David Ocamb

The Boy Who Cried Wolf… The story of Judas… The Legends of King Arthur…  Ask the vast majority of Americans and they would instantly be able to tell you the plot of these stories.  Moreover, they would instantly be able to tell you the moral of the story.  So, what does this have to do with political or public affairs campaigns?  Absolutely everything!

The human brain is wired to think in terms of stories.  The Ancient Greeks realized this when they created their myths.  Even the Bible is written to take this into account, with Jesus using parables as his most effective teaching device.  A myth or parable takes abstract concepts, usually moral in nature, and puts them into a concrete context.  The human brain can then internalize them for later use.  Within any given culture, including the American culture, a group of these myths become the common basis for morality.

Americans are exposed to thousands upon thousands of messages every day.  In order for a political or public affairs campaign to break through this clutter and create an effective message, they have to use shortcuts.  That’s where the campaign narrative comes into play.  A campaign narrative is the overall story of the campaign.  It must tie into a preexisting narrative framework (one of the common myths that almost all Americans already know).  Read the rest of this entry →

Every election cycle, journalists interview people complaining about all of the attack ads they’ve seen on TV and then their coverage turns to the talking heads who bemoan the demise of political discourse in America.  Yet, any historian can tell you that politics has been incredibly dirty since at least the Thomas Jefferson/John Adams race and has remained cutthroat since that time.  So, if the public and media complain about mudslinging, why have politicians always resorted to it and why do they continue to utilize it? 

The answer is easy.  It works. Read the rest of this entry →