The world’s US election

openDemocracy has largely covered the story of the US presidential election from the perspective of what it means to the rest of the world. In this world media monitor, journalists, academics and media activists help us take an even closer look at what makes world interest in this election tick.

There have been countless articles in the world media in the last months that say non-Americans prefer John Kerry to George W Bush. But this is not always reflected in the national media.

The US media and the alternative online media seem to see this election as one that will lead the world down one of two very different paths. But in many parts of the world, for instance China or Nepal, the choice between Kerry and Bush is reported as two sides of the same coin. Depending on where you’re watching from, both could be true.

Please let us know how the media are covering the US election where you live in the forum.

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China

Jimeng Teng

“Whose side are you on?” has become the standard question to Americans living in China’s capital, Beijing. If they can assure their vote will go to John Kerry, they get a big thumbs-up in return!

Everyone in China is following the election across the Pacific very closely, from media pundits at official news agencies to farmers-turned-hardhats toiling on construction sites.

Central China Television (CCTV) broadcast the third presidential debate on US domestic policy live, and on 20 October the Bush-Kerry debate again received front-page attention on the Global Times with a large photo of the two men pitting against each other.

The official state-owned Chinese media, e.g. The People’s Daily, Beijing Youth Daily, and CCTV, all without exception demonstrate an almost indifferent one-dimensional objectivity, while the private media offer a multifaceted account with unprecedented enthusiasm and fervour - a telling contrast.

The official media’s coverage of President Bush’s campaign is non-polemical, because China and the US now see each other more as “strategic partners” in the war against terror than as “strategic competitors” as Bush envisioned in the 2000 presidential election.

Condoleezza Rice, US national security advisor, recently observed that the current US administration has “the best relationship that any administration has had with China”, and neither Bush nor Kerry have so far offered any controversial views on the sensitive issues of Taiwan or the trade deficit.

China seems appreciative of President Bush’s stance on engaging North Korea through the six-party talks - with China playing a pivotal role - and less satisfied with Kerry’s remarks about engaging North Korea in bilateral talks.

China’s media elites make full use of America’s domestic problems with poverty, unemployment, racism, violence, poor social security, and homosexuality in their efforts to criticise America. In fact, America-bashing has been quite in vogue among intellectuals and media professionals given the large proportion of prime time news devoted to the US on Chinese television.

The profound media interest in US domestic politics has pushed the election coverage on non-state, private online media to new heights. Almost all major news portals, such as Sohu.com, 163. net, and Sina.com have special sections devoted to the 2004 US presidential election.

President Bush continues to be denounced as a Dr Strangelove intent on fighting a war that is not winnable at the cost of losing moral support from the rest of the world. But to some, Kerry’s active military career in Vietnam is proof that he may be an even more dangerous hawk.

Sohu.com ran an interview with a retired Vietnamese soldier who fought the platoon Kerry headed in 1969. He referred to Kerry as a meiguo gui zi (American devil), a very derogatory term usually reserved for Japanese soldiers in the second world war.

Unfortunately, China’s media seem incapable of showing audiences, that the US has been an ideologically and politically divided nation ever since Bush was handpicked by the Supreme Court to head the White House.

To a large extent, this helps explain why the Chinese film authority fails to realise that Michael Moore’s internationally acclaimed film, Fahrenheit 9/11, could be immensely educational to the general public. The film has not been released for screening in Chinese theatres.

It is only pirates selling bootleg DVDs who enable us to see Moore’s film. Consequently, Moore’s and maybe Senator Kerry’s (if he has one) anti-war messages have never come across on a wide scale.

Both Bush and Kerry are perceived sceptically as a monolith in terms of fighting the war in Iraq. They are more or less seen as two different actors in the same Peking opera, each with different face paint, but playing the same role: Bush wearing red make-up, Kerry white.

One essential point should emerge from all the hoopla: It is just a change of guards, but the master of the (White) House remains the same.

Jimeng Teng teaches American Studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU). He is a regular guest speaker at Dialogue, an English language programme at China Central Television (CCTV).

Iranian blogs

Hossein Derakhshan

In the past few years blogging has emerged as a new force for social and political change in Iran. The webloggers, including many young women, write freely (although often anonymously) about a wide range of topics, from personal diaries and sex columns, to social and political criticism.

When it comes to the election of the next US president, the Iranian blogosphere is divided.

Based on what I've seen, the fact that President Bush often makes a distinction between the Iranian people and the Islamic regime in Iran, and has spoken out many times in favour of regime change, has attracted a lot of fans among Iranian bloggers, who are mainly in their 20s, unemployed, and widely apathetic.

