We Shocked the World

From Jesse to Arnold

The Framing of America’s Movie Star Governors

Geoffrey D. Sheagley

University of Minnesota, Morris

Introduction

“We shocked the world!” Those are the words of governor elect Jesse Ventura, a member of the Reform Party, acknowledging he had won Minnesota’s governorship in 1998. Five years later yet another, albeit a more well known, actor in the movie Predator was elected to his state’s highest executive office. Arnold Schwarzenegger was chosen to replace former governor Gray Davis in California’s first recall election. They are America’s celebrity governors. Without question Schwerzenegger and Ventura have become the most well-known governors of the last decade. While by no means the first celebrity candidates elected to public office, they are the latest additions to a list that includes Clint Eastwood, Bill Bradley, and Ronald Reagan.

Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger ran in very different ways, as very different people, and during very different times. Ventura ran during a period of great prosperity in Minnesota. There was a four billion-dollar surplus in the state budget and Minnesota was considered to have one of the highest quality of life ratings in the nation. Arnold Schwarzenegger, on the other hand, ran with the backing of the Republican Party, as a recall favorite, during a time of great economic stress in California. If one adopts the idea of narratives as a crucial part of media’s presentation of candidates and other news this implies that the media coverage of these candidates should have differed in story focus as well as candidate portrayal (Norris, Kern and Just 2003, Mann 1999). Were there concepts that transcended these vast differences and if so what do they mean?

The era of celebrity politics is today. Celebrities are some of the most well known members of our mass media driven and entertainment obsessed society. As Darrel M. West and John Orman contend in their book Celebrity Politics, “star power is weighted more heavily than traditional political skills such as bargaining, compromise, and experience”(West and Orman 2003). When celebrities enter the political world, celebrity politics ensue. Given the ability of the media to influence the electorate, as demonstrated by previous scholars, as well as the possible additional power that celebrity candidates are granted two questions are raised: first, what were the frames used by the media in their coverage of Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger? The second question has two parts. Was there a relationship between the frames used to portray Ventura and Schwarzenegger and what are the differences, if any, between the frames used? Previous research on celebrity politics, framing, and candidates was used to form a foundation for the research conducted on the news coverage of Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Previous Research

Celebrity Politics

The impact celebrities have on the political process cannot be underestimated. There are five categories in which celebrities involved in politics can be placed: political news worthies, legacies, famed nonpoliticos (elected officials), famed nonpoliticos (lobbyists and spokespersons), and event celebrities (West and Orman 2003). Political news worthies include celebrities who are good at getting on television and using the media to get their message out, a category which includes notables such as John McCain and Jesse Jackson Sr. The legacies category is fairly easy to understand, it is made up of celebrities famous because of their name, such as the Kennedy’s. Famed nonpoliticos, on the other hand, are celebrities who made their name outside the realm of politics. This includes elected officials such as Clint Eastwood, as well as lobbyist and spokesperson Martin Sheen. The final category, event celebrities, includes people who gained their celebrity from an event; one example would be Anita Hill (West and Orman 2003).

Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger fall under West and Orman’s category of famed nonpoliticos (elected officials). They are considered self-made celebrities who have a substantial amount of wealth. Jesse Ventura was a professional wrestler and radio talk show host before being elected Governor of Minnesota (Lentz 2002). After his wrestling days were over Ventura played a few roles in movies. He also became mayor of a small Minneapolis suburb. He resigned from his popular radio show during his bid for governor. Arnold Schwarzenegger, on the other hand, ran for governor of California while his newest movie “Terminator 3” was still in theatres. There is no question as to who the better known celebrity was and still is: Schwarzenegger. His celebrity status extended to numerous places. He was a former Mr. Universe and famed bodybuilder. In addition, he has had major roles in several major motion pictures. Finally, he married Marie Shriver, all before he ran for governor.

