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Kay Israel

Kay Israel is an associate professor of communications at Rhode Island College. An expert on public opinion, political and governmental communications, public relations, advertising, and propaganda, he is a co-director of the college’s political debate research project.

Devin Varsalona interviewed Israel on June 21, 2007.

Could you just provide us with a little background on how long you have been studying politics, how you got into this, and what you have been studying in the presidential elections past?

The best way to explain it is that my emphasis of study has always been in the area of political communication. My doctorate thesis, which was done at M.I.T. [Massachusetts Institute of Technology], focused on the use of campaign commercial formats and what their impact was. It was very early on, and I think one of the first studies that dealt with the idea of the effect of negative commercials versus issue-oriented commercials, things of that type.

I have taught in schools of communications, primarily; again, the emphasis being political communications, public relations and advertising, also propaganda. I have been involved, in terms of presidential campaigns, less directly. But roughly the last eight years, I have been basically trying to monitor and pay attention — having gone up to the New Hampshire primary to observe what was going on — trying to look at it in terms of how campaign strategies have changed, primarily due to, it became evident, the new technology.

And basically, that’s where I am. Much of what we are doing now is, again, trying to deal with the issue of teaching campaign management, campaign approaches, things of that nature, and focusing primarily, obviously, every four years on the presidential race.

Well, you just mentioned changing technology. So I guess to start off, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the changing technology, especially the rise of the Internet, and how it’s affected the way presidential campaigns communicate with voters.

The first thing that was evident to me was that the Internet has standardized campaigns, in the sense that one used to be able to go from one state to the next state, in terms of the primaries, and get different issues. What occurred and began to occur, around 2000 as far as I can see, was that we actually had a step back to the 1890s.

Really?

Yes. Believe it or not, there used to be what they used to call “campaign manuals,” which candidates would publish. They would send it out to all of their backers throughout the country, and that had their set platforms and positions. The Internet has provided the same thing. What happens is, literally, you go to a candidate headquarters and ask them for information to download the uniform statement from the Internet. The result is that the candidates can’t waffle or shift the way they used to. In terms of information, it changes the complexion of the campaign. It means that, as I said, they have to be more rigid. In the beginning, they plan out the structure of their issues and statements. That’s significant.

Do you see evidence of the campaign teams sort of tracing back historically and figuring out what they used to do? Or are they really going and making whole new strategies?

I think it’s not a matter of they are going backwards and looking at it, but they are, in essence, trying to reinvent the wheel. In other words, I think it’s just coincidence. They probably don’t even realize that’s the way campaigning was done. It was a cheaper, cleaner method, because the candidate didn’t have to campaign. And, in essence, what we are seeing is that same approach now with the Internet. Candidates see the Internet as a less expensive means of being able to reach voters that already have an inclination of support toward their position in the first place.

And going on with the Internet, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the viral advertising in campaign communications in general. For example, I have been seeing a lot of those YouTube videos, the new Hillary [Clinton] Sopranos spoof, the Mike Gravel seven-minute videos. What effects are you seeing this time around?

The first thing about the viral communication, obviously it has a plus and a minus. The one factor is obviously the cost. It’s a cheaper way of getting your message out. I’m thinking of the Texas campaign. I am also thinking of the campaigns up in Minnesota, et cetera, where the use of viral communications became a cheap and inexpensive form. I think it enabled the candidate to avoid having to collect as much money and be as beholden as they may be to other interests. That’s a plus.

The difficulty I see, as everyone else is seeing, is the fact that you have a contradiction of campaigns micromanaging and microtargeting voters on the one hand, trying to control what’s going on. And because of viral campaigning, it’s doing the exact reverse. It’s taking the campaign totally out of the candidate’s hands, and in good part, where anyone can post something on YouTube. That’s the first problem.

The second problem, again, is that it tends to emphasize in campaigns not necessarily issues and statements, but rather drama and presentation. I want to use the word oddity, but I am not sure that’s the best word for it. It drives people to YouTube. I mean, I find that rather interesting. Because it becomes a matter, again, of who can out-produce the other candidates and try to get the voter’s attention.

Do you think they are targeting, with these YouTube videos, a specific subset of voters — the young vote? I am not too familiar with the demographics of who is actually watching these videos online.

I think it’s hard to tell. I think it may gain more access with the younger groups. But I still think the difficulty with the young group is that they tend to be indifferent in the first place. As you know, their turnout tends to be less. Therefore, I don’t know that it’s necessarily as driving a factor. That’s why I think it’s the oddity rather than the importance of the candidate or the race that becomes important with them. Again, [John] Edwards with the theme music of “I Feel Pretty” in the background makes it odd, makes it funny, makes it interesting. I don’t know if they would be drawn to if it was just a typical Edwards spot talking about the problems of poverty.

