Visual Media and Presidential Campaigns

As presidential campaigning intensifies toward the November 4th election we’ll be seeing more and more presidential campaign advertisements and media coverage. Visual portrayals of candidates play a powerful part in swaying opinions and forming voter decisions.

For those interested in presidential campaign ads, take a look at these two excellent online sources (available free of charge).

The Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials,
1952-2004 from the Museum of the Moving Image is an archive of some of the more “famous” presidential campaign commercials from Eisenhower to Nixon to Kerry

And

Campaign 2008: Presidential Primary Campaign Ads from Stanford’s Political Communication Lab provides access to current campaign commercials.