Why Was Barack Obama Elected President in 2008? Research Paper Example

Introduction

Obama had a very strong foundation for his presidential campaign in 2008. Illustration aims has been an imperative part in many past U.S. presidential opinionated advertising campaigns in the US. This prototype was repealed in the Obama movement. Illustrations were not only major factors in the Obama campaign’s stickers and posters, as well as on its Web site and television marketing and T-shirts. Additionally, the campaign’s symbol was a exit from ones of course advanced for U.S. candidates, in that it detained the spirit of the Obama campaign representatively, using graphic elements inventively.

Illustration plan has often been a significant component in following marketing in U.S. presidential campaigns, however, in the last two years; it was always less of a factor overall—at least in duplicated objects. Starting with the issue of the years between 1824 and 1828 United States  presidential campaigns, illustrations were critical in the attempts to both vote for and overcome Andrew Jackson president, with his forces mattering election tickets with visuals of hickory plants (discouraging Jackson’s nickname of “Old Hickory”) and lithographic duplications of him in his universal’s consistent spanning a horse in a “Napoleonic” pose (a tactic that could carry on to the mid-century point); those differing Jackson distributed attacks demonstrating rows of caskets, in lieu of those put to death beneath his authority throughout the Battle of 1812.

The rags brought in the sign of the “small house” in the early months (the movement, actually, was famous as “The Small House Campaign”), having the descriptions accustomed to pass the so-called modest setting of a Unites States candidate. This forcing sign was accustomed for another more than forty decades. However, during the end of the 19th century, real-color pictorial placards were the main political means of transportations, particularly obvious in the movements to vote-for Republican presidential candidates William Warren G and McKinley M. Harding in around the years between 1895 and 1921, correspondingly. Afterward, with the arrival of first broadcasting, and then TV as the dominant mass media of political announcement, placards became less significant factors in campaigns.

Branding

An improved brand is exclusive and familiar, recognizes a service or good, and “links” with spectators members expressively and believably to high faithfulness. The symbol for the Obama movement gained all of that for the Obama product, as perform some of the important images of the contender that were formed. A propose team led by Sol Sender advanced the symbol, after creature asked to approach up with “something dissimilar” that personified the campaign’s subjects of “hope” and “transform you can consider in”; as well, partisanship was believed significant, and this was obvious in the propose (Sender, 2008). The team’s final symbol intends was idiosyncratic and intended to hit a moving harmony with watchers. The blue “O” represents for the contender, and the red-and-white bands represent flag and country. The bands further represent farmland, noticing the Illinois senator with America “heart-land”.

The white centre of the “O,” increasing over the prospect of the stripes, looks to be a sunrise, marking “a better future” politically. The Obama symbol was also assimilated for many target spectators. For example, those good in surveying the position of a candidate on women’s matter on his Web site saw the symbol with a cross under it, creating it into the female symbol. Various used the symbol illegally, altering it to state their own feelings. Therefore, it increases virally. The symbol was triumphant because it expressed visually what Westen (2007) called a “net of associations, packages of options, images, feelings and ideas that have become linked over time” and “that connect your candidate or party with optimistic emotions and the resistance with unenthusiastic emotions” (pp. 3, 256).

A Unique T-Shirt Explosion

Essentially, the Obama movement was the primarily still to sell mature T-shirts with a U.S. presidential contester’s account on them. Also there were a lot of different devises that appeared the contester’s picture, frequently sold separately. Presidential movement blouse have been nearly since 1956, when an “I’m Safe with Ike” plan indicated President Dwight Eisenhower on a blouse for youthful people, but no other applicant has been portrayed since.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy’s portrait as a conflict hero was endorsed by a shirt drawing with a PT-ship on it to celebrate the U.S. Democratic contester’s valor during World War II, when a Japanese destructor sank his container. But Kennedy’s picture was not indicated. Obama shirts (sold by both his movement society and the exterior vendors) became renowned during the basic race, when followers bought them in throngs—even in 2007. In the winter of that exacting year, orders were previously up to more than one thousand an hour (Newton-Small, 2007).

A bureaucrat Obama T-shirt—sold on his Web site—brought an image of the contender by Antar Dayal (from a placard he formed for the campaign), the campaign’s symbol, and the slogan “Yes We Can.” Unlike the placard, everything was shaded blue and there was no flag background. Another difference from Dayal’s poster was that Obama’s face somewhat overlapped the motto—which was never the case in the placard—relating him with the spoken message more straight.

However, both the placard and the T-shirt design indicated the contester seen from under—to let him appear more impressive (an ordinary method used in political misinformation). The Obama Web put also sold a shirt planed by Tina Knowles Beyoncé (portraying six style models venture the six letters in “Change”), and the  a variety of “Obama’08” markings with the movement’s symbol and a “got hope?” shirt. Independents created an overabundance of silk-screened blouses, which were sold on the net, in stores, and at meetings and road fairs (Barker, 2008). Numerous of them charade Obama looking into the coldness, with mottos for example “Change,” “Faith,” and “Hope.”

