Candidate Images in Presidential Elections

KENNETH L. HACKER is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. He holds degrees from Sonoma State University, California State University at Sacramento, and the University of Oregon. He has presented numerous papers and published articles and book chapters about political communication, with a primary focus on political images, language, and politics, and voter discourse and candidate images. His primary focus in studying candidate images is to describe and explain how voters influence each other through conversation and how that influence modifies their perceptions of candidates. He is also researching the effects of computer-mediated communication on political communication.

Since Nimmo and Savage's groundbreaking work, Candidates and Their Images (1976), there has been no book dedicated solely to the examination of political candidate images. This volume adds to the development of the candidate image construct initiated by Nimmo and Savage. It provides a compendium of state-of-the-art theory and research of candidate images and image formation in the U.S. presidential elections. The contributors to this work, among the best-known in the field of political communication, describe and explain how presidential election results hinge on voter perceptions of candidates and how candidates seek to construct images that attract the most votes. The volume integrates issues of voter decision-making, media messages, campaigning, debate effects, and political advertising into the development of political communication theory. It will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of political communication.

A compendium of up-to-date theory and research on image-making in U.S. presidential elections, specifically dealing with how election results hinge on voter perceptions of candidates and how candidates seek to construct images thought to attract voters.

Foreword by Robert DentonIntroduction: The Importance of Candidate Images by Kenneth L. HackerCampaigns and Candidate Images in American Presidential Elections by Susan A. HellwegPolitical Images and Voting Decisions by Kathleen E. Kendall and Scott C. PaineCreating the Eye of the Beholder: Candidate Images and Political Socialization by Robert L. SavageThe Formation of Candidate Images during Presidential Campaigns by Dan NimmoInterpersonal Communication and the Construction of Candidate Images by Kenneth L. HackerChanging Candidate Images: The Effects of Political Advertising by Lynda Lee Kaid and Mike ChanslorTelevised Presidential Debates and Candidate Images by Walter R. Zakahi and Kenneth L. HackerMeta-analysis of Candidate Images by Susan A. Hellweg and Brian H. SpitzbergMeasuring Candidate Images with Semantic Differentials by Lynda Lee KaidIntensive Analysis and Candidate Images by Dan NimmoA Rashomonian Approach to the Study of Image Construction by Doug Kruse and Kathleen E. KendallLinguistic Discourse Analysis of Candidate Image Formulations by Kenneth L. HackerReferencesIndex