1st Edition
Comedy, Cameos, and Campaign Communication Leveraging Entertainment Media to Win Elections and Advance Policy
This book provides a thorough foundation for understanding the shift from political campaigning via legacy news media to campaigning through entertainment media.
Public discourse that would once transpire on the newsprint of opinion pages or behind a news anchor’s desk and teleprompter is now happening through talk shows and sitcoms, celebrity partnerships and influencer accounts, memes and streams, video games, branded merchandise, and social media. Here, Turcotte explores how media consumption habits have reshaped contemporary campaign norms and shifted strategies for seeking public office and advancing policy goals. He shows how candidates are incorporating entertainment media in their strategic campaigns, moving beyond satirical programs to demonstrate a multi-pronged approach to campaign communication in the entertainment environment.
With a compelling introduction to these campaign shifts and an examination of tangible applications, this text is suitable for scholars as well as students in both political science and mass communication courses, particularly courses in political communication and strategic communication.
1. The Long Tail: The Effects of Media Choice and Audience Fragmentation on the Campaign Process
2. Merch, Fandom, and Sports Metaphors: The Commodification of the Modern Campaign
3. From Daytime Talk to Late Night Punchlines: Campaign Strategy and Soft News
4. Sitcoms and Satire: The Art of the Political Cameo 5. Partnerships in Pop Culture: Courting the Celebrity Endorsement
6. The Instaworthy Campaign: Gaming, Streaming, and Social Media
7. Trivialization or Accessibility? The Democratic Implications of Entertaining the Electorate
Biography
Jason Turcotte is Associate Professor of Communication at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, USA.
