The Political Act: The Blurred Lines between Politics and Entertainment

            Throughout vast history of the American political system, politicians in this country have invariably found their ways to interact with the American people. From early travelling on a horse and coach from state to state to speak at rallies, to videos directly transmitted through ones phone. Politics are a large part of America as a whole and though they can be accessed at any point, may democracy as a whole actually be hindered due to the constant progresses in the development of new forms of mass communications? As communication technologies change, politics in this country change with them, not only in the various ways in which they work, but also the ways in which the political image as is portrayed and sold as a norm.

            Since the early beginnings of this country, the politics have digressed in importance of actual informative content and increased in importance of the image of the politician themselves. This may be due to the ever increasing rate in which new technologies are developed. With new technologies such as smartphones, tablets, and portable computers, politics are constantly a topic on the mind of the American people because people are so often exposed to advertisements of politicians. Since the invention of the radio, starting with Herbert Hoover as the first broadcast president, Politicians have had to become more intimate with the people of this country because of the mass quantities of people who owned a radio. Since the first televised political debate in 1960 between the not yet President Kennedy, and his Republican opponent Richard Nixon. In the Article “Winners of the first 1960 televised presidential debate between Kennedy and Nixon” by Sidney Kraus, an apparent point made is that between people who listened to the debate on the radio and people who watched it on the T.V, people who watched it on the radio thought that Nixon won the debate based off of what was said, though people who watched it thought that Kennedy won based of off his composer and his tan while Nixon seemed to be nervously sweating (Kraus, 1996). Since the first televised debates it had become apparent that people voted for who fit the political image of what they wanted their president to look like opposed to what a president’s political configuration consisted of. After Kennedy was assassinated, the presidency had become much more popular in the eyes of the public. After it was broadcasted frequently over the news while the voice of Walter Cronkite guided the American people back a mental homeostasis, people started opening their eyes to politics as a cultural phenomenon. There was even an Oscar winning film about the conspiracies of the assassination in 1991 with Oliver Stone’s JFK starring Kevin Costner. 

            With the progression in technological advancements, and the politics of today constantly investigated microscopically, the preferment of political rhetoric has thickened too, though the content evasive of its true meanings. Political rhetoric as a whole has changed in importance what is being said, to how what is being said sounds. This directly correlates to the increase in availability for mass quantities of people to access political information at any time. Articles examining political discourse have explained “the semantics of political discourse is akin to poetic semantics; however, the multidimensionality of the signified referents is hidden because referential discourse is a precondition for effectiveness” (Zolyan, 2015). Because politics work harder to appeal to the people through their content, politics have naturally become infused with entertainment. With the new era of inseparability between politics and entertainment, the American people are losing interest, causing democracy to fail.

            Within the contemporary political sphere full television stations hold complete political biases. The Fox news corporation and CNN would be examples of right winged Conservatives, while networks like CBS and ABC would be considered Left wing liberal. With podcasts from a Conservative Bill O’Reilly to the very left wing Howard Stern, politics have become a soup opera in this country, while the viewers invest their in politics emotionally the same way fans do. It has been said “Emotions have historically been theorized as dangerous by those invested in rationalized print discourses, but anyone who has observed one of the American political party conventions, for example, knows that there is not much difference between that type of political theater and a purely pop culture phenomenon like a movie premier or rock concert” (Warner, 2006). America’s technological culture may be single handedly effecting it’s democracy as a whole by complicating it’s rhetoric and attempting to appeal to the people on an emotional level instead of making the people aware of the truths of the political system.

           

           

                                                        Bibliography

Kraus, Sidney. "Winners of the first 1960 televised presidential debate between Kennedy and Nixon." Journal of Communication 46.4 (1996): 78-96.

WARNER, JAMIE. "Politics And Entertainment: Civic Catastrophe Or Democratic Possibility?." New Political Science 28.3 (2006): 431-436. Academic Search Premier. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.

Zolyan, Suren. "Language And Political Reality: George Orwell Reconsidered." Sign Systems Studies 43.1 (2015): 131-149. Academic Search Premier. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.