture to analyze the potential ethical effects of these references. The ads I will consider are John McCain’s “Rocky Wins,” Hillary Clinton’s “Sopranos,” and Mike Huckabee’s “HuckChuck Facts.” John McCain: “Rocky Wins” In his “Rocky Wins” ad, John McCain places himself alongside clips from Rocky, the Award-winning Film about a comeback boxer. The ad was launched in January 2008 after McCain recovered from a potentially fatal downturn in his campaign. Thus, the ad is essentially a comeback ad comparing his comeback to that of Rocky Balboa. McCain’s commercial plays to the Rocky Theme Song, and images of McCain’s campaign run alongside Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa. Rocky is on his famous training drag while McCain’s New Hampshire speeches emphasize his ‘comeback’ from a lagging campaign. The final shot places McCain, finishing a Novel Hampshire speech, in a split screen next to Rocky, holding his arms up in the air in triumph at the top of the stairs to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. A good deal of dirt has crept into this ad, including pop culture dirt and celebrity dirt. We see dirt from film (Rocky) and celebrity (Sylvester Stallone). Rocky also brings dirt from sports via boxing. Where does this dirt take us, in terms of McCain’s campaign? McCain uses the dirt Rocky brings to his campaign to offer a comparison to his resurging campaign and Rocky’s famous comeback as a boxer. However, Rocky, as a pop culture icon, brings with him more meaning than that direct reference. Rocky brings dirt about masculinity, fighting, sports, and strength. Rocky is a “cool” figure in that he pushes against authority to obtain what he wants. Rocky is a quintessential man’s man, and when that ideal is placed into the political arena, it makes some interesting claims about what makes a President. Stallone has a similar reputation. He is seen as a man’s man, and often plays violent masculine characters, such as Rocky and Rambo. Thus, the ad brings in a obedient deal of gender and violent dirt from the celebrity and film referenced. McCain’s ad presents a number of ethical problems, not the least of which is the dirt from gender and race. The ad defines the President as a strong, white, male, which is a controversial claim for the 2008 election. In a nation that touts equality, a presidential candidate would never dare to design such claims directly because it goes against the ideals of our country, but McCain allows the dirt to indirectly imply such a claim. Rocky also represents strength, fighting, and determination, but his fight is fist-to-fist combat, not gunshots, bombs, and civilian casualties. This representation implies that McCain represents a fighter, but McCain’s fight will be the war in Iraq, which is far bloodier than a boxing match. Rocky romanticizes combat, but combat with guns and bombs on the world stage must be seen practically and not romantically because real human lives are at stake. If voters spy at McCain’s stance on Iraq via the dirt from Rocky, voters may bag a more romanticized view of war, which may cause them to vote on the war from a less informed perspective. Rocky, as a strong, white male, brings gender dirt into the equation. Rocky’s appeal as a celebrity might lead the voter to vote for someone “like Rocky,” which, in this race, excludes both the female and the African American candidate. Implying, via celebrity dirt, that a white male would make a stronger president is a particularly sexist/racist statement to make in the new millennium. Therefore, encouraging a voter to vote based on race or gender is also a dangerous concept because it encourages voters to vote on appearance rather than ability or qualifications. Both Rocky’s sport/violence dirt and his gender/race dirt bring dangerous concepts into McCain’s ad that could harm the effective exercise of democracy. Hillary Clinton: “Sopranos” Hillary Clinton embraced a current pop culture phenomenon, the The Sopranos, in one of her ads back in June 2007. The ad was a gimmick to lead viewers onto her website to choose her campaign song. Hillary has never been known for her sense of humor (Schieffer, 2007) and has often been criticized as mean or robotic. For this reason, she and husband Bill Clinton parody the final scene of the Sopranos to show her softer side. The political couple sits in a diner as Hillary Clinton peruses the song list on the table’s jukebox, as Tony Soprano did in the final Sopranos scene. Bill Clinton enters the scene, as Carmela Soprano does, and sits down across from his wife, who has ordered carrot sticks for him. Around the diner are various shots-boy scouts, a multicultural table, a couple-all of which are an homage to the Soprano’s scene. The dialogue mentions nothing of politics, though it briefly mentions the campaign. The couple both look at the