{"id":11538,"date":"2016-07-28T16:34:16","date_gmt":"2016-07-28T23:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/?p=11538"},"modified":"2016-07-28T16:34:16","modified_gmt":"2016-07-28T23:34:16","slug":"break-the-election-with-mediabreakerstudios","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/break-the-election-with-mediabreakerstudios\/","title":{"rendered":"Break the Election with MediaBreaker\/Studios"},"content":{"rendered":"

MediaBreaker\/Studios, a free tool to teach students how to critically dissect election advertising and media, can be used in conjunction with opportunities and resources from Letters to the Next President 2.0 to, as our partner The Lamp says, “Break the Election.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\"2016-candidates-circle_200x200\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Just because students are too young to cast a vote doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re too young to have a voice in an election. The LAMP\u2019s Break the Election<\/a> programming (designed for the 2016 presidential election, but useful any time) is an opportunity for educators to help youth understand how media impact elections, and to demand transparency from elected officials. In Break the Election, students remix and critique actual political commercials, news coverage and more to pull back the curtains on misinformation, bias or persuasive techniques sometimes used to sway public opinion and win votes. Break the Election is not about partisanship. It\u2019s about helping young people find their voices, practice critical media literacy skills and become active, engaged citizens.<\/p>\n

This guide will introduce you to the world of political advertising, and show you how to Break the Election with your students using The LAMP\u2019s free MediaBreaker\/Studios platform and technology. If you\u2019re new to the tool, we suggest you visit our Quick Start Guide for Teachers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A Brief History of Political Advertising<\/h4>\n

The run-up to a presidential election in the United States gets longer and longer every four years, and the amount of political advertisements bombarding us has greatly increased, as well. With an estimated $4.4 billion to be spent on advertising in the 2016 election year, there doesn\u2019t seem to be any stopping the tide of political ads. Political advertising, however, is not new in American politics, though the form and language of campaign ads have changed quite a bit over time.<\/p>\n

Music<\/h5>\n
\"Sheet<\/a>

Sheet music for “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too”<\/p><\/div>\n

In the 1800s, before television and radio, and long before the Internet, newspapers were the dominant mass medium of the day, though even the largest newspapers had a very limited reach. Presidential candidates had to rely on more imaginative means to communicate their message across the vast continental United States. Campaign songs, with words set to popular melodies, were an effective way to cement a candidate\u2019s name and story within the popular culture. These songs were distributed across the country in songbooks, and campaigns would organize glee clubs to introduce the songs to audiences. \u201cTippecanoe and Tyler Too\u201d<\/a> is perhaps the most famous campaign song from this era. Much like their historical predecessors, modern political campaigns make use of established popular music to communicate certain ideas and emotions to their audience, like Bill Clinton\u2019s use of Fleetwood Mac\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow)\u201d<\/a> or Mitt Romney\u2019s use of Kid Rock\u2019s \u201cBorn Free.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Slogans<\/h5>\n
\"Campaign<\/a>

Campaign poster for Calvin Coolidge<\/p><\/div>\n

Sloganeering has also been a mainstay of political campaigns through history. While distilling the complexities of a candidate and their message within a 30-second TV spot is difficult, creating a one-line slogan that communicates the promises of a candidate\u2019s campaign, or the dangers of an opponent\u2019s, is even more difficult. Abraham Lincoln offered the American public a sensible \u201cDon\u2019t trade horses in midstream\u201d<\/a> slogan for his re-election campaign of 1864, while Calvin Coolidge tried to connect with the youth of 1924 with his \u201cStay Cool with Coolidge\u201d<\/a> campaign slogan. One of the more infamous campaign slogans was Herbert Hoover\u2019s \u201cA chicken in every pot and a car in every garage\u201d <\/a>promise of economic prosperity in 1928, which proved unfortunate as Hoover led the country into the Great Depression. Hoover\u2019s opponents subsequently used the slogan against him to show how out of touch Hoover was with the suffering of everyday Americans.<\/p>\n

Television<\/h5>\n

Television\u2019s mass appeal and advertising-focused economy drastically changed the way politicians reached their audiences. Presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first politician to really take advantage of this medium<\/a>, creating the first campaign commercials, a series of 40 twenty-second ads in which \u2018Ike\u2019 answered questions from people about issues, like inflation and the Korean war, in a simple, direct manner. The \u2018Eisenhower Answers America\u2019 TV campaign significantly contributed to Eisenhower winning the 1952 election. After Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy utilized the power of television to communicate to mass audiences. Kennedy proved a man who was born to be on camera, graceful and confident, while Nixon often appeared fidgety and troubled. Their 1960 debates<\/a>, watched live by 70 million Americans, established the television industry as the ultimate American kingmaker. When those debates were televised, people thought the photogenic Kennedy was the clear winner, while those listening on the radio thought Nixon delivered the stronger message.<\/p>\n

Campaign ads, like all media, are products of the time periods in which they were made, and are often inspired by domestic and world events. Campaign ads focus on the events and issues that concern the voting public, but they do so in limited, casual, and fragmentary ways. The ultimate purpose of political ads is to persuade voters to \u2018trust\u2019 a specific candidate or \u2018doubt\u2019 their opponent. Lyndon Johnson\u2019s campaign ran a controversial ad during the 1964 presidential election called \u201cDaisy\u201d that showed a young girl plucking petals from a flower, with a voice-over counting down to a nuclear explosion, then a freeze frame and zoom-in on the young girl\u2019s eye juxtaposed with images of mushroom-cloud explosions:<\/p>\n