Iranian bloggers who live abroad, on the other hand, have much more negative attitudes towards Bush and his policy for Iran.

In a recent poll on my weblog, almost half of nearly 2,000 respondents thought Bush's re-election would be good for Iranian people, even though about half of them did not like Bush as a person.

Bush's rhetoric has attracted many young Iranians who are tired of the strict Islamic codes of behaviour, the regime’s stronghold on the media, and the high unemployment rates. They are looking for quick solutions. The removal of the Taliban in Afghanistan and of Saddam Hussein in Iraq has convinced many that the only way to achieve freedom is to topple the regime by military action or some sort of coup.

One visitor to my blog commented: "maybe re-electing Bush would be bad for Americans, but it would be good for Iran. He is the only chance for getting rid of the Islamic regime."

But the dream of living in an open society hasn't stopped bloggers from seeing the sad realities of post-war Iraq, the looting and insecurity, and of course the hypocrisy of the Americans in dealing with Taliban and Saddam. First they created them and helped them to protect American interests, and then they destroyed them when they posed a threat.

Some think there isn’t a big difference between Bush and Kerry when it comes to Iran. As one blogger noted: "the only thing they care about is, first, the interest of their own group and friends and then, American interests."

Those bloggers who oppose Bush seem to have a more global point of view and do not see Iran as an isolated issue. "Since Bush gained power," another visitor commented, "war, hatred, and insecurity has reached its highest possible rate in the World and if Bush and his gang remain in power for another four years, God knows what would happen. If you believe Bush really cares about Iranian people, you are out of your mind."

Hossein Derakhshan maintains one of the ten most popular blogs in Persian, at Hoder.com. Before moving to Canada in 2000, he was a freelance journalist in Iran. Today, he studies sociology at the University of Toronto.

Romania

Ioana Avadani

The US presidential elections are a “traditional” story for the Romanian media. For the past twelve years, presidential elections in both our countries have coincided, so the American elections have always been seen as a sort of a “model” for our own. They enjoy extensive coverage, in both print and electronic media.

This year is no exception. The Bush-Kerry debate is followed thoroughly by the Romanian media. The two candidates have been under close scrutiny ever since they were chosen at their party conventions. Step-by-step, their lives, careers, public speeches, tours of the country, and one-on-one debates have been presented in the national media.

Foreign policy is naturally the main focus. The war in Iraq and the fight against terrorism are at the fore – with the idea that the Iraqi threat was largely exaggerated prevailing. US defence policy is particularly interesting to Romania as the newest Nato member, now willing to consolidate its position as a “security provider” rather than just a “security consumer”.

US domestic policy is also followed, although in less detail. These are issues that affect potential emigrants with their eye on the United States.

Special attention is given to delicate issues such as abortion and homosexuality, which are also controversial for the Romanian public.

Romania is among the most pro-American nations. It is not rare to hear politicians, analysts and the media calling for “US-style electoral campaigns” here. But when we hear news that the so-called independent press in America takes sides in the election, it is seen as a sign of weakness.

US elections are more than just another international story. Romanian media are not shy about calling the US president (whomever it may be) “the most powerful individual on Earth”.

This year the election carries even more significance. Romania is switching to five-year presidential terms, so it will be the last time Romanian and US elections coincide in the next twenty years! We will see whether this affects the way the American elections are covered in Romania – but we will have to wait another four years.

Ioana Avadani is the executive director of the Centre for Independent Journalism in Romania.

Brazil

Afonso de Albuquerque

In the last decades, the US presidential elections have been a major theme for the Brazilian news media. There are many reasons for this. First, the United States has been a political model to Brazil (as to many other South American countries).

Like the United States, Brazil adopted a federal and presidential system of government in 1989, and as a consequence the presidential elections are the main ritual of democracy. The US presidential elections have been privileged occasions to reaffirm Brazil’s own commitment to democracy.

Second, given that the United States is a superpower, its domestic problems and policies have global bearing. Especially since the fall of the Soviet Union, the President of the United States has been seen as the leader of the world. The Brazilian media has (resignedly) covered the US presidential election as such.

Third, the US presidential race is analysed from the perspective of Brazilian economical interests. The complexity of the American presidential election system and its horserace framing are other themes often present in the Brazilian media coverage.

But the coverage of the 2004 election has some particular attributes.

The fiasco of the ballot counting in the 2000 presidential election astonished the Brazilian media, and challenged the idea of the United States as an incontestable model for democracy.

To Brazilians, who had to struggle for the right to choose their president in direct elections, it would be hard enough to accept fact that someone could be elected president without having the majority of the votes, as George W Bush was. But nobody imagined that the most industrialised country in the world would prove itself unable to register and count ballots in a reliable way.