song list, imagining which song it will be, and, suddenly, the screen cuts to dim and invites people to visit Hillary’s website to vote on her campaign song. An online article from CBS News quotes Bob Schieffer, CBS News chief in Washington, saying, “For all her political skills, Hillary Clinton has never been really known for a sense of humor. This thing is hilarious. And I think it is going to help her campaign. I contemplate it’s one of the cleverest things I’ve seen in a long, long time,” (“Hillary Spoofs ‘Sopranos’” par. 18). The article also mentions that this “illustrate[s] the growing effort by some of the more technologically savvy campaigns to connect with voters and potential donors in clever, relatively inexpensive formats that are infused with pop culture references, contemporary themes or intimate moments.” (“Hillary…” np). The key pop dirt definite here comes from the Sopranos. They bring dirt from the mob, violence, and aggressive power. Tony Soprano plays a mob boss on television. The dirt implies strength, but also violence, and in this case, aggressive, often unjustified violence. Another reading of the ad reveals gender dirt because Hillary has taken the place of a male leader (Tony Soprano). By putting herself in the commanding male role, the ad suggests that Hillary can handle a typically male role, i.e. the presidency. The ad is meant to be funny, so it also drags in humor dirt that plays on facts that the audience might know. For example, Bill Clinton had heart surgery in 2004, so Hillary orders him carrot sticks instead of the onion rings ordered in The Sopranos. The audience is also meant to understand that Hillary is playing a man, and Bill a woman. Both examples reverse the expectations of Sopranos fans, which makes the ad funny. However, though the ad is humorous, it failed to mention anything about politics. The viewer may like Hillary based on her sense of humor, but humor should can’t be the only requirements of a President, and Hillary’s humor has introduced more ethically problematic dirt than she may have realized. Hillary plays the role of cutthroat mob-boss Tony Soprano, who I’m sure none of us want as President, yet it entertains, makes us laugh, and shows the audience a softer side of Hillary. Limited about the Sopranos is presidential, but it is certainly wintry. The mob is cool because the mob has little regard for authority. They make their own rules, but enforce those rules through violence. The dirt from Hillary’s ad evokes images of violence and killing, yet one of her major platforms as a candidate is ending the violence in Iraq. Thus Hillary becomes a hypocrite in her ad on a particularly serious issue: war. She can only take one side on the inform, which, assuming she opposes the war like her policies say she does, then the ad misleads the voter. By aligning herself with Tony Soprano for the sake of humor, Hillary misleads the voter by portraying herself as a great different, and more violent, character than she is. Mike Huckabee, the musty governor of Arkansas, joined in the YouTube advertising game, and appeared in ads with actor Chuck Norris (who has recently re-entered pop culture via Conan O’brian’s Walker Texas Ranger Lever). Huckabee’s “HuckChuckFacts” was released in 2007, early in Huckabee’s presidential bid. The ad shows Mike Huckabee and Chuck Norris in a casual setting, a hunter’s room, complementing one another. Chuck Norris lists some of Mike Huckabee’s qualities as a candidate, and Huckabee cleverly quips about Chuck Norris’ strength. Chuck Norris states, “Mike Huckabee is a lifelong hunter, and he’ll protect our Second Amendment rights.” “There’s no chin under Chuck Norris’ beard, only another fist,” Huckabee replies, tongue in cheek. Typical for a political ad, Huckabee informs the audience that he has approved the ad. After Huckabee’s approval, Chuck Norris approves it also: he punches the screen as he says “Chuck Norris Favorite!” and the screen freezes in sepia. Huckabee’s ad is another that utilizes both humor and celebrity dirt. Chuck Norris draws dirt from his resurrection on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, which portrays him as an inherently humorous figure on a cheesy television show. Norris also brings masculine dirt from fighting, strength, and his cowboy image. Here again we see dirt that expresses a need for presidential strength, and a strength that emphasizes physical violence. The humor dirt plays an important and slightly eerie part in Huckabee’s ad as well. As with Hillary’s ad, the humor comes out of the unexpected. The claims about Norris like, “When Chuck Norris does a push-up he isn’t lifting himself up, he’s pushing the earth down,” are so ridiculous that they’re humorous. However, the ad pairs gun rights and border control with hilarious, over-the-top implications of violence