Tom Guarriello traces how radio, television, and the internet each reshaped presidential politics by letting candidates bypass traditional gatekeepers. FDR's Fireside Chats, JFK's televised debates, and Obama's 2008 internet campaign each marked a turning point where a politician mastered a new medium to connect directly with voters.
Well, hi, it's Tom Guarriello. I've been thinking about politics and about media and thought maybe I'd make a video putting those two things together. You know, if you take a look at the history of American presidential politics, you'll find that there are some very interesting correlations around presidential elections and media. Now, if you, if you take the 20th century, say, okay, well, what were the dominant media of the 20th century? Well, the dominant media of the 20th century, besides print, which has been there a long time before the 20th century, but the dominant media of the 20th century were radio, film, and television. Now If you take radio and say, well, let's see, radio became popular in the United States in the '20s and '30s. The first president, first president to use radio was, I think, Calvin Coolidge. I don't know of any radio broadcasts with Calvin Coolidge. I've heard his voice, I think, so there are some that exist. There's certainly some radio broadcasts of Herbert Hoover. I think he made 9 radio addresses. But the president who really took radio as a medium and used it most effectively as a leader was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The fireside chats were a dramatic use of this new medium, and really led to his election and also led to his— the effectiveness of his leadership as a president. Okay, now let's go to television. So the first president to have used television, I think, was Harry Truman. There are television images of Truman. Certainly Dwight Eisenhower used television. But you could see by the way Eisenhower used television that he wasn't entirely comfortable with television. He wasn't a man who understood and embraced television. Who was the first president to do that? John F. Kennedy, right? JFK was elected because of television, right? The debates with Nixon were the turning point in that election. And in those debates, one candidate was telegenic and the other candidate was not telegenic. And what did Kennedy do when he became president? He used televised news conferences as a way to connect with people and to lead directly. So what those two media did, radio and television was to put the president directly in connection with people via radio and television, right? So disintermediating in a way, in a weird way, using media to disintermediate between the individual and the voter. Okay, now let's fast forward to, uh, the 21st century. So let's see, The internet— who was the first president to be president while the internet was a force, a social force? Well, I guess you'd say Bill Clinton was, right? He was president elected in '92, so by the time you came to his second term, the internet was beginning to become a force, but it didn't really become a political force until the 2000 election, and not really an enormous force until the 2004 election. Right? I mean, I think Howard Dean was the first candidate to begin to use the internet effectively. Let's fast forward to the current campaign. If we look at all the current candidates, I think it's really clear that Barack Obama is the most internet savvy and has run the most internet savvy campaign of all the candidates. Now Obama, beyond going— going beyond just using the internet as a campaign tool, which has been enormous, he's indicated very clearly through his actions and through the people that he has surrounded himself with that the internet would be a huge part of a, of an Obama presidency. He would use the internet in ways that no president has yet used the internet. So the disruptive innovations that took place in media became powerful political forces, not when they were first technically introduced, the media, but when the, the, the confluence, the intersection of a candidate and the medium came together, and the candidate, later the president, and that medium really enabled one another. So I think what we're seeing in this current election is that the internet and the people who are most comfortable with the internet, mostly young people, are people who are going to be most comfortable with a the candidate who is using the medium, and all the media, text. I mean, if you look at the Obama campaign's use of media, of new media, it is so far ahead of what the other candidates have used. Interestingly enough, you know, John McCain's daughter is a blogger, and his daughter, who's a blogger, is an Obama supporter. I, again, I think that what we're seeing is this individual who understands and will be able to use this new medium, just like Franklin Roosevelt did radio, just like Jack Kennedy did television. I think Barack Obama is going to use the internet to connect with the country, if he's elected, to connect with the country and to govern in a different way, because if radio disintermediated the connection between the president and the population. And if television disintermediated the president and the people, think of what the internet does. What the internet does is to tremendously disintermediate between the government and people. All of the opportunities to use the internet for— as an integrated part of government are right on the horizon for us now. And again, another reason for me to think that Barack Obama is the right man at the right time to lead the new century. So, take care, talk to you again soon. Bye-bye.
