Literary Analysis Essay on Air Wars

Introduction

One of the most critical times of a country's revolution is on the onset of a presidential or congressional election. This time can mark the economic progression of deterioration of a country depending on the type of leaders elected. Therefore, every voter should ensure that they utilize any available platform such as social media and televisions to determine the most eligible candidate for the seat. This importance motivated Darrel West, an American author, to document a book that described the use of televisions and social media to spread campaign advertisements. This essay will evaluate and provide a summary of the "Air Wars" book and provide a thorough critique of the different elements displayed in the book.

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Air Wars Summary

West begins Chapter 1 with a close comparison between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton campaign formats and messages transmitted via different platforms (West 1). The author has also explained the progression of campaign strategies ranging from broadcasting, narrowcasting, nanocasting, to microcasting (West 6). The first forms of campaign ads involved the use of handbills by candidates such as Thomas Jefferson. Radios came into effect in the early 1920s before candidates shifted to television in the mid-19th century, which targeted millions of candidates. The main ideas elaborated in this chapter are the unique shift in advertisements to target a specific audience. Narrowcasting targeted hundreds of thousands of voters, nanocasting targeted tens of thousands while microcasting targeted fewer voters ranging to a few hundred people to an individual voter. The other main argument in this chapter is the manner in which each candidate displays their opponent as a danger to the country as a campaign strategy. The second chapter has elaborated on arguments that explain the effectiveness of promotions and advertisements. One key area focused on the principles of advertising such as demonization, stereotyping, code words, and association. These principles have shown a significant impact on the number of voters influenced. For instance, Trump associated Clinton to Obama's leadership stating that electing her could have symbolized another term under Obama's leadership. Another key argument is the manner in which production techniques have changed from traditional methods to contemporary techniques such as visual imagery, color, and music. The author has also stressed the impact of financial aids on the outcome of an election, which led to the formulation of policies governing the amount of money contributed. Finally, the author has also shown the impact of twitter platforms on campaign strategies. For instance, Obama used his 22 million followers to spread his campaign messages to voters (West 22). The author has specifically written the third chapter to discuss ads and social media use. The first argument is one the different factors that campaigners evaluate before buying an ad. These factors may include the number of issues to discuss, time to post, the frequency of the ads, and the advertisement platforms used. Study of these ads has become possible with the introduction of new technologies such as POLARIS and new policies that ensured every networking platform posted their ads online. Studies done showed that politicians spend millions of money on ads whereby Obama spent over 260 million dollars and Romney spent over 105 million dollars (West 27). The author has also emphasized the change in advertisements whereby candidates now focus more on local networks than national networks.

The fourth chapter takes a keen look into the messages displayed by candidates in their ads. According to some voters, these ads portray a negative image of the candidates campaigned against. For instance, campaign ads by Clinton showed Trump to be an arrogant politician. Politicians focus on problems affecting the country on their ads that can either propose an action or a policy. Candidates have focused more on personality appeals in advertisements whereby they question the credibility of different candidates. This form of campaign fits into the category of negative advertisement. The key arguments explained in chapter five include the clear change in the coverage of news by the media from their old-passive reporting to a new interrogative method. However, the author notes that these media coverage mostly focused on the advertisement strategies rather than the policy matters themselves, which questioned their credibility. It is also evident that newspapers such as the New York Times did not advertisement many campaigns in the early 1970s (West 75). The hypothesis described in chapter six was that ads helped citizens acknowledge different political matters in the country. The hypothesis is true as different matters came up in the ads such as the oppression of the middle class. Moreover, these campaigns also helped learn more about specific candidates and their personalities, which significantly influenced their votes.

