1950
"My
father, of course, coming out of the advertising business, was thinking media,"
recalls Charles Benton, the late Senator's son, and head of the Benton Foundation.
In
1950 few households had yet purchased a TV set so, Benton came up with a unique
innovation. Small kiosks with rear-projection screens were set up in shopping
centers and street corners to continuously play the same campaign commercials
being broadcast on television. Benton won in a very close race.Charles
Benton comments, "When you have a very close election, you don't know. Any
of these techniques could be attributed as being responsible. So you take
the three media points here, and did they make a 5000 vote difference? They
could have."Today,
the Benton Foundation is dedicated to using communication technology to improve
democratic participation. http://www.benton.org/
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Wisconsin Public Television,
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