By Jonathan Arkin
(M.A. Specialized Journalism '10)
The Nov. 6 installment of the popular Annenberg Open Forum on Politics, War…and More focused on the campaign and post-campaign atmosphere on campus – and throughout the nation – and brought out some sharp student and faculty feedback on omission, reconciliation and new methods of follow-up made possible by new media technology.
“I really think this is an amazing moment, especially because of the student involvement,” University Professor and director of USC Annenberg's Center on Communication Leadership Geoffrey Cowan said. “In a way, we could say this was an Annenberg campaign – it was about rhetoric and debate, it was about gender and race, it was about the role of new technologies. So, the Annenberg School was everywhere.”
Featured at the event were several students, whose particular take on the election became a source of conversation for the panelists. Two of the students represented the candidates on campus and detailed their experiences motivating other students to vote.
“A lot of it focused on voter registration, keeping the volunteers excited,” said Brett VandenBos (B.A. Writing for Screen and Television ’09), president of USC's Students for Barack Obama, who joined with Joshua Sharp (B.A. Communication ’09, pictured above right), the co-chair of USC's Students for John McCain. “Getting the voters registered on USC’s campus, we planned what I think – and Josh will probably agree with me, the biggest voter mobilization in USC history. That’s something we’re really proud of.”
Sharp agreed.
“I got to do something I’ve always believed in,” said Sharp, whose work on the campaign involved creating Facebook groups and an e-mail listserv 260-strong by campaign’s end. “Our whole objective – not just from a Republican standpoint, but from the standpoint of John McCain’s campaign – was to let students know they had a realistic choice. We had students we hadn’t seen all campaign who came out to work the phone banks.”
Other faculty present at the event provided historical context for the history-making election – in particular journalism professor Richard Reeves, whose work has spanned decades of presidential campaigns.
“In my experience, the new guys always win because they start from scratch,” Reeves said.
Journalism professor Marc Cooper, who has mentored several students through the coverage of the campaign, had several spirited exchanges with Reeves over the way the media handled this election.
“What’s amused me is that when the rest of the media talk about new media, they have a mantra: ‘Well, Facebook has changed everything.’ But they haven’t really explored how it’s changed everything,” Cooper said.
While pointing out the “lamentable” nature of the downsizing of legacy media, Cooper commended the 24-hour coverage of the presidential candidates and the “lateral communication” that facilitated the ground-breaking communication that was created between journalists and other players in the campaign.
“I think as journalists, we should really be proud of that moment,” Cooper said, adding an admonition about the ongoing nature of the post-campaign communication. “The action cycle that has always existed, is greatly accelerated.”
Another student joining the faculty at the Forum table was Annenberg TV News Executive Producer Stacey Persoff (B.A. Communication ’09), whose student-run station provided hours of unprecedented, live coverage of the election.
“We had people blogging, we had uncut video to get flavor for the evening,” Persoff said. “We had everything on the Web to get the student angle on it. We even had a reporter up in Alaska to report about what was happening up there.”
One graduate student present at the event, graduate student Wendy Carrillo (M.A. Specialized Journalism '09), held the panelists to task for neglecting what she said was a crucial ethnic element that helped define the election campaign.
“I’m a little concerned that Latinos had played a really big role in this election and that it’s not being discussed here,” Carrillo said. “Our efforts brought out Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado. On Proposition 8, there were a lot of Latino leaders who came out against Proposition 8. It seems like in the media that it’s been a black-and-white issue. Hispanics and Latinos are a very complicated group. We are religiously conservative, yet we vote liberal. This whole black-and-white issue has been very dominant and that’s not an accurate portrayal of what happened. Every other minority that has been involved in this election has been completely disregarded. Have you heard any Latino leaders being questioned on Obama’s victory?”
