부산대학교 도서관

국외eBook

We Report, We Decide: Pre-primary Presidential Campaigns in the New Media Landscape [electronic resource]

The University of Wisconsin - Madison. Political Science.

[S.l.] : The University of Wisconsin - Madison. 2023 Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses , 2023

1 online resource(288 p.)

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 85-02, Section: A.
Advisor: Burden, Barry C.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2023.

Although it began with two messier election cycles in 1972 and 1976, the contemporary presidential nomination system of binding delegates in public voting contests evinced remarkable stability over the subsequent two decades. Party elites ostensibly adapted by learning how to direct the nomination toward consensus candidates through coordinated public endorsements during the pre-primary period. However, this endorsement-centric theory has encountered several problematic election cycles since the start of the new millennium during which factional, outsider candidates have grown increasingly formidable. This dissertation first charts the twin democratization trends of the political process and the media landscape, explaining how these trends work in tandem to dislodge establishment control over presidential nominations. Then the tenor of pre-primary media coverage is explored, demonstrating how the campaign garners abundant media attention with an increasing emphasis on personality, style, and populist rhetoric. Next, the dissertation examines the extent to which pre-primary media attention independently influences candidate standing and finds evidence of a direct causal relationship between a candidate's media coverage and their poll standing. Finally, two campaign case studies are presented that illustrate how a candidate's media persona, not simply their command of traditional resources, substantially determines their campaign's viability. The resulting presidential nomination system, according to this dissertation, is an increasingly chaotic media-centric process that is not easily managed by the party establishment, and in this way more closely reflects the concerns an earlier generation of scholars expressed regarding the pitfalls of the contemporary system.

9798380091671