The 1960 Presidential Election as the First Modern Campaign

Essay from the year 2015 in the subject American Studies - Miscellaneous, grade: 2,5, Swansea University, language: English, abstract: The 1960 presidential election was in many ways different from the elections in previous decades. These immense changes regarding the general approach, the content and the use of media during the campaign and elections as well as the shift in focusing on image rather than on content seem to make this campaign the first modern one. Alongside changes in the Constitution of the United States of America whereby the Twenty-second Amendment, ratified in 1951, prohibited the president of the previous two terms Dwight D. Eisenhower ¿from running for a third term¿ the major innovation was the use of television as the predominant mass medium in John F. Kennedy¿s successful presidential campaign, less in the one of Richard Nixon, who rather focused on classic strategies, which will be discussed later on. With the two major presidential candidates debating on television and being broadcasted also via radio this election can surely be described as the first modern campaign for an election in the United States.