Do you think it’s going to be harder for the campaigns to control their message with YouTube, because people can make something like the Edwards video?

Absolutely. 

Is there a way you can see that they can really control this and get in their grasp?

I can’t see it. I really can’t, only because the nature of the Internet is such that anyone can post: YouTube, blogs, whatever, and it doesn’t have to be right. In the area of public relations, it’s become a major obstacle for firms and organizations in terms of the way they control their message. I think candidates are even more vulnerable.

What about opposition research? Do you think that we are going to see smear campaigns in the forms of YouTube videos or others online?

I think we already are.

We already are?

Maybe I’m wrong, but I think it’s basically guerilla warfare. When I say guerrilla warfare, I am using it in the same context as books out called Guerrilla P.R. and Guerrilla Advertising. This is what I call guerrilla politics. The fact is that, as I said, you have no control over who is saying it. No idea about the credibility. Anyone can plant it. And it’s about as potent, I think, as push-polling was in South Carolina in, I guess, 2000. You just can’t control the message.

That seems to be heard across the board, from all of the campaigns now.

Yes.

Beyond raising money and the viral advertising, are there other ways the candidates communicate with voters online?

The thing I am finding interesting is the nature of their websites. I still can’t quite figure it out. But for example, in 2000, one of the things that I couldn’t understand, but it was there, was the idea of entertaining children on the website. If you looked at the [George W.] Bush site, it had a story that he had written about a baseball player or someone who wanted to play baseball.

If you looked at the [Al] Gore site, he had a “can you find this picture?” approach. I think while you have the Joe Trippi argument that the Internet is this potent web, as he said, the next revolution will not be televised. On the other hand, I still think he’s got this incomplete, and in some ways inept, approach as to how to use the Internet.

Do you think the campaigns are struggling to . . . ?

I think they are all experimenting. My experience has always been that if one looks at advertising and message-crafting, generally speaking, politics tends to run ahead of the curve. Yes, I think they are struggling, in part, to figure out how best to use it. As you know, getting the name of the website becomes important. Let’s put it like this: I still tend to think people go to websites based upon their preferences and predilections rather than necessarily the idea of trying to get a balanced and open breakdown of information. I think that’s the difficulty that the candidates are going to have in trying to drive people there.

Can you just talk about messaging in general? I guess this is especially pertinent with all of these different videos flying around. How do campaigns pick which messages to use, whether it’s the [George W.] Bush and the kid who wants to play baseball, or something they will put on TV? What do they do with those messages to introduce the candidate, introduce the opponent, and to shape the race the way they want to?

As I think any political scientist would say, it tends to be a matter of trying to simplify the message into the most acceptable “cleavage” that benefits your side. I think that’s what we’re seeing. We are obviously seeing the use of slogans. I don’t know. I keep on wanting the one phrase used to be “semantic tyranny.” I think we have more recent terms [such as “framing”] to describe it. The idea being you present information in a way that it tends to gain as much support on your side and tends to create a bias in the listener’s or reader’s viewpoint. I think we are seeing that constantly in campaigns.

The result is that, as I said, it becomes a matter of “sloganing” rather than actual positioning. I think what we are beginning to see very significantly in campaigns is the idea of trying to be as nonspecific as possible in as many areas as possible so that you can, as I said, micro-target the voter. As you probably know, technologically speaking, we are now able to get to the point that we can send a message to a household based upon that household’s political viewpoints, and therefore omitting any statement that might cause difficulty with that voter by just not having it in the information you are sending.

Do campaigns traditionally prepare messages group by group — I guess, by families?

Yes.

How do they prepare those?

They weren’t able to do it before. You used to try to take a stance that was reflective of your position, but would cause the least amount of alienation. You know what I’m saying? You could call for welfare reform, but the more specific you got, the more difficulty you would run into and people objecting.

Now what you do is find a specific issue that [fits] and just send it to that group — i.e., abortion, gun control, whatever it may be. But that’s the only message you send out. Therefore the straddling we are seeing in the debates, my feeling is, quite honestly, that they are hoping we are just generally not watching them, and we are just paying attention to the information that’s being sent to us via e-mail or the brochure or whatever that’s literally targeted by the house.

I am wondering about 527s and outside groups in particular. From what I have studied about them, they focus on sending a specific message. You have just talked about sending messages to different voting groups. Do you think with all of the money these groups are taking in — in the 2004 election, and we are expecting to see more this year — do you think they are going to do more formatting, sending out more specific messages, sort of like a traditional campaign would work?

I would think as the Internet becomes more sophisticated, and as hopefully they refine their list of people they are sending out to — because a lot of these 527s, obviously, are asking people to join and have been communicating with those voters and activists for years now — I would assume that they will become more and more specific in terms of targeting.