from a celebrity martial artist. As mentioned before, the young, YouTube audience values humor, particularly the cynical humor when celebrities make fun of themselves (Leiss, 2005). The humor of this ad (particularly because Chuck Norris is such an inherently humorous figure right now) is a very powerful force, yet it overshadows the political messages of the ad. It can be difficult to separate the humor from what ought to be taken seriously. Chuck Norris delivers all of the issue-base lines, but it’s difficult for us to take Chuck Norris seriously. As we have seen, celebrities hold the power in advertising, so Chuck Norris overshadows Huckabee, which makes it difficult to take Huckabee seriously either. The humor of the ad overshadows and trivializes both violence and political issues because the jokes bleed into the seriousness. The distress here is that the humor of the ad trivializes politics. It makes both Huckabee and Norris appear goofy, which shows Huckabee’s sense of humor, but plays down the importance of his political messages. If voters begin to understand politics as a trivial concept, they might finish making the effort to pay attention and vote. If fewer people vote, democracy is threatened because fewer people’s ideals are represented. You Tube is not only a professionals’ forum; it’s open to all users with videos to upload. Thus, YouTube allows independent users to upload their own videos supporting or criticizing presidential candidates. These ads offer wide range of messages and some have become very popular, but amongst these user-generated ads, favorite culture references abound. In fact, pop culture seems to be the language of YouTube. From Star Wars to Apple to pop singers, independent ads support and criticize politics through the lens of pop culture. The ads I have chosen to analyze are, first of all, “30-second Ad” for Ron Paul, which was created by an independent user but is featured on Paul’s website because he was impressed with it. I will also consider “Vote Different” for Barack Obama, which shows an example of a critical ad. Finally, I will consider “Yes We Can” for Barack Obama because it is one of the most current independent political ads on YouTube. Ron Paul :”30-second Ad” Ron Paul’s 30-second ad and remix of it are ads made by a YouTube user that Paul supports enough to post them on his website. The video displays a series of graphic cards asking the viewer to imagine a world that embraces some of Ron Paul’s ideas including eliminating the IRS and ending the war in Iraq. The music that plays is an upbeat, alternative rock piece; the remix of the ad uses the same visuals set to the popular Credence Clearwater Revival song “Fortunate Son.” The music gives the ad its upbeat feel, which might befriend to glean the voter pumped for Ron Paul’s policies that are addressed. The ad ends with an image of Ron Paul with the text, “Imagine America with Ron Paul.” The screen then transitions to another screen with the text, “It’s time to be heard,” and a link to Paul’s website. The predominant dirt here is brought in by music. In the “30-second Ad,” the song playing is alternative rock music that very much appeals to youth. Alternative music brings with it dirt about rebellion and enrage. It is also a very androgynous genre of music: women dress like boys, in ties and tennis shoes, and men often dress in somewhat effeminate styles, i.e. girl’s styles of pants. In this ad, such androgynous, but young dirt, suggests a welcoming attitude towards all types/genders, which is an valuable claim in an election with a female candidate and an African American candidate. In the remix, the ad plays to “Fortunate Son,” which sounds like an all-American song, but it is often misheard. The song has, in fact, a very subversive message protesting America’s attitude toward war. The pop culture dirt invited in through the music evokes ideas of rebellion and revolution, which is an extreme interpretation of Ron Paul’s platform. Thus this dirt misleads. As well, both rock and roll and punk music have a violent, aggressive undertone. For a politician who insists that he wants to get out of Iraq, aggressive music works against that stance, confusing and thus harming the reader in the ability to understand and rationally evaluate Paul’s position. Apple, Inc. ran an ad in 1984 that used the book 1984 to inspire a commercial where an Apple representative broke destroyed Big Brother and allowed everyone to “Think Different.” Now, a YouTube user has created a parody to criticize Hillary Clinton, and support Obama. The ad opens with an odd tube. Inside, a single line of identical men marches, while small televisions play one of Hillary Clinton’s speeches. We next see a woman in a track outfit with an Obama logo holding a sledgehammer and running. The men walk lock step into an auditorium where