Television Spots and an “Infomercial”

Television Spots—too posted on several sites on the net, contester YouTube and Web sites and being picked up by bloggers—are “frequently created either to create a problem for an opposition or to get rid of a problem for a customer,” as per to Dane Strother (1999, p. 186). These issues should first attained the eyes of an audience tackled by other, frequently attractive illustration and aural stimuli for services and goods; offered by the message obviously, while in concert on electors’ emotions; and be effectual—normally in more than 30 seconds. Because they are so short, the aim is characteristically on one major matters or character mannerism of the contester—or his or her opposition.

To solve the witnessed matters of Obama’s somewhat indistinct, international heritage and doubts about his “patriotism” (due to allegedly “radical” relations), his movement devised a number of spots that look still and featured footage of his Caucasian old people and mother; The second World War scenes at home and overseas (his grandparent was in the military; his grandfather helped gathered bombers); his father from Kenya; young Barack who was a basketball player; small-city Kansas; a Chicago town; various trucking shots of rural regions; and persons of all nationalism and ages, specifically children—often  holding “Hope” signs. Irregularly, a sunset was placed. The visuals were overall positive and captivating.

Several of these pictures re-appeared in an often lengthy, thirty-minute TV commercial—with a motivating, almost Christian musical album—that ran six days before Election Day. Even though Obama, in this position, addressed the major concerns of the day—the banking and mortgage crises; the great price of energy and healthcare; rising lose of jobs; the war in Iraq—the information was dominated by the illustrations, and that information was a melancholy, but good appeal to the middle class. As Mary McNamara (2008) pointed out, the program appeared “that heartstring-plucking playing instrument, those black and white pictures of  ’40s and ’50s America, the respect to the cultural family, the obvious non-existence of forwarding social problems—no abortion, no gay matters, not even child-concern was mentioned”. What was seen instead was an introduction indicating rolling wheat; plain landscape; waving flags; a man in a cowboy cap; a young couple attaining out to shake the contester’s hand; children of numerous races; an older military veteran?

Afterward, there was a younger mother pumping fuel into her car; middle-income homes; a disabled worker; the inside of a refrigerator with parts rationed for a family’s children; kids playing football; employers in hardhats; a retreat couple; bottles of introduction medicine; family snaps; a large family taking dinner. The half an hour, multiracial “advertisement” was perceived by more than three million people on 7 cable and broadcast networks (Friedman, 2008), and by over 2 million on YouTube. Like the Obama logo, the TV spot visually stressed the candidate’s link to the heartland of America and to middle class Article of Visual Literacy, Volume 29, Number 1 values and people.

In the last month of the 2008 campaign, Obama’s consultants were able to import television spots that were far much better than those of the opposition. In the early weeks of October, for example, only one-third of these announcements were assault ads, while almost all of McCain’s spots assaulted Obama (Associated Press, 2008). There were some forcing illustrations that were used in bad spots matters by the Obama campaign, with one in which a ball of yarn was portrayed disentanglement until there was only a yarn left at the end—meant to represent the allegedly catastrophic McCain healthcare diagram. Probably the most effectual negative strategy was connecting McCain to the non-popular sitting, President George W. Bush.

Use of Newer Media Technologies

The Obama movement’s use of modern technologies was notable, and illustrates sometimes were a significant component of the information. Over the period of  the basic battles, Gary Drenik, president of BIG investigate (an online advertising research corporation), stated that “modern media offers [sic] candidates … an alternative or complement to their traditional media expenditure” that “can construct an ad plan that is more likely to affect votes” (quoted in “Voters are Ready for New Media,” 2008, para. 3).

Potential voters are progressively using new media advancement. Handsets were used by eighty- eight percent of Democrats, and fifty-three percent of them used Instant Messaging (IM) online information and forty-seven percent undertook video games in the last months of the year 2007; sixty four percent of adult Internet customers in the United States, at those, acknowledged the fact that the Internet had become an significant part of the political progress (“Voters are Ready for New Media”). Consequently, the Obama Movement had desktop screen savers, posters, blogs and signs, logos, flyers and badges.

Gesticulates of sign-dominated logo in the background enhance the impact, as does the motto, “Transformation We Can Believe In.” The sans serif type face works so well for the small on the poster, and the red, white and blue colors stressed the contender’s patriotism. The Obama symbol assists balance the drawing at the bottom and the unity of the poster’s drawing is attained by the recurrence of the symbol. The movement thus used typeface, repetition, color, unity, pose, balance and empowerment, and also slogans and logos, to form an effectual visual design and demand to the feelings of the electorate effectually.

