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Rae Long
B. Williams
MDST 2000
11/21/13
During election season, the American public becomes inundated with political
advertisements that range from full on attacks from one candidate to another to inspirational
messages about the goal of a campaign. The last presidential election of 2012 was no different.
This was a particularly important election not only because the first African American president
in American history was running as an incumbent, but the country was and still is in the midst of
the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. These political ads reflected just how
critical the decision between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney would be in terms of the course of
political action.
The advertisement I chose to analyze is one for President Obama’s 2012 campaign for
reelection entitled “Challenges”. The ad is narrated by the renowned actor Morgan Freeman and
consists of a series of images as well as symphonic music. It begins with a shot of the Oval office
and then moves on to two more of the president himself; one stepping out to give a speech, the
other sitting in deep thought. As the rest of the shots are shown Freeman narrates, “Every
president inherits challenges. Few have faced so many. Our heroes are coming home, assembly
lines are humming again. There are still challenges to meet, children to educate, a middle class to
rebuild, but the last thing we should do is turn back now” ("Challenges - Obama for America TV
Ad").
The different pictures all coincide with what Freeman dictates in the video and represent
quintessential American images such as an assembly line of trucks, military members happily
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reunited with their families, children in a classroom and an American flag trailing on the back of
a pickup truck. The slogan of Obama’s campaign is the closing message of the ad: forward
("Challenges - Obama for America TV Ad.").
There are a number of things to consider in this ad and what they mean in the context of
mass media during an election, the most obvious being what the audience actually sees. The
meaning behind the ad lies within its semiotics. What semiotics does is allow for the analysis of
meaning by recognizing different signs within a particular text, which then make up codes.
(Grossberg et al. 143-144). Codes range from being large in their significance, such as a
language, or they can be simple such as the colors on a traffic light (Grossberg et al. 143). The
key is the interpretation of these different codes as they may have different meanings in different
cultures (Grossberg et al. 145).
So how does this relate to a particular political advertisement? The different signs that are
represented speak to the many codes of meaning within our society and what they have created.
A sign is technically the unit of a code, but more specifically, it is a “sign of absence” (Grossberg
et al. 146). What this means is that a sign is “different from what it represents” (Grossberg et al.
146). For example, in the ad presents an image of a small American flag on a pickup truck as I
mentioned before. In this case, the sign is the American flag, but how do we arrive at the
meaning behind it? The sign itself is made up of two key components: a signifier and the
signified (Grossberg et al. 147). A signifier lies within the sign and separates it from another
code (Grossberg et al. 147). So when looking at the flag in the advertisement, the signifiers are
the famed red, white and blue colors that make up the stars and stripes. This gives the American
flag an identity rather than being a simple piece of cloth. What is more difficult to define is the
signified because it is not tangible; it is only significant within a particular system of meaning
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(Williams). What someone might say about the signified in this image of an American flag is
upholding the ideals of a true American by working hard towards a better future.
It is important to recognize the semiotics behind this ad and others like it because it helps
the public understand where meaning comes from. Semiotics would cease to be relevant if the
public was not able to connect the signs, signifiers, and the signified into a specific message
(Grossberg et al. 154). Through this kind of analysis, “Challenges” is not simply a video with a
series of images and powerful narration; it contains a system of codes. We know that when we
see a picture of the Oval Office, it is not simply a room; it could mean maintaining Obama’s
position as president. The assembly line of cars does not only mean increased productivity, but
also the increase of employment as a whole.
The integral part of this whole process is who will take away the meaning from this
advertisement. In other words, what makes audiences understand the codes embedded in
messages we receive on a daily basis. The first factor that needs to be taken into consideration is
what mindset the audience is in during the time of an election and how they process the polarized
opinions that flood their media outlets. The obvious goal of these advertisements is to get people
to vote for them, but even candidates know that this can only be done to a certain degree. In
1940, media scholar Paul Lazarsfeld and his colleagues set out to determine just how much of an
effect the mass media had on the American public. Their hypothesis was that voters would be
significantly influenced by the increased media activity and propaganda of an election.
However, what they found was that less than 10 percent of people changed their minds about
which candidate they would vote for and if they did, an even smaller percent of those voters were
influenced by the media in their decision (Press and Williams 76).
