JAMIESON:
The evaluation of visual symbols is extremely tricky. But there are two
things about that ad that are worthy of discussion. The first, when you
look frame by frame at the ad, there are frames in the ad in which the
hands are crushing the head of one of the candidates. And I reproduce
those pictures in Dirty Politics.
Secondly, there is a black mark on the letter that's shown in the ad that
is supposedly the rejection letter that a blue collar worker has just
gotten telling him that he hasn't gotten the job and the ad's implication
is that it was given to someone who was an unqualified minority. Well,
when talking to people in focus groups about the ad, first most people
didn't recognize that at almost an imperceptible level there was the hand
appearing to crush the head of the candidate. But a number of people did
see that and when you point it out to people they do see it. Now we don't
know what that does to audiences. But it's interesting that it's there.
Secondly, there's a black mark on the paper. And when you ask Castellanos
how did it get there, he says, 'I don't know it's just a piece of paper
we picked up.' But there are some people in some focus groups who see
that as a black hand holding a black gun. Different people bring different
meanings to different symbols. We don't all respond to the same message
in the same way.
The question becomes for an ad like that, is that ad subtly activating
racial fears? Illegitimate fears that are not about the explicit content
of the ad, but are about something else. Or were those just production
accidents that elicited that unintended response in some members of the
audience.
In the North Carolina Senate campaign, Republican incumbent JESSE HELMS was several points behind Democrat HARVEY GANTT in polls taken shortly before the election.
