Abstract
Presidential campaigns in the U.S., but also globally, have become major media spectacles, often decided by orchestrated spectacles. During the 2004 U.S. presidential election, media spectacle was a major determinant of the campaign with the so-called Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry’s war record and daily ads and Republican demonstrations dramatizing Kerry's alleged “flip-flopping.” In this article, I review the role of media spectacle in the Democratic Party primaries where it played a major role and in the general election contest between Barack Obama and John McCain. I argue that the Democratic primary race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama included a spectacle of race vs. gender and that Obama emerged as master of the spectacle during the primaries, a role he successfully carefully out in the Fall 2008 presidential election. My argument is that media spectacle is an important and often overlooked element of recent presidential elections and I offer concluding comments on “Deconstructing the spectacle” as an important component of political and media literacy.
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