Hillary’s face is on a Huge screen, reciting her speech. Hillary talks about wanting to have a conversation with the people as the woman continues to run, now chased by men in welding masks. The woman runs into the auditorium impartial as Hillary emphasizes that she wants people who want to be “part of a team.” The woman hurls the hammer at the mask and it explodes in white light. The identical men all gasp. Text rolls that insist that 2008 won’t be like 1984. “Vote Different.” The ad ends with an Obama logo. The obvious dirt in the ad is the literary reference to 1984 and the reference to the Apple campaign, currently a “cool” brand of electronics. Apple portrays itself as relaxed and detached from the traditionally stuffy world of technology, as portrayed in the Mac vs. PC spots starring Justin Long. In the “1984″ ad, the Apple runner rebels against the establishment, i.e., Ample Brother. Thus, in the ad, Obama is the Rebel and Hillary is the establishment. Dirt from 1984 brings dirt from communism and oppression, so Hillary potentially threatens the world with that kind of domineering subjugation. The ad also brings in racial dirt: all the men in the ad were white. The overbearing “Great Brother” character is female rather than male. That suggests a brainwashed white America and a domineering presence of females, which plays to the stereotype that women in power are almost inhuman. This video makes radical claims about the possibilities of a Hillary Clinton presidency, certainly taking liberties in characterizing her. The ad is an exaggerated example of what this particular user sees as problems with Hillary Clinton, but the ad also makes claims about others. If Hillary as President is the overbearing leader, then the American people, particularly white people, are mindless drones following a leader. The gender dirt also presents a compromising vision of women in power because Hillary is portrayed as the domineering, oppressive leader. She’s oppressing men, which implies that a woman can’t be trusted as a leader. The dirt from the ad implies that Hillary would be a bad choice for president not because of any discrepancies with her leadership, but because she is a woman. This ad does harm to the democratic process because it gives the voter the idea that he or she ought to vote down gender lines, rather than by evaluation a candidate’s politics. Legitimate criticisms of other candidates can be considerable means to advertise, but criticisms fraught with dirt that encourage superficial judgment of a candidate rather than informed judgment manipulate the voter and undermine the democratic process. In classy-looking black and white, Will.i.am adjusts his hat. We see a quick flash of actress Scarlett Johansen as she readies herself. When Will.i.am begins to speak, he echoes another voice: the sing of Barack Obama. The ad, which features a laundry list of celebrities, gives a musical background and adds singing voices to Barack Obama’s speech after the New Hampshire primary. The ad cuts in between images of different stars, often set as a split screen with Obama making his speech. The stars are dwelling against a simple black background, some with instruments, some in front of a recording studio microphone. The ad, directed by Jesse Dylan, has a simple but edgy feel to it. The stars featured in the ad include John Legend, Herbie Hancock, Kate Walsh, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Adam Rodriquez, Kelly Hu, Adam Rodriquez, Amber Valetta, Kylie Minogue and Nick Cannon. This ad, which was produced by Will.i.am, a singer in the Black Eyed Peas, is fraught with celebrity dirt. Not only do celebrities endorse the ad, but one of them conceived the idea. With so many celebrities, their individual dirt isn’t as powerful as it could be if a single celebrity endorsed Obama alone, but there is collective dirt that can be analyzed. The celebrities are multi-racial and attractive. The collective “we” that the video emphasizes must be an interracial we, but also, to a degree, a youthful we because even the older celebrities (middle-aged) have a youthful attractiveness. Music also brings dirt into the ad. R&B music is an African American musical genre, which seems fitting when supporting an African American candidate. R&B is also a “cool” genre of music. Contemporary R&B developed in the 80s, but burst into mainstream popularity in the 90s. Therefore, younger voters who grew up in the 90s or 2000s would be more familiar with R&B music. Contemporary R&B music also brings with it dirt from sexuality. The Black Eyed Peas, Will.i.am’s group, often features the female singer, Fergie, dancing in scanty tops and short shorts. Thus, Obama is portrayed as young, multi-cultural, cool, and sexy. Discussion YouTube has become a distinguished force in this election, but YouTube has become a dirty