Joe Biden Campaign

History of the Joe Biden Campaign: 

Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden announced that he would be running for the presidential election on the 25th of April, 2019.  He competed for the presidential nomination in the Democratic party against other candidates such as Bernie Sanders, (future vice president) Kamala Harris, and Pete Buttigeig among others. He was formally nominated at the 2020 Democratic National Convention, which took place on the 18th of August, 2020. 

Throughout the campaign, with much of it taking place during COVID-19 restrictions and mandated quarantine, he and his staff were often criticized for lack of crowds as well as having fellow Democrats use non-traditional means in their attempt to persaude voters. His social media team, as well as campaign team, were open with many of their strategies and many younger populations in the United States applauded attempts at fast marketing and merchandise decisions, as well as the nontraditional reach into more pop culture movements. 

Joseph Biden and his nominee for vice president, Kamala Harris, would go on to win the much debated election on the 3rd of November, 2020. The results of this election were highly debated and were criticized by many for the use of mail-in ballots used primarily by those who voted Democrat during the election, as well as other explanations behind some type of cheating or "rigging" of the election system.

Measurement of the Propaganda: 

 

Qualitative:

1. Language (Insulting v. Flattery)

   - In this ad, there is not much language except for the handful of sayings at the end about a country and president for all Americans. These saying are seen in a positive light after viewing the video. The music playing in the background of the video is "America the Beautiful". The message of the song is flattering towards national pride and the people who are represented in the video across the broad strokes of communities that are included. 

2. Slippery Slope (Positive v. Negative)

   - The view in this video are positive towards the communities represented. The intended audience are most likely apart of one of these communities so the audience would most likely view this piece as positive in general. 

3. Character (Protaganist v. Antagonist)

   - There is not a specific character represented in this piece, escept for perhaps the umbrella term of "American". With the positive view and flattering language, "Americans" are the protaganist. 

4. Exaggeration (Misrepresented or Extravagant)

   - Although not much is said, this video is extravagant in some ways are it shows so many different people across the country, while not showing the candidate or the message of the campaign. It is emotional extravagance, instead of focused political extravagance. 

 

Quantitative:

1. Sense of Community (What does the public think? Do they follow this line of thought?)

   - In the two tweets below, we see positive community thoughts on the commentary of the video on the website YouTube. In general, and beyond the influences of the internet, the community that this was intended to reach reacted positively to this propaganda. It was meant to be heartfelt, and with the emotion surrounding the victory of the Biden campaign, this video was on the same line as many of it's viewers. 

2. Reliability (How reliable is the message that is being promoted? How will the public think of this in the long term?)

   - The message does not have information that is evidence based, as it is more of an emotional call to arms by the candidate after victory. Within the next few years, there will certainly be change in the reaction to this video and how much it is considered reliable. Being within the first year of the Biden presidency, we have already seen a reaction from consituents with dissapointment as the main adjective. 

3. Authenticity (Is it factual to the information available to the public?)

   - Much like the reliability, there is not much to look at in terms of authenticity, or the lack of, in this case. The people in the video are authentic Americans, albeit perhaps a bit exagerrated for the cinematic quality of the video. 

4. Audience (Who is this intended for? Does it promote or demote any audience?)

   - The audience of this video is the large community of democrats of the United States of America, including the different communities that are represented throughout the video. This video was made for the people that contributed to this particularly campaign efforts, including the voters. It does not actively demote any other groups while promoting it's own audience. 

 

 

Two Selected Comments from the YouTube Video, "President-elect Joe Biden & Vice President-elect Kamala Harris | America The Beautiful"