20130412164339753295_book_an-introduction-to-political-communication

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Bush. Ronald Reagan’s image was that of a ‘nice guy’ – handsome and
congenial, while firm and unbending against the enemies of freedom. Jimmy
Carter’s image, which helped him to be elected in 1976, was of a self-made
small businessman (peanut farmer), independent of the Washington establishment
which had produced the corruption of Richard Nixon and the complacency
of Gerald Ford. The campaign which led to Barack Obama’s election
as president in 2008 stressed an image of the candidate as youthful, inspirational
and not of the Washington establishment. His ethnicity and his roots
in Chicago black politics were the basis for an image-based campaign of
‘Hope’ and ‘Change’ (Figure 6.1).
For Joslyn, the prominence of image in advertising is ‘a troubling discovery’
(ibid., p. 180), confirming the widely-held view that advertisingdominated
election campaigns are far removed from the normative ideal of
Figure 6.1 Barack Obama’s presidential campaign poster, 2008.
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