Bill Moyer recently
had an interesting conversation with communications
expert Kathleen
Hall Jamieson on the televised debates between
Republican candidates of TV. Following is one of her statements.
“By permitting audiences to
cheer and jeer and boo, [the debates] have created a context in which the
viewer at home is not watching the candidate and responding to the candidate,
but is instead responding to the interaction between that candidate and an audience…
You are being cued to respond to the question and the answer in a way that
doesn’t let you, yourself, reflect on the meaning of that answer.”
She points out the
Newt Gingrich is a master of this audience byplay.
I’m always surprised
at the willingness of candidates to engage in rude, false and just plain bull.
They all appear to be playing roles to the audience and where they think they
can gather the most bonus points for hitting the highest polling flavor of the
day.
Debate should be a
process in which people, with integrity, lay out their viewpoints honestly and
openly and then just let the people decide who they want to represent them. I
know that is not politically savvy, and they may rightly understand they may
not get elected if they did that; it only seems to work in movies. But why not
just do the right thing for a change. Wouldn’t that be refreshing?
Or we could go back to
the early history of the country where the politicians just bought booze for
the voters as they came to the polls.
No comments:
Post a Comment