[NOTE: This post was written and published ahead of the June 27 "debate," which has stimulated a flurry of editorial and other media conjectures and projections that further illustrate points below.]
Unsurprising to anyone except those most involved in the media industry is the smoldering recognition that this industry is its own problem.
For example, the much-touted Question & Answer event that's branded as political debate between United States presidential aspirants usefully illustrates the low bar that the industry sets for itself (and us) to deliver either information or entertainment.
The media's self-hype that pitches this 90-minute non-debate as "most watched" and "potentially decisive" is suitable fodder for late night comedians, who instead exaggerate the incongruous and ironic to pillory both candidates for laughs.
Amid all the hyperbole for this not-so spectacular, it seems just one serious late night anchor is prepared to challenge such presumptions–repeatedly clarifying how this Q&A session, that's fit to be called a "NOT-Debate," requires no skill or activity of the candidates that's relevant to being an effective president of the country.[1]
Even after the 1960 presidential debates between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy, it was generally agreed that the "images" television projected of the candidates was most determining of an apparent "winner," rather than the candidate's views or abilities to handle national and international issues facing America.[2] Persistently for decades, scholars and other thoughtful commentators have accumulated useful insights about what's really going on during these made-for-TV efforts.[3]
It's long acknowledged that photographs can lie. Yet the physical characteristics of a television stage set, camera angles, the frequency and duration of reaction shots, and a host of videography features will greatly impact viewer perceptions. What viewers get to see of facial expression, eye contact, use of gestures, body movement, and spatial considerations is important to imply power, dominance, and strength, or weakness.[4]
Some genuine analysis of these nonverbal features immediately following the verbal jousting might be more useful than all the conjecture and projections generally filling the commentary of pundits. This nonverbal "veil of distortion"[5] by the medium is arguably most critical in determining which candidate may have "won" in the eyes of viewers.
Such nonverbal features are especially influential in framing conscious or unconscious inferences. And the absence of useful insights about the impact of nonverbal factors that are often beyond the control of the candidates on stage is particularly unfortunate, since the comments afterwards of pundits still seem to matter most to how viewers see the so-called debaters.
Not that such important considerations seem to matter much to gatekeepers of the media industry in many western countries. Apart from a relatively few thoughtful members of the media and the very notable exception of some Scandinavian and European media organizations,[6] western broadcast media seem to lack ability (or perhaps even willingness) to benefit from available information about themselves.
Rather, media executives slavishly sustain a mockery of the public square. For almost a decade, most media in the United States at least have provided so much mention, video, photos, and verbatim quotes of one politician versus any other that their elevation of that name and "brand" surely now totals an incalculable billions-of-dollars value in free publicity.
As I've noted elsewhere, in the United States, mass media have frequently broadcast entire political rallies of a candidate, again and again and again, for months on end. This was acknowledged at the time by the occasional broadcast media executive as not good for America, but "damn good" for the broadcaster.[7]
And likely well into the future, overall this industry appears set to keep performing poorly for voters and the democracy that protects media freedom.
References
1. Lawrence O'Donnell (2024), The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, New York: MSNBC, June 26
2. Bruce G. Bryski and Jerry K. Frye (1980), "Nonverbal Communication in Presidential Debates," in Rodney G. Miller and Jerry K. Frye (Eds), Australian Scan of Nonverbal Communication, Brisbane, Qld: The Communication Institute, p. 31
3. See, for example, Robert Williams (1965), "On the Value of Varying Television Shots," Journal of Broadcasting, 9, Winter, pp. 33-43; Robert Schlater (1969), "Effect of Irrelevant Visual Cues on Recall of Televised Messages," Journal of Broadcasting, 14, Winter, pp. 63-70; and Daniel J. Boorstin (1978), The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America, New York: Atheneum
4. Bryski and Frye, p. 29
5. John Zada (2021), Veils of Distortion: How the News Media Warps Our Minds, Toronto: Incognito
6. Jens E. Kjeldsen (2023), “The Practice and Pragmatics of Scandinavian Research in Rhetoric. Audience Studies in Scandinavian Rhetorical Scholarship,” Res Rhetorica, 10(4), pp. 10-27, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/377069911_The_practice_and_pragmatics_of_Scandinavian_research_in_rhetoric_Audience_studies_in_Scandinavian_rhetorical_scholarship; Jens E. Kjeldsen, Christian Kock, and Orla Vigsø (2021), “Political Rhetoric in Scandinavia,” in Skorgerbø, E., Ø. Ihlen, N.N. Kristensen, and L. Nord (Eds.), Power, Communication, and Politics in the Nordic Countries, Gothenburg: Nordicom, University of Gothenburg, pp. 365-383, https://bora.uib.no/bora-xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/2763090/Kjeldsen%252C%2BKock%2B%2526%2BVigs%25C3%25B8_Political%2Brhetoric%2Bin%2BScandinavia.pdf?sequence=2
7. Peter K. Fallon (2022), Propaganda 2.1: Understanding Propaganda in the Digital Age, Eugene, OR: Cascade, p. 95; see also Rodney G. Miller (2024), Get Ahead of Propagandists: Countering Disinformation, Albany, NY: Parula, p. 13