Mediated Politics in Two Cultures: Presidential Campaigning in the United States and France

This comparative study of the political communication processes in the United States and France brings together researchers from both countries to examine differences and similarities between the media’s involvement in each nation’s 1988 presidential election campaign. The book analyzes the construction of mediated political reality in the two countries, and concludes that French media do not concentrate more on policy issues than do their American counterparts. The contributors discuss television news and news magazine coverage of the overall campaigns and their particular political debates, television commercials and broadcasts, and political posters. Also assessed are the interactions between party/candidate presentations of political reality and voter interpretations of that reality. The contributions are grouped in four sections. The first includes discussions of constructing a political communication project and the theoretical dimensions of the studies; the second contains analyses of reality construction, political advertising and political broadcasts; the third focuses on media coverage of the campaigns; and the fourth covers the effects of television broadcasts on voter perception and possibilities for improving the electoral process.