In the mid-1980's I became a convert to Walter Fisher's narrative paradigm, not only as an academic theory of rhetoric but also as a world view that frames my understanding of all of life. It revitalized my study and practice of criticism and argumentation. The last six years or so of my teaching career, I developed a course in rhetoric and film, focusing on the application of contemporary theorists such as Bormann, Burke, and Fisher to the movies we all enjoy at the mall cineplex. Even today, I continue to go to as many movies as I can, and I often write critical essays about them.

Brief Impressionistic History of TV campaign debates:

I agree with those who say that televised campaign debates are not "real debate," but are better described as "joint appearances." There is the absence of a specific debate resolution, lack of opportunity to develop affirmative or negative cases and strategies, the absence of much direct clash, and extremely limited opportunity to question or to offer rebuttals to opposing arguments.  And there is no judge, apart from polls and spinners' declarations of victory.

In fact, campaigning in general has evolved into a high-budget, media-based exercise in spinning and impression management. Even as the Nixon-Kennedy Debates in 1960 kicked off our modern era's focus on face to face encounters called debates, Theodore White published a landmark critique of image campaigning called The Making of the President 1960, which won the Pulitzer Prize and set the pattern for most future journalistic reporting on election campaigning techniques.

Thereafter, there have been "debates" or joint appearances more or less regularly, with little innovation in format.

Under the leadership of the League of Women Voters, the format for televised political debates has been devised. The basic format calls for a journalist, or a panel of journalists, to moderate and to ask questions of the candidates. Questions might be unrestricted as to domestic or foreign policy issues, or they might be limited to specific but still broad topic areas.

Candidates are given a very limited amount of time to answer the questions, which means that usually they prepare brief "sound bite" answers that may or may not be on the specific points asked for. Subsequent variations in the format sometimes gave an additional opportunity to candidates to make a brief reply or rebuttal to the preceding question. A few times, candidates were permitted to address questions directly to their opponents.

A relatively recent modification in format was the addition of a "Town Hall" format in which selected audience members, representing Republican, Democratic, and Independent voters, were given the role of questioners. Questions generally were pre-approved; presumably, the sequencing of the questions was also determined in advance.

A standard feature of TV debate programs, in particular, has been the ubiquitous punditry by media commentators both before and after the debate programs.

Political commentary shows also turned heavily to partisan spinners for "balanced" commentaries.

Winning or losing the debates entailed waiting for the polls to establish popular responses to the candidates' performances during the debates.

Early on in the development of this media genre, on rare occasions, professional forensics educators might be interviewed on the air about their opinions of "who won" the debates. From my experience, the process was essentially controlled by the media, and our academic opinions were treated as sort of quaint or marginally intellectual, briefly tolerated, and ignored in the majority of politically-charged analyses and critiques.

Political pundits were given practically unlimited time to spin their takes on which side "won" based on "gotcha" questions and inadvertently stupid answers, such as Reagan's famous challenge to Mondale, "Where's the  beef?" or Gerald Ford's declaration that Poland was not a part of the Communist bloc. And who can forget Admiral Stockdale's all-important first impression, "Who am I? Why am I here?" opening to his Vice-Presidential debate speech? Nothing he said after that mattered.

Today, we are in an advanced phase of TV debating. Partly because President Bush and Vice President Cheney are lame ducks and will not be running for reelection, hence there will be no incumbent candidate, and partly because of the low popularity ratings of the Administration's policies (especially of the Iraq War), there have been numerous candidates on both the Republican and Democratic sides running for President literally since the 2006 Mid Term election. There have already been some TV debates, entailing as many as ten candidates on the stage at once. I have characterized the Republican candidates as ten rich white guys who collectively cannot remember any Republican President since Ronald Reagan. The Democratic roster of candidates has a little more diversity, given that the two leading candidates are a woman and a Black; plus, there is also a Hispanic candidate.

Budget constraints and the outcomes of early primaries and caucuses will doubtless shake a number of these early candidates out of contention. There will also probably be some new names emerging as serious candidates as the election season progresses, who may also become included in the debates yet to be held.

Youtube Debate on Monday July 24, on CNN

Technology in the internet has afforded the opportunity to expand the television campaign debate format through the use of Youtube interactive capabilities. Tonight, 7/24/07, CNN will broadcast the first Youtube debate, involving the Democratic candidates. Another Youtube debate will follow for the Republicans in September.

The Opportunities Before Us

Under the circumstances, a traditional argumentative analysis, using flow sheets and debate judging standards, will be difficult if not impossible to apply meaningfully.

We scholars in the fields of argumentation, debate, rhetoric, and communication studies still must work with what we have at hand.