One of the ways they can do it, quite simply, I would think, is that frequently a number of these groups will ask you by pressing a key to indicate to your congressman or senator, that you support a certain position. I think if they are smart enough, they will probably log which ones you react to, and therefore send messages very specifically targeted on that basis.

So you think they will get more specific, not broader?

I think that’s the way campaigns are working right now.

Just about money in general, do you think, especially in terms of communication, that money and presidential politics have made campaigns more negative?

I can’t say that it’s money, per se. I think the nature of campaigns, and as I said, the idea of structuring the information, it’s easier to structure a negative message, I think, than a positive message. Frequently, it’s easier to give people a reason to vote against someone rather than a reason to vote for someone. Therefore, I think money is the conduit that enables them to do it effectively. Cause and effect is the issue here. I am not sure that it’s the money that’s causing it but, rather, it’s money that allows it.

With people switching to new technologies, what do you think the effect is going to be on television advertising for the campaigns?

I think it’s going to be more and more, as it is now, aimed at specific targets, as you implied. But I am talking about trying to reach specific groups. The emergence of cable has been a significant factor. What we have seen over the years, obviously, has been the disappearance of national political campaigns for many of us. Living in Rhode Island, which has always gone Democratic, I am very unlikely to see any presidential spots — very few primary spots, even. So therefore TV becomes less and less important. Newspapers, in part, become less and less important. What we are seeing is the money going into other things in other states.

So you think there might be less money going into TV advertising this time around?

I think it’s going to be very much targeted to specific areas and omitting significant parts of the country, or I could really see a diminishing of it in the sense that as new media become more evident, it becomes more important to move toward those. In other words, I think the idea of, for example, the old network buy is becoming less and less a factor.

I know in the past there has been a lot of debate about whether political ads really work. Do you think it’s changed with the Internet advertising and the YouTube videos? Or can we group television ads and those new videos together? Do they work, in general?

I tend to believe they work. The question is how much of it is opinion change, versus how much of it is a reinforcement of views? I think the viral ads tend to reinforce. They may provide, at this point, a sense of solidarity with your candidate. In some cases, as I said, they change the agenda, what is being spoken about. I think the nature of TV is such that the spots tend to be shorter. Therefore, I don’t think they have quite as strong a presentation message. But I think the impact, negative versus positive, becomes a factor. I think we have always found that negative spots, despite everyone’s declarations, tend to be more effective in terms of the voter’s reaction. I think the Internet’s just reinforcing that in that sense.

Can you talk a little bit more about that? About the negative advertising and it being more effective in your view?

Well, the fact is, while people tend to decry it, back in the late ’70s when I did my thesis, what became evident was that while spots tend to reinforce viewpoints, where you do see some change tends to be with the negative spot. People do change their opinions based upon what’s presented. It may not be significant in terms of massive numbers. But in an election, which can be based upon 1 percent or 2 percent of a population shifting, it becomes an important factor. Therefore, campaigns, while you present the normal materials, find that negative spots become much more useful. In the long run, it looks like they have more bang for the buck. I think most studies have indicated that. As I said, everyone likes to put them down. But I think it’s basically assumed by most campaign managers or strategists or consultants that the function of a negative spot is still probably the most effective of any.

Is more money channeled into negative spots or positive spots?

That’s an interesting question. It’s hard to tell what the breakdown is on that one. That sounds like a good project to work on by some academic. I think what we are seeing is the percentage of money that’s going to negative, I think, has grown. The number of spots that are negative has grown.

It used to be that the kind of spot that dominated a campaign was cyclical. Negative spots would be effective. And then maybe after a boom of about two years, you would see a decline and other formats would be utilized. Now we are seeing the same formats being used year after year after year with the same strength. Negative dominates.

What are we seeing on the Internet? Are there more positive videos coming up now? Or are we just waiting for the negative ones? I tend to see more positive campaign-sponsored things.

Obviously, campaigns are pushing the positive spots. They will continue to do such, at least at this time of the year. I think, though, when we start talking about viral and those that have the most impact and those that are being seen the most, they tend to be negative.

That is interesting. Lastly, how do you think 24-hour news — with the Internet and the blogs and everything combined, where you can’t really run away from the election, it’s there all the time on the different media — how do you think that’s changed the ways campaigns work, if it’s changed it at all?

When you are running a campaign, one of your concerns is agenda-setting. As a candidate you hope to set the agenda. What happens with 24-hour news, the Internet, blogs, whatever, is as I said: Your ability to control the agenda is very much dependent upon what they are doing. Therefore, the issues of, for example, media ownership, media bias, the dominance of some more dominant voices on the Internet than others, becomes an important factor in the election process. And suddenly the issue of money — who has access to those media points — becomes significant.