Some of the issues raised in the New York Times article ”Candidates Strive to Break through Media Fog” were discussed in class last night. Nagourney discusses how myriad forms from which people receive their information has drastically changed the way the candidates campaign. It used to be easy; a candidate would talk to the major news sources NYT, Washington Post, and the networks. Now, the “proliferation of communications channels, the fracturing of mass media and the relentless political competition to own each news cycle are combining to reorder the way voters follow campaigns and decide how to vote. It has reached a point where senior campaign aides say they are no longer sure what works, as they stumble through what has become a daily campaign fog, struggling to figure out what voters are paying attention to and, not incidentally, what they are even believing.”
This tack of not caring about what people believe, but focussing on what people are paying attention to has become evident in McCain’s campaign.
Matthew Dowd, however, states that with all of the lies and stretched truths “voters are no longer as apt to accept what they hear as truth. “
But some of the information that people are hearing, whether it be true information or not, is going to stick.
“The McCain campaign is the more aggressive of the two, throwing out information, often frivolous and often stretching the bounds of truth, to try to keep things churning.”
As we discussed in class, and as the article points to, we will just have towatch the polls and debates to see what role this media fog has played.