Brazilian media have called the US election system “worthy of a Third World country”, contrasting it to the successful Brazilian experience with a new electronic voting system. News stories exploring the possibility of another vote counting fiasco in the 2004 election have been very common in the Brazilian media.

Changes in American and Brazilian foreign policies have also influenced the Brazilian media coverage of US president elections.

There is a pervasive feeling in the Brazilian media that the United States with its unilateralist attitude under Bush and especially the invasion of Iraq, demonstrated its military power, but lost much of its authority as a leader of the world.

Under the new government of leftist president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil has pursued a more active international role, resulting in a more independent attitude regarding the United States.

These are both factors that have made the Brazilian media coverage of the US election a little more ‘detached’ than usual. The story has been portrayed as just another country’s affairs, rather than being about the choice of the leader of the world.

Afonso de Albuquerque is Professor of Communications at the Fluminense Federal University in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

African-American media (US)

Charlton McIlwain

What do African-Americans want, politically speaking? If the American media is any indication, the answer is, “something we thought we already had”.

In the last four years, one of the most historic judicial decisions regarding affirmative action was rendered; racial profiling has come to the fore in the aftermath of 9/11; President Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” policy has exacerbated the problem of underachieving black children in underserved and under-funded schools; and AIDS afflicts African-American women and men at alarming rates.

But, despite blacks’ interests in these different issues, they all seem to have been sublimated in this election cycle by another: voting rights.

American media with broad or segmented appeal to African-American audiences have mentioned voting rights almost 1,000 times in the past six months, while all the other aforementioned “black issues” have been mentioned a mere 190 times.

For every journalist or commentator who mentioned affirmative action, Aids, African-American education or racial profiling in the last six months, five more spoke of Florida, Missouri and other African-American demographic strongholds across the nation; about blacks, their ballots and a voting box that never received them; and purging voter rolls of blacks, and accounts of black voter intimidation in the 2000 election.

When the presidential candidates themselves mention racial issues at all, the media seem uninterested. The only racial issues with “legs” are those dealing with voting rights.

The presidential and vice-presidential candidates spoke of everything from affirmative action to Aids, to vice-president Dick Cheney’s vote against creating a Martin Luther King holiday in their debates. But none of their blurbs or blunders on these issues were featured in the hundreds of hours of analysis in the aftermath of the debates.

For all the media’s myopic focus, this time they got it right.

Black media, white media, they all seem to agree. They recognise that without the fundamental right to vote — without the protections to ensure that a ballot counts and counts for something — there is no reason to speak of or pursue other political interests.

When the ballot and those counting them have no integrity, the interests of equal opportunity in every arena of civic life might as well wither on the vine.

“The ballot or the bullet,” bellowed Malcolm X in 1964. It’s the media — this time — who have made this the mantra of this election cycle. But only time will tell whether 2 November will stamp the seal of approval on our democratic process, or commence our own political suicide.

Charlton McIlwain, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Culture and Communication at New York University, and co-founder of the The Project on Race in Political Communication , which explores and explains the ways racial messages are used in political discourse in America.

Nepal

Anuj Mishra

Nepalis have been made to suffer so much for so long by the people in power in their own country, that they don’t care much about an election in distant America that would put power in the hands of either a George or a John.

Apathy seems to be the best way of expressing intense rage at those who have wrecked and shattered the lives of ordinary people; be it American or Nepali.

The few journalists I got to talk to by email (Nepal is the “biggest jail of journalists in the world” according to the International Federation of Journalists, but the internet is relatively free) said they had faint hope that Kerry would be less blind than Bush to the widespread human rights abuses by the Nepali army and the state, and only hoped he wouldn’t continue to supply arms and cash to the government who only complement the abuses of the Maoist rebels, if he were elected.

Media reporting on US election this year has been marked by an awesome lack of attention. In a remote and desperate land ‘the global’ seems to lose meaning.

The Nepali news media is too busy covering the hot blood being spilled in the unending cycle of violence that sustains the power equation of our predatory state in the capital and the ruthless power of the Maoists in rural areas.

Only the senseless and brutal massacre of twelve poor and innocent Nepali labourers in Iraq last month was able to get the media attention away from the banality of everyday violence in Nepal.

Even the powerful, privately owned media group Kantipur, the only one which is capable of competing with the government media, relies entirely on a syndication agreement with the Los Angeles Times for its US news. The articles it features tend to be overtly conservative and of Republican tilt.