Independent Poster Artists

Performers can reflect political values and beliefs in their works, but also shape perceptions and persuasions, in part by affecting observers’ emotions, as per to Girma Negash (2004). Mathew Brady’s snaps of the former president Abraham Lincoln were changed into idealized lithographic pictures of Lincoln by Currier & Ives, forming an picture of the U.S. Republican candidate in 1860 that was sober and farsighted, and possibly to assist pursue electors that Lincoln was a man who would lead in a time of crisis. The Lincoln movement distributed these portraits to potential electors, and they were seen at the various rallies and parades that were performed. The Currier & Ives print portrayed Lincoln considerately gazing into the distance—much like performers posed Obama and other competitors.

As per the English, the Obama movement need “street drawers,” such as himself, to make a supportive posters, specific aimed at young electors, and the performers made sure to put his work up lawfully (“Ron English Interview on Eve of ‘Abraham Obama’ Film Release,” 2008) (different from some other times, when he was comprehended). English’s placard, along with those who are by Sheppard Fairey, assisted construct icons of Barack Obama.

In the case of the “Abraham Obama” placard, the artist used an obtainable icon, and delicately blended in some of Obama’s behaviors to form a new icon. In order to associate a contester with famous former presidents has been a popular way that American placard designers have get used to, but George Washington, Abraham Lincoln Andrew Jackson, Franklin Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson had usually been seen in the setting.

Labels have been used in political movements long before Fairey’s pictures seen on one. As late as 1920, both the Democrats and Republicans in the United States handed out window labels to be put on vehicles. In the years that followed, several political parties and groups, specifically in Europe, used labels. In the year 2008, almost 200,000 labels of Fairey’s “Hope” poster were printed—three-fourths of which were provided free of indict (Zoltron, quoted in Hashimoto, 2008). The best example is how Zoltron converted a media snap of Obama into a 1950s-style movie sticker that he scratched to let it seen older. The Obama movement created a number of labels, some of which make use of yet another Fairey designs and the official logo.

Numerous web sites were arranged that featured autonomous designers’ unloadable and downloadable posters in boost of Obama. One site (that was connected to a Flicker group) was designforobama.org, which portrayed stickers like one by Debris that transformed Flagg’s “I Need You for U.S. Army” meant from World War I to “I Need O”—having equal Uncle Sam picture that was used—and Rafael Lopez’s “Nuestra Voz,” that style—portraying a blue-tinted Obama surrounded  by yellow, red, orange, and yellow tones—was computed to petition to Latino electors, with others (Lopez, 2008). Another good Web site was 30reason.org, which placed up different placards by illustrators each day for the 30 days leading up to Election Day. One illustration by Seymour Chwast was a duplicate demonstration of the TV-spot plan linking McCain to Bush. The placard, “No McBush,” designed the Republican candidate as a two-headed element.

Even though both the McCain and Obama movements were also movements for peace (in Iraq and Vietnam, correspondently) and for political transformation, with various posters created in both 1971 and 2008, there had by no means  been an outpouring of placards in support of a U.S. contester  to compare to the artistic outbreak for Obama. Far less placards were fashioned during the previous movement, although Warhol’s “Vote McGovern” (which portrayed McGovern’s oppose, President Richard Nixon, with a blue countenance and a red cloth) was remarkable, as was River’s “America Wants McGovern: He Can Place It Together” (which also included a crossed-out Nixon, a cheery McGovern, and a plan of the nation with the states as jumbled-up patchwork pieces of writings), Davis’s “Together with McGovern” (demonstrating the Democratic candidates surrounded by a different collections of Americans), and Calder’s “McGovern” (a semi-abstract war of the competitors).

Conclusion

The profusion of placards, posters, and shirts created by artists (using both traditional and innovative illustration ways) also assisted produce excitement for the applicant, as did the different logo that communicated and reinforced his brand. However, none of these would have issues without a motivating candidate whose originality good messages regular resonated with electors. Of course, without the effectual television spots and Web site, with good illustrations and corporation, the campaign perhaps would never have been able to gain its information out, construct the Obama product, and elevate the money it wanted. There have been contesters, and also parties in the United States of America and other nations, who perceived illustration design as significant, but the translated ways of the Obama campaign took the good plan campaign to new distances. So, too, did the donations of independent developers and artists, whose majorly good imagery boosted the campaign’s topics, which were specifically attractive (as were several of the graphic plans) to young voters. The illustration design forms that were applied in the formation of the several press dissemination that boosted Obama almost certainly assisted the campaign’s message link with many voters.

References

Sender, S. (2008).Sol Sender -Obama logo design part 1 of 2. Retrieved December 16, 2008,  from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etEP1Bhgui0&eurl=http://www.vsapartners.com/com /new s.asp

Shapiro, P. (2008, April 15). Obama’s posters: Message in the image. American Thinker. Retrieved  September 3, 2008, from  http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/04/Obama’s_ posters_message_in_the.html

Strother, D. (1999). Television ads. In D. D. Perlmutter (Ed.), The Manship School guide to  political communication (pp. 186-195). Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press.