place for politics. As we have seen in the ads above, pop culture references within political ads that run on YouTube bring in a good amount of dirt and can create ethical problems. Politicians use YouTube to connect with the younger crowd of voters who frequent YouTube, and one of their main strategies is attracting through pop culture. In response, independent YouTube users have created their own political ads supporting or criticizing candidates, which, consequently also use pop culture to forward their messages. A number of ethical problems arise because pop culture dirt can harm our democracy. Pop culture brings in dirt that misrepresents politicians, deflects attention away from politics, and encourages the trivialization of politics. The Image of a Leader Both candidates’ and the user-generated content portray the candidates as an image, and in particular, an image of approved culture. In their ads, Candidates align themselves with pop culture images such as Rocky, Tony Soprano, and Chuck Norris, but, as we’ve seen, such comparisons lead to dirt (violence, gender) that the candidates probably didn’t intend. All three candidates align themselves with characters that are violent towards others, which misrepresents the candidates as more viscerally violent than a President ought to be. Yet these characters have an attraction-they are funny or cool-which is why candidates align themselves with them. Candidates align themselves with celebrities on a superficial level without considering some of the dirt that those icons bring into their advertisements. Their lack of attention allows these icons to misrepresent political candidates, and if we don’t see good representations of a candidate, then the voter is being User-generated ads present candidates as images as well. Users record Ron Paul as rebellion, Barack Obama as solidarity and freedom, and Hillary Clinton as oppression. Unlike candidates, independent users have no boundaries or checks on the veracity of their claims, so their misrepresentations can be even more fraudulent. For example, Hillary’s portrayal as Big Brother has no legitimated proof to support the claim that Hillary is headed for a dictatorship. Though, on some level, viewers understand that some claims are exaggerated or false, the message of the ad, unfounded though it is, still makes an impact. Despite an understanding that an ad might be false, we are exposed to the message nonetheless. With the rise of user-generated political ads, ethical concerns must be raised about the truth of these claims. If people are too often exposed to groundless messages, they might stop trusting politics in general. When people lose faith in the political system, they might not vote, and if they don’t vote, our democracy could be weakened. The Shield of Pop Pop culture creates another problematic when paired with political advertising: pop culture sells candidates while deflecting any questions of their policies. Of the ads considered, only two of the ads mentioned specific policies of the candidates and both of those were sound-bytes that were overshadowed by pop culture. In Ron Paul’s ad, brief sentences mention some of Paul’s policies, but the music is what makes the ad entertaining. Similarly, in “HuckChuck Facts,” Chuck Norris mentions some of Huckabee’s policies, but those are overshadowed by Huckabee’s droll comments. Also, as mentioned earlier, Chuck Norris has become such a caricature of himself that we have trouble believing what he says. In both of these cases, the political messages are overshadowed by pop culture because pop culture is more difficult to argue with. In order to sell themselves to the greatest number of voters, candidates must use the language of pop culture to convey some semblance of “coolness”-uniqueness, humor, and rebelliousness-to make themselves stunning to voters. From politicians, users have also learned to screen a politician’s message with pop culture. A user created the Ron Paul ad that favored music over substance. Similarly, “Yes We Can” uses one of Barack Obama’s inspirational speeches full of rhetoric, not policy. Again in this ad, we even remember the celebrities rather than the well-written speech. In “Vote Different,” no policy or factual evidence is given in support of Barack Obama. The claim in the ad is that he is not Hillary, who, in the ad, talks about “having a conversation” with the voter and “building a team.” These words are dragged out of context and placed onto a Big Brother hide, which immediately changes their meaning. Thus, the actual words (which, let us not forget, are Hillary’s rhetoric, not substance) are changed when they are put into the context of popular culture, and that reference arguably overshadows Hillary’s true meaning in her speech. Popular culture, as used in this context, masks political messages that