02/11/2008
What motivates voters to make their choices
CARLOS EDUARDO LINS DA SILVA
ombudsman@uol.com.br
Voters don't make their choices by genetic definition, nor by style as the candidates are treated by the media
"During the electoral campaign, most of the messages that I received during the coverage accused this newspaper of being tendentious."
That is how the Oct. 19 ombudsman column in the "New York Times" began about the 2008 American presidential election.
Clark Hoyt recounted that many of the accusations denounced the newspaper for operating a conscious political agenda to help one candidate and destroy the other.
It seems that ombudsmen are fated to have the same type of problem, no matter what country they work in.
The United States, contrary to Brazil, has a long and established history of scientific polls about the influence exercised by the media over voter behavior.
It began in the 1930s, when the Nazis got accustomed to using advertising on radio, movies, and the press to win over public opinion in Germany.
Paul Lazarfeld, an Austrian scientist with socialist inclinations and a Jewish family who emigrated in 1933 to the United States, where he became one of the most important sociologists of the century, was a leader in these efforts.
In the presidential elections of 1940, 1944 and especially 1948, he monitored voter behavior and media consumption by citizens of a typical American city, Elmira, New York.
He concluded that the news media exercise little or no influence over voting decisions of people among those who were surveyed.
Besides, the 1948 election became famous because one of the most influential newspapers of the era, the "Chicago Daily Tribune," believed so much in the polls of voter intentions that, in some of the newspapers circulating the next day, the headline proclaimed victory by the Republican candidate, Thomas Dewey; the winner was Democrat Harry Truman.
In the 1950s, Lazarfeld went further. In new studies, he came to believe that electoral choices "are relatively immune to direct argument" and "are characterized more by faith than conviction, more by desire than by careful prediction of the results."
Thousands of studies proved later and up to now Lazarsfeld's studies, which never reached the extreme of John Alford and John Hibbing, the founders of a probable new scientific field, biopolitics.
In September of this year, they published in the magazine "Science," one of the leading academic publications in the world, an article showing studies which tried to demonstrate links between people's political inclinations and their genes, between ideology and biology.
None of this frees the media from the responsibility of trying to exercise their duty to report political facts in the most independent and balanced way as possible. Even in the United States, with a tradition of showing preference for candidates in editorials in each election.
This year, the absolute majority of newspapers backed Barack Obama, considered by almost all of the studies already done about election coverage as the beneficiary of less-critical treatment than that given to John McCain.
If Obama emerges victorious on Tuesday, however, his victory can't be attributed to explicit or hidden support by the media.
Voters can decide not to vote by genetic definition, nor by the way candidates are treated by the media.
In the end, what country is this?
Folha has done excellent coverage of the American presidential election this year. It sent several of its top reporters to the United States for a long time, has been more impartial than the Brazilian press in general (and even more than some American news organizations), showed intelligence and creativity at various moments, giving a lot of space to the topic and emphasis of profound analysis of relevant topics.
But it erred by arrogantly using a piece by American journalist Kathleen Parker, designated as a columnist, at the end the campaign.
Judging by reading her column that came out Friday, what she offered is outside of the reach of the average Brazilian's understanding. Not by any deficiency, but simply by being Brazilian.
He would not know Gretchen Wilson, one of the basic cultural citations in the article. The text says that she is a "country singer." So what?
Curious George is another essential reference in the column. Who would know that he is a character from a series of classical books of American children's literature, an intelligent and curious monkey who plays tricks and puts his owner in distress?
And the verses "Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn, and cauldron bubble" that came in the middle of the column? Who would know that they are the worlds of Shakespeare in Macbeth (Act 4, Scene 1, the scene of the three witches) and popular in stories told to children on Oct. 31?
Without mentioning the basic analogy of the column, which is Halloween. Could the average newspaper reader know in fact that this is a popular American tradition? What could it mean to the collective imagination of the country?
In a footnote to the column, it was emphasized that Parker wrote the column for Folha. It does not seem that she remembered that the newspaper is published in Brazil and that its readership does not use the same cultural touchstones as those in the United States.
To read
"Primary Colors," by Anonymous, translated by José Modesto, Companhia das Letras, 1996 (starting at 50.48 reals, or US $23.25) - a fictional story of Bill Clinton's campaign for president in 1992, anonymous at the start, but authorship was later acknowledged by Joe Klein, a journalist who covered him closely
"The Making of the President - 1960," by Theodore H. White, translated by Regina Regis Junqueira, Itataia Publishing, 1963 (starting at 15 reals, on sites which sell used books) - exemplary book by the political historian tells details about John Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1960
To see
"Recount," by Jay Roach, with Kevin Spacey, 2008 (shown on the HBO Plus pay channel on Nov. 2, 7 and 11) - good-quality fictional documentary which tells how votes in Florida were counted during the American presidential election in 2000
"State of the Union," by Frank Capra, with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, 1948 (copy from cable TV for sale as DVD for 34 reals on the site http:site.pop.com.br/video3) - classic from the great director in which a presidential candidate begins to cause problems for the political machine of his party when he decides to denounce corruption in the system
What Folha did right...
Araguaia
Story on Sunday with accounts by soldiers who participated in the repression of guerrillas in Araguaia is an important historic document, besides being unprecedented, top-quality journalistic material
PVC
New column about soccer is highlighted by the objectivity of the analysis
...And where it was wrong
Top of Mind
Magazine which circulated in Wednesday's edition is another complicated case in the relationship between journalism and advertising, with laudatory stories about companies considered for prizes from the newspaper and advertisers for the same products announcing their victories
Maria Victória Benevides
A good and opportune interview with the respected political scientist should have informed the reader that she is an activist for a political party
Police strike
Coverage continues to not provide readers with objective and believable information that they can use to make an informed judgment about the strike
-Translation by John Wright