West and Orman argue that celebrity politics has really taken off in today’s world of entertainment driven media. “Economic pressures unleashed by the hypercompetitveness of the contemporary American media have altered the manner in which all reporters…cover the news. Journalists increasingly cover gossip in order to build audience share” (West and Orman 2003). The obsession journalists have with finding a story that will appeal to the people plays right into the hand of celebrities. In addition, celebrities benefit from the decline in partisanship in today’s political world and an increase in candidate centered politics (Niemi and Weisberg 2001). Members of the electorate are much less inclined to vote for a candidate based solely on their political affiliation. Instead, in today's more candidate centered campaigns, name recognition and perceived candidate traits matter more (Niemi and Weisberg 2001). In short, the increase in candidate centered politics coupled with the modern media’s entertainment driven news coverage makes this an ideal time for celebrity candidates.

In addition to being suited to the characteristics that define current voting behavior, celebrities also inspire an increased interest in politics (West and Orman 2003). When a celebrity enters the world of politics, in any role, apparently everybody wins. However, when a celebrity enters the political landscape, coverage of substance takes a backseat to entertainment and spectacle (West and Orman 2003). The public, already obsessed with the lives of celebrities, is enamored when a celebrity runs for office. Given this already established interest, the media loves to cover a celebrity candidate (West and Orman 2003). When a celebrity runs for public office he or she is viewed by the public as a white knight of the political world and is seen as an outsider who is beholden to nobody (West and Orman 2003). This occurs because the candidate has obviously not been involved in politics his or her entire life and usually has substantial amounts of money, which would imply they do not need special interest funding (West and Orman 2003). In sum, celebrity candidates tend to be darlings of the media and are viewed by the public as a refreshing voice in a world of sleazy politics.

Media Effects

There is ample evidence showing how the media can influence the public, including agenda setting, priming, and framing (Niemi and Weisberg, 2001; Mark J. Rozell, 2003). [GS1] Of these, framing is one of the most effective methods the media has at its disposal to influence the public. The media can “frame” a candidate, that is, they can create the context in which the public views the candidate. Research on framing, conducted by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, has demonstrated the different effects of positive and negative frames (Iyengar 1991). When the subject of a news story is framed as potential gain people are more inclined to support it and the opposite is true when the subject is framed in a negative light (Iyengar 1991). Rozell’s quote of Robert Entman regarding framing further explains what type of power framing can have:

To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described (Rozell 279).

The media has the ability to make the public, if they do not know a lot about the topic in this light or are non-experts, think of a candidate in a certain way (Iyengar 1991).

Further research on framing has provided evidence of frame narratives. James Mann describes this type of frame in the context of news framing of China. He states that, “the frame sets the background, the assumed context, which China stories usually must deal with in one for or another. A reporter can challenge or contradict the frame but can’t completely ignore it…” (Doris A. Graber 2000). Perhaps a celebrity narrative frame exists for celebrity candidates that each story must deal with.

The media creates the context in which the would-be politician is viewed. It follows that the way the media portrayed Ventura and Schwarzenegger during their campaigns would have a significant impact on how they were viewed by the electorate. Given the influence the media has on the public it is important to determine how Ventura and Schwarzenegger were not only framed for the public, but also the different frames present when compared to each other.

Methods

To study how the media portrayed candidates Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger in their elections, a content analysis of newspaper articles from a major newspaper was used for each candidate. For Schwarzenegger the Los Angeles Times was used and for Jesse the MinnesotaStar Tribune. These newspapers were selected because they had the largest circulation in their states. A census was taken of the articles written about each candidate during the three months before their elections. The three month time period was chosen because it would provide not only a good amount of coverage but would also show how coverage changed over time. The search engines Lexis-Nexis and Proquest were used to perform the content analysis. Each article concerning one of the candidates was analyzed for relevance to this study. Articles that were turned up in the search but only mentioned a candidate in an insignificant way, such as simply mentioning his presence at an event but not going into detail, were not used for the content analysis. When an article was deemed to have enough information to frame a candidate it was analyzed for the dominant frame of the article. Admittedly this was an arbitrary decision, however virtually all articles with more than a mere mentioning of candidates were used. In addition only one person decided the frames that were present. Drawing on previous research, three pre-determined categories for frames were established before the analysis was conducted: horserace, personal, and policy, which are defined in the next paragraph (Iyengar 1991). After initial research was conduced it became clear that more frames were present and in the end each frame was placed in one of the following categories: horserace, personal, celebrity, policy, and in the case of Arnold Schwarzenegger, recall race.

