Rewiring Politics: Presidential Nominating Conventions in the Media Age (Media and Public Affairs)

A century ago, national political parties' nominating conventions for U.S. presidential candidates were wide-open brawls, filled with front-stage conflicts and back-room deals. Today, they are precisely planned and carefully scripted events, whose outcomes are largely preordained. Rewiring Politics is the first in-depth exploration of the profound changes in the nominating process to focus on the role of the media. Fourteen luminaries of media and politics examine how conventions have been transformed over time by the technology of "coverage." As the contributors demonstrate, the story of the evolution of the nominating process cannot be told without the concomitant story of the revolution in mass media. The impact of the media on political conventions is a topic that has received surprisingly little scholarly attention. Yet few aspects of the American political process have been so altered in such a short period of time. The first live television broadcasts from a national convention were transmitted on June 21, 1948, during the Republican convention in Philadelphia. Since then, radio, television, cable networks, and the Internet have transfigured both the presentation and the content of the nominating process. Because the party's nominee is a foregone conclusion, candidates use conventions—and convention coverage—as a form of advertising. They are mega-media events designed to electrify the party faithful and to woo undecided voters by dazzling them. This development, the contributors show, is profoundly intertwined with the industrialization, fragmentation, and competition of mass media. Throughout the volume, they balance theory with empirics, resulting in enlightening analyses along with detailed accounts. Without a doubt, conventions still matter. Though their role has changed over the past decades, they remain events essential to the political process. Rewiring Politics helps readers assess the evolution of conventions in contemporary politics, the forces driving developments, and the implications for parties, politics, and society. AUTHOR BIO: Costas Panagopoulos is a postdoctoral fellow at the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University. He is also a visiting assistant professor of political science and the director of the graduate program in elections and campaign management at Fordham University. He previously served as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow (2004–2005) in the office of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY).