Now
that the two major political parties have chosen their candidates,
there are just a couple of months left for the American people to
choose who they want to lead their nation for the next four years.
Each party will use all of the resources available to them in
order to ensure that their candidate wins. The most important
tool available to them is the media. Through television,
radio,
the internet, newspapers, and even through pre-recorded telephone
messages, the candidates will try to persuade as many people as
possible to vote for them. But how?
Objectives:
Using the online resources provided, identify
common tactics used for promoting people and products through media.
This can include simply identifying techniques which sell
products, political candidates and/or ideas.
View
promotional materials, advertisements and video clips of the
presidential candidates and identify strategies they use to promote
themselves or cast doubt upon their opponent
This
can include political cartoons, examples of campaign ads, portions of
televised debate, campaign leaflets and brochures, and other materials
which students can easily access in or outside of your classroom.
At
the end of this unit, you will demonstrate the ability to ask questions
and think critically when consuming information through
newspapers, magazines, radio, television and the World Wide Web.
What are some of the issues they seem to be
focusing on?
Where does their candidate stand on the
following issues:
Keeping troops in Iraq and Afghanistan
Off-shore drilling
Fixing the economy
Immigration law enforcement
Use this as a
standard for validating each site: The 5 W's of
Website Evaluation
After examining the Campaign sites, use the links below to
see how each candidate is portrayed in the media.
Besides
the standard media sources, there are people and organizations who have
their own views on the candidates and their policies. These
have
more obvious biases. Which candidates do you think each of
these
alternative news media support?
Based on the coverage of these media outlets,
how do you think the candidates are viewed by each?
Which candidate is covered more favorably?
Is there any bias in how the candidates are
treated by the writers?
How much are their policies criticized?
Which policies receive the most criticism?
If each of these five sites represented the only
voters, who would win the election?
How much of the coverage seems to be designed to
inspire an emotional reaction?
Come up with a list of the 5 most common words
used in the media to describe each candidate.
Homework:
Use this Website
Evaluation Rubric
to evaluate 3 of the sites you visited for this assignment.
You
must print out a copy for each website and turn them all in together.
Extra Credit!!!
Watch this video and answer the following questions:
How are the candidates portrayed?
What characteristics has the maker of the video
given them?
Besides the candidates, who else is featured in
the video?
2008 CyberConvention Project