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By looking at Lazarfeld’s research, it can be discerned that most viewers who saw
Obama’s “Challenges” advertisement already had their mind made up about who they would
vote for whether it was before the campaign or during. If this is the case, then why bother
releasing it to the public? It is true that there is a possibility the candidates will change the minds
of that small percentage of voters--called last-minute deciders in political science--because they
are the most susceptible to the media influence (Grossberg et al. 363). However, the main point
of political advertisements--especially this one which is not overtly attacking the opposing
candidate--is to provide information in order to gain a vote (Grossberg et al. 365). Walter
Lippmann, another prominent media scholar who conducted research at the same time as
Lazarsfeld, found that even with the rise of radio and television, people still heavily relied on the
opinions of their peers to gain information about elections (Press and Williams 77). This idea
still holds true today and has been given the name of the two-step flow where the opinion
leaders, the “political junkies,” inform others who are not as well-versed in politics and elections,
which is the majority of the American population (Grossberg et al. 358, 360-361). Therefore, if
an opinion leader sees “Challenges,” they may explain the specific points to those who do not
understand what exactly Obama’s message is because they are not familiar with his policies. By
releasing this ad, the Obama administration is putting trust in those who are acquainted with his
policies--and agree with them for that matter--to inform those who do not.
What the American public may not think about in our media system is the manner in
which these messages are delivered to us. In other words, we do not typically consider the effect
a medium has upon a particular media text. A medium is a singular form of media (Grossberg et
al. 8). So in the case of the “Challenges” advertisement, the original medium is television while
the media is the actual ad. While I found this ad on YouTube, it is essential to know that it was
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originally aired on TV. Watching television and not having control of what comes on the air at
any moment, especially during election season, is part of what defines our media system. It is the
main reason why candidates make political advertisements in the first place: in hopes that they
may gain more votes. As Marshall McLuhan states, “it is the medium that shapes and controls
the scale and form of human association and action” (9). What we can take away from
McLuhan’s observation is that there is a crucial distinction to be made between someone who
willingly searches for an advertisement as opposed to a viewer watching a television program
that may be unrelated to an election entirely and sees a political advertisement during a
commercial break. As proven before, the majority of people who saw this advertisement when it
aired had made their mind up on whom they would vote for before the election even started as a
partisan to their political party or at some point during the campaign. For this reason, they are
simply having the message forced upon them as result of the money paid for by the campaign.
Conversely, those who actively seek out this video online, a completely public media outlet, look
to reaffirm their allegiance to Obama.
So how effective is this advertisement? If we think in terms of Lazarsfeld’s study, there is
no way this advertisement could possibly have a great enough impact on voters to significantly
alter the outcome. However, the social and interactive aspects surrounding this advertisement
cannot be ignored. On YouTube, the ad has 1,058,705 views and counting even a year after the
election, 7,423 people “like” the video while 529 “dislike” it ("Challenges - Obama for America
TV Ad”). While it is true that the majority of these viewers are in fact democrats looking for
affirmation in their vote and the majority of the comments remark about Morgan Freeman just as
much as Obama, changing the medium by putting it on the Internet reveals insightful information
about how Americans consume media in the present day. This video on YouTube is ideal model
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of the individual who consumes media: one who is “active” and their “use of media is goaldirected” (Grossberg et al. 265). We use the media as individuals in order to connect with others,
obtain information about topics we care about, reinforce our identities and, in some cases, escape
from reality (Grossberg et al. 265-66). A political advertisement such as “Challenges”
encompasses all these values as it brings voters together and reaffirms political opinions that are
oftentimes thought as the most important marker of a true American citizen.
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Works Cited
"Challenges - Obama for America TV Ad." YouTube. YouTube, 13 Oct. 2012. Web. 19 Nov.
2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nUDg-O93GU>.
Grossberg, Lawrence, Ellen Wartella, and D. Charles Whitney. Mediamaking: Mass Media in a
Popular Culture. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998. Print.
McLuhan, Marshall. "The Medium Is the Message." Understanding Media; the Extensions of
Man,. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. 9. Print.
Press, Andrea Lee., and Bruce Alan. Williams. "Chapter 3: Media and Democracy." The New
Media Environment: An Introduction. Chichester, West Sussex, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
63-88. Print.
Williams, Bruce. “Lecture on Media and Meaning.” University of Virginia. Wilson Hall,
Charlottesville, VA 26 Sept 2013. Lecture.
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