The horserace frame is perhaps the most well known. According to Shanto Iyengar horserace frames are …news stories, which have become a staple of campaign coverage, detail the candidates’ electoral prospects—their poll standings, delegate counts, fund-raising efforts, and related campaign indicators. (Iyengar 1991) If it was determined that the frame of an article was focused on the horserace aspect of a candidate it was placed in this category. An article written using this frame could portray the candidate in either a positive or negative light. During the content analysis some frame categories were discovered to be made up of negative and positive frames. The positive and negative frames were present for the policy, personal, horserace, and celebrity categories. A frame was placed into a positive category if it was portraying some aspect of a candidate in a positive way. For instance, the portrayal of Jesse Ventura as a common person was a positive frame because it was a beneficial frame for the candidate. A frame was considered negative if it had the opposite effect, such as the sex-scandal that Schwarzenegger had to endure.

The next frame category was a personal frame. An article was placed in this group if it focused on personal aspects of a candidate. This could include, for instance, an article that focused on a candidate’s qualifications or on their character. Once again these frames could portray a candidate in either a negative or positive way. The third frame category was the celebrity frame. It was sometimes hard to decide whether or not an article fit into this category or the personal category. Both talked about the candidate as a person; however an article was placed in the celebrity frame category if its focus was solely on a candidate’s celebrity background. For instance, there was at least one article about each candidate that focused on their personal history, thus it focused on their past involvement in Hollywood. This frame category was created because only a celebrity candidate has the ability to be framed this way. There did not seem to be any expressly negative frames in this category; however there were some positive ones.

The next frame category was the policy frame. An article was placed into this category if it focused on the positions taken by a candidate on issues talked about during the campaign. Positive and negative frames were present in this category as well. The final frame was the recall frame and was unique to the media coverage of Arnold Schwarzenegger. There was always a mention of Schwarzenegger in these articles but their main focus was still the recall race. For instance, Schwarzenegger could have been mentioned as a candidate in the race in addition to the many other candidates.

Results

Ventura

There were seventy-four articles printed during the three month period leading up to the election of Jesse Ventura that at least mentioned his name. Of those seventy-four articles, thirty-eight presented a frame of Ventura. The other articles were either too short or the mentioning of Ventura was incidental. From each article one dominant frame was determined. Table one shows the breakdown of frame categories from the articles about Jesse Ventura.

Table 1

Chart 1

The majority of frame categories fell into the personal frame category, which accounted for forty-nine percent of all frame types. Frames in this category can be broken down into positive and negative frames. Sixty-eight percent of personal frames used were positive in nature. Only one type of positive frame was used for Ventura, that of the political outsider. This was a positive frame because previous literature indicates that the public views celebrity political outsiders in a positive way. Every personal positive frame used in the Star Tribune concerning Jesse Ventura was that he was not a politician, or, more specifically that he was a political outsider. Four of the thirteen politician frames portrayed Ventura as a common person. This would occur when an article portrayed Ventura not only as not a politician but also as a common person, someone with whom the average citizen could relate.

There were also negative personal frames. These frame types accounted for thirty-two percent of the personal frames. When an article was placed into this category the frame always portrayed Ventura as not qualified for the job of governor. There were many ways this frame type surfaced. In some instances an article would point to his lack of experience in politics, or more specifically, the lack of important duties associated with his role as mayor.

The next most commonly occurring frame type was the horserace frame. This accounted for thirty-two percent of the frame categories. Frames that fell into this category could also be broken down into positive and negative in nature. There were twelve horserace frames observed for Ventura. Of those twelve, eleven were negative. The only positive frame present, printed the day of the election, was actually closer to neutral in nature; it simply stated that Ventura had a chance to win. The other eleven frames portrayed Ventura as behind in polls and fundraising. It is also interesting to note that four of the eleven negative frames portrayed Ventura as not only behind in the polls, but as a spoiler.