allow a voter to intelligently discern between candidates and undermines our democracy in doing so. Popular culture, though a vital part of society, is based on celebrity, image, and concepts of cool. Politics, on the other hand, is more serious than that; politics is policy and leadership. If political advertising is overcome by popular culture references, what precedent will that set for other areas of our intellectual lives? Popular culture, though it has its place in society, could bring devastating trivialities to other parts of society. Pop culture entertains us, but what is popular is transient, and thus, to an extent, trivial and superfluous. By inviting that kind of culture into our politics, we are inviting the same shallow aspects of our entertainment into the arena of government, already an area that isn’t taken as seriously by some as it ought to be. If voters begin seeing politics as trivial, people probably won’t bother to vote. If fewer people vote, fewer people are represented in our democracy and fewer people’s voices are being heard. Here, then, we observe another way in which popular culture in political advertising undermines the political system. Conclusion This paper isn’t meant to create some kind of doom and gloom notion of YouTube advertising, presidential campaigns, or celebrated culture. Instead, it argues that voters need to carefully consider the messages they watch and not allow their enjoyment of pop culture twist their vote. YouTube has created a wonderful recent forum for sharing independently produced media and given the voter a current swear in the presidential election. However, these popular culture-inspired political ads bring an excessive amount of dirt into politics and often allow shallow popular culture references to overshadow political messages. The inherent narrative in pop culture is a narrative about the explain, being forward-thinking, and the elusive understanding of “cool.” Remarkable of our existence, particularly in the younger, college-age generation, has revolved around meeting the standards of popular culture and what is frigid in that moment. Despite attempts to avoid it, all of us are subject to at least some part of the struggle to be accepted, which is also something that political candidates struggle with. The problem with favorite culture and cool is that it has no substance. Cool is not a coherent idea and it says nothing about integrity, character, or values. Cool, therefore, is not the narrative that should define a presidential candidate; however, the fact remains that icy often attracts voter attention. Candidates, I would like to believe, understand that their pop culture references say limited about their ability to lead, yet they cannot deny the fact that the elusive plan of what is cool will come by people, particularly young people, to pay attention to them. The concept becomes a double-edged sword because, while appeals to pop culture may be superficial, voter turnout for several of the primaries was record-breaking. An article from NewsWise (2008) reports, “Of the states which had primaries in both parties, records were set in 15 states” (2008 Primary…par. 3). It’s hard to determine how this record number of voters chose their candidate, and it is a viable suggestion that at least a decent number of voters based their decision on a candidate’s pop culture appeal. As we have seen from considering a number of these ads, pop culture is used as a arrangement to conceal or completely avoid more substantive political messages. As campaign advertisements devolve into 30-second bits not only on television, but also online, American voters are finding it easier and easier to judge candidates on an artificially created image, rather on policies and procedures. Though it is the voter’s prerogative to seek out detailed information (which is available online), it should also be the candidate’s duty to represent himself of herself faithfully and ethically, so the American voter might choose the best leader. With an increasing number of pop culture political ads, the projection for the future looks grim. Popular culture in political ads can undermine the democratic process, so the voter should be very discerning while watching political ads and critically evaluate its messages. Though television, the Internet, and YouTube put politics at our fingers, we must take the time to acquaint ourselves with our candidates, understand their policies, and make our vote based on information rather than an image bred from popular culture. Works Cited < http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1570721,00.html>Corner, J. (2003). Mediated Persona and Political Culture. In J. Corner & D. Pels (Eds.) Media and the Restyling of Politics. (pp. 67-84) Sage Publications: London. |
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