The seventh chapter tries to focus on different agendas set by politicians in their favor. Candidates performed a keen study on different issues that affected the country at the time such as high taxes, unemployment, and deterioration of the economy as their campaigning strategies. The spread the message through various media platforms to influence a large population of voters. The eighth chapter has explained on key arguments in relation to the"blame" game. Voters noted that most of the candidates utilize the blame game strategy to demonize their opponents. Ability to blame the opportunity without directly attacking them provides candidates with an added advantage such as in the case of Bush who used substantive strategy to avoid backlashes.Chapter nine describes congress elections and media impacts on voter influence. Although Congress elections do not attract much crowd like presidential elections, media coverage impacts their election. For instance, media coverage allowed Clinton to win over Guiliani for the congressional seat in New York (West 111). The last chapter tries to evaluate the ultimate role of advertising and campaigning to the achievement of credible democratic elections. Voters should avoid manipulation by candidates before an election.

Air Wars Critique

First, the author has logically placed the content of the book in 10 different chapters that are easy to follow. Before the first chapter, West has provided a table of contents that has divided different key topics and subtopics that makes it easier for the reader to check and follow up the described pages. In addition, the author has managed to utilize a simple language that is easy to comprehend by people of different academic levels, which makes it an important target for both students and other scholars. The author has provided a conclusion at the end of each chapter instead of writing one conclusion at the end of the book. This format assist readers obtain a recap of the chapter read before proceeding to the next. It can also assist readers to obtain a quick summary of the section before they officially begin reading the book. The author has also written an introduction that acts as a hook attracting the reader to the chapter in question.

After evaluating the content of the book, I can comfortably agree that the work is credible. First, the author has made it a habit to use different examples in the chapters to explain various information described. Any academic work that does not provide evidence in form of examples cannot qualify as a credible and reliable piece of information. The author has provided various citations for the work done at the end of the book and also inside the text. Notably, West has divided the reference page into 10 different sections to represent the 10 different chapters. He has placed references used in each chapter to their respective categories. The arrangement will easier understanding of the citations used and improve the access time by other readers. The author does not take sides in his presentation, but instead, he portrays different candidates and occurrences fairly depending on the information that is evident. Such an unbiased role provides readers with a chance to make their own judgments of the situations without prior influence by the author.

The author has managed to successfully describe the topic of the book, which was the use of televisions and social media in campaigns. He has shown the impacts of these advertisements on the likelihood of winning an election for a candidate. From this book, the author has shown how every candidate demonizes their opponents with the intentions of winning. However, the information presented in the book may appear as sensitive and stressful to some readers who may have supported various candidates that did not win. At the end of the book, the author has also mentioned that for the country to attain democratic elections, voters should ensure that they avoid manipulation from candidates through social media. Instead, they should use these media platforms to undertake thorough scrutiny of candidates in question to evaluate their eligibility. To develop accurate analysis, the author used statistical results from credible sources as seen in different parts of the essay. However, one drawback is that the author should have incorporated the pictorial illustrations next to their relevant texts instead of posting them at the beginning of the paper. This could have made it easier for readers to observe and relate the context to the images provided. Finally, it is correct to mention that the author has fulfilled all academic guidelines in writing the book and has accomplished his mission of describing the use of social media in campaigns and elections.

Conclusion

To conclude, it is important to note the key areas addressed by Went's book. The first chapter explains the progress of communication from broadcasting to microcasting during the campaign period. The second chapter focuses on promotions and advertisement use while the third chapter focuses on the use of these ads to influence voters to elect particular leaders. The fourth chapter evaluates how different platforms such as televisions and social media transmit campaign messages throughout the country. The fifth chapter focuses on media coverage on different campaign news and how this reporting influences elections. The sixth to the eighth chapters demonstrate the impacts of advertisements of viewers' decision making. The ninth chapter deviates from the presidential elections to focus on congressional elections while the last chapter focuses on the attainment of democratic elections in the country. In addition, this paper has also provided a thorough critique of the book through evaluation of different aspects such as language use, illustration, and content description, which has brought me to a conclusion that the book was well documented.

Work Cited

West, Darrell M. Air Wars: Television Advertising and Social Media in Election Campaigns, 1952-2016. CQ Press, 2017.