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TV Goes to the CONVENTIONS

ACCORDING to estimates, about 60 million people, or 40 percent of the nation’s population, will watch the political conventions this summer on more than 16 million TV sets. The largest concentration of television equipment ever assembled will beam the convention to the nation. These four pages of drawings show how it will be done. One entire wing of Chicago’s Amphitheatre will be given over to television and radio studios and equipment. Read the rest of this entry »

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The NATION Sits in on National Conventions

Politics becomes mechanically minded in 1936, and both Republicans and Democrats are providing the machinery which will permit the nation to listen in to the proceedings.

by BOB GORDON

THE political machinery for nominating the presidential candidates of the two major parties remains as old as the parties, but in June this year the entire nation will be given ringside seats at the National Conventions at Philadelphia and Cleveland, with both parties taking advantage of every latest scientific wrinkle to bring the conventions to your home or local movie.
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TELEVISION AND THE ELECTION

The new medium played an important part in the recent presidential campaign. How did it compare with radio, newspapers and magazines as a source of information?

by Angus Campbell, Gerald Gurin and Warren E. Miller

THE PRESIDENTIAL campaign of 1952 was the first in which television played a major part. How much did this new medium influence the election? No one really knows, because no specific studies were made to measure the impact of TV on the thinking of the electorate. But we do know something about how television compared with the other media of information in bringing the campaign to the public, and what groups in the population were most exposed to, or affected by, the television campaign.
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Postage Stamps as Propaganda

by MONTGOMERY MULFORD

THERE is no doubt that today postage stamps are being used for propaganda purposes. Because they serve governments in this way, new stamps are constantly being issued. Each year many new issues appear, and a vast majority of them suggest or preach, some political ideal.
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“Perhaps its greatest contribution has been the elimination of empty phrases. A speaker with a vivid personality can say nothing, and say it attractively, but the man who tries to deliver the same speech to the radio, where only words count, is doomed to failure.”

I’m not sure that was ever really true, just look at Rush Limbaugh. Then TV came along and well…. you know the rest.

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Political Spellbinding by Radio

ONE hundred and ten million Americans will have the opportunity next March of listening to the inauguration of the first ruler of any nation to be chosen after a radio campaign. While thousands heard the three presidential candidates in person, millions more at some time or other during the campaign heard their voices over the radio, and that same opportunity will be extended when the inaugural address is delivered. The old – fashioned spellbinder climbed down off the stump in this campaign of 1924 and settled himself in front of a microphone, and incidentally some of the political speakers had to fit themselves to an entirely new form of public speaking. Picturesque and vivid personalities are lost on the radio audience. The speaker’s individuality counts for nothing, and what he says for everything when the listener is sitting a hundred or a thousand miles away. Words have displaced gestures as vote getters. Read the rest of this entry »

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Mechanical Ballot to Elect Next President

by Earle W. Gage

Hoover or Roosevelt—which will be our next president? Millions of voters will cast their ballots in November on a new ingenious machine which will baffle crooked voters and minimize the delay in learning who has been elected. Here is told the fascinating story of this machine and of its forebears devised by inventors of ancient times.

TRULY, magic-working mechanical wizardry shall select the next president of the United States, as millions of voters march to the election booth in November to cast their ballots.

“50,000,000 Votes for President!” is the popular slogan. Thanks to the genius of the engineer, who has perfected voting machinery of marvelous accuracy and precision, it is now possible to tabulate the greatest popular vote in history, announce the result and flash the news to the remotest hamlet in less than sixty minutes after the polls close.
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