Viewed through narrative or dramatistic lenses, televised debates offer a wealth of rhetorical and argumentative materials for analysis and insights. Think of the first President Bush looking at his wrist watch towards the end of the Richmond debate. It occurred during a "town hall" format, in which the questions were supposedly to be about all issues, but which kept coming about domestic issues on which Bush was  most vulnerable. No foreign policy question was asked until near the end of the debate. But that context for his involuntary gesture of impatience, or wishing it was over, was never explained by the pundits in their commentaries afterwards. It was the single most publicized moment that occurred that night, much more than most if not all of the arguments that were made.

One advantage of studying the campaign debates is that television programs can be recorded and treated as texts. Not only can you break down the debates into printed transcripts, hence, more susceptible to traditional rhetorical analysis and criticism.

It is now possible to apply visual rhetorical concepts, it becomes highly illuminating if not central to the critical methodologies. Nonverbal communication becomes a more relevant and active theoretical approach. To me, televised political debates are mostly about creating personas and characters through impression management, both positive (for your own side) and negative (against the opposing side). The words that are uttered are important, but not the only important element to consider.

Youtube is a new technology in the televised debate. I am naive about Youtube. As I understand it so far, it lends a new sense of direct interaction, or at least the possibility of interaction, between voters and the candidates. You can submit your very own question in a video clip, and you may actually see yourself and your question included in the televised program. (Just like, you can "play" the lottery, and you have the possibility that you can actually win millions of dollars. But odds are that your ticket will not be drawn.) How many questions will be submitted on Youtube is an unknown factor at this point, but no doubt it will increase virally in future debates as people see by example how to do it and will want to join in themselves.

This sense of apparent personal participation and involvement (perhaps illusory) is tempered by the obvious fact that CNN, the media controller of the event, still acts as the screener of questions, and thus, the agenda setting agent for the debate's political and character-based content.

CNN seems to have already staked out a few ground rules for questions and for questioners. No music, for example. No bizarre (well, that's my term) personal costume or grooming presentations. No "fluff" questions.

It is interesting to me that one of the sample questions that CNN has run shows a young, serious looking man asking Hillary Clinton whether Bill Clinton has engaged in adulterous behavior since his presidency. One of the CNN "best political team" commentators immediately said, that is the kind of question that will not be selected. The first time I saw the question played included the questioner's contextual intention: is your marriage a "real" marriage, or just a "marriage of convenience" for political show. Subsequent replayings only include the central question about Bill's behavior.

However, notwithstanding the righteous and noble declarations from CNN that they would not inject that question into the debate itself, I have noticed that CNN keeps on replaying that sample question on their successive pre-debate shows. In my opinion, that's as good as asking it during the debate. It is out there, on CNN, over and over. Hillary had better be able to deal with it, whether during the confines of Monday night's debate, or otherwise.  How can it not be on the viewers' minds?

As an integral part of Youtube, there is a heightened sense of contextual meaning for the debate, given that the sources of the questions will presumably be much more diverse than the accustomed journalistic personalities such as news anchors and political experts.

There will be old and young, gender, ethnic, and regional differences that will be made visually explicit in showing the questioners. We'll see what visual props and scenes are included in the Youtube segments -- but to the extent that such exist, they will make a huge difference in how the candidates will be perceived as they attempt to adapt to them.

Then there's the further possibility for studying the traditional post-debate commentators and analysts, both on the air and in print media, of the specific effects or impacts that will flow from the Youtube experience, both regarding how the candidates adapted to it and on the voters' perceptions and attitudes in the end.

When transcribing the questions for content, don't forget to analyze the selectivity involved in selecting questions--and note the topics that are not included.

Also important is the sequencing of questions, which provides an important rhetorical variable, given the studies out there dealing with ordering your arguments. Traditionally, items in the first or last positions are considered "stronger" than those located in the middle of a series.

Innovative Educational Opportunities

One possibility is for debate teams that want to do exhibition debates during the campaign season. Youtube suggests that you might also take a few lessons. On campuses with closed circuit TV networks available for educational scheduling, there is no reason why you can't produce your own Youtube debates on campus, with debaters standing in for the candidates, to be broadcast and also to be recorded for classroom use.

I only heard about Debate Scoop this morning. I have been thinking about the current season of political debates for a while, but obviously these ideas of mine about the blog and about the Youtube format are in the form of a first draft or preliminary response to this new set of opportunities. I trust that Debate Scoop will include many correspondents with great expertise in this technology, as well as depth in political debating, who can make a lot more practical and useful suggestions for going forward during the coming year and a half.

Peace,

David Thomas
Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Comm Studies, Emeritus,  
University of Richmond