While the Nepali may choose to be indifferent to the US for the moment, the US is not indifferent to Nepal. Most people in Nepal would pose the same question about the US election as was put to me by a friend, who is busy reporting on the lost limbs and souls in the high mountains of Nepal: “What difference does it make to us?”

Anuj Mishra is Managing Editor of PlusMedium in Nepal, an independent online journal that was started to initiate open dialogue on democracy, development, and human rights issues in cyberspace when democracy was derailed in real space. He is currently a student at Warwick University in England.

Croatia

Zlatan Gelb

The US presidential race has been covered differently in Croatia from medium to medium. The three national television stations have covered the race neutrally, while radio stations have had more or less no interest in the topic.

Newspapers on the other hand, are doing various different things.

Some are neutral and report how many percentage points one candidate is ahead or what the questions were in the presidential debates without any further comment. Other newspapers are on the side of George W Bush, although these are in the minority. And some come out strongly on the side of John Kerry.

One very influential daily newspaper polled its readers about who they would vote for in the US presidential election if they could. The result was about 80% for Kerry and less than 20% for Bush.

Another newspaper asked all the members of the Croatian parliament for their “vote”. Only one member of parliament said he would vote for Bush if he had the chance.

We have our own presidential race in Croatia right now, so the media are full of articles about our own candidates. The US presidential race has taken the backseat.

Zlatan Gelb is a Senior Cameraman for Croatian Television. He has a Ph.D. in Information Sciences and Communicology. He teaches "visual communication" to future journalists at Croatia Studies, and “basics of mass communication” at the Academy for Theatre, Film and Television.

The Philippines

Luis V. Teodoro

The Philippines is one of three countries out of thirty-five where citizens surveyed this summer expressed a preference for George W Bush over John Kerry.

The two other countries were Poland and Nigeria, according to the research group GlobeScan and the University of Maryland who conducted the poll.

The Philippines, Poland and Nigeria are a diverse group of countries linked by no common characteristics – although it is true all three depend on US economic and military aid to different extents.

In the case of the Philippines, US cultural dominance and lack of information about John Kerry may have been the two leading factors.

The Philippines was a Spanish colony for over 300 years, and declared its independence just months before it was purchased by the US in 1898 after the defeat of Spain in the Spanish-American war.

The US crushed the newly formed republic in the Philippine-American war (1899-1906), which cost up to one million Filipino lives, and has since been described as America’s “first Vietnam”.

Although Spanish influence is evident in widespread Catholicism and the social institutions of The Philippines, it is the forty-six years of US occupation (1899-1946) that has shaped Philippine politics, government and culture more significantly.

The country’s leading broadsheets are all in English. About 60% of Philippine broadcast news is in the Filipino language, while English language news broadcasts constitute the remaining 40%.

The Philippine press is protected by a constitutional guarantee of press freedom and freedom of expression. All media organisations, except for one radio and TV network, are privately owned, but the media are generally of one mind about many issues. Save for two mainstream newspapers, both print and broadcast media agree that good relations with the US are paramount.

The Democratic Party and Republican Party conventions as well as the presidential debates received ample coverage on the front pages of the broadsheets as well as in the six and ten o’clock news broadcasts. In the last few weeks, however, military corruption, and the state of government finances and the economy, have relegated US election news to the inside pages and the tail end of news programs.

Opinion and editorial writers have devoted considerable space to the US elections. But it is only in two Manila broadsheets (the liberal Philippine Daily Inquirer and Today) that columnists and editorial writers have gone into any depth. These broadsheets are well–informed on the record of George W Bush domestically and abroad. In other broadsheets, Bush has been the implicit preference of right-wing columnists and editorial writers.

The more in-depth coverage (compared to broadcast) by the broadsheets does not mean that information is getting to most Filipinos. Print has a limited reach while television has the broadest at 96%. Name recall via television is most likely the reason for the Filipino preference for Bush, along with the fact that there has not been as much information on Kerry or what he stands for.

While Filipinos are generally interested in US affairs, coverage of the 2004 US elections has given way to more urgent domestic concerns.

Luis V. Teodoro is a professor of journalism at the University of the Philippines and a columnist of the Manila daily Today. He is the author of numerous books including a collection of short fiction and a book on Philippine mass media laws.

Bahrain

Omar Al-Hassan

The Bahraini media has covered the US presidential election campaign with great interest. Bahrain has many ties with the US. In September, a new free trade agreement was signed between the countries and Bahrain also hosts a US navy base of great strategic importance. Interest in the election is also high because the outcome could affect Arab and Islamic affairs in general.

But the widespread coverage has reflected the popular analogy of the candidates as "Pepsi and Coke"; that there are essentially few real differences between them.

This is evident in the Bahraini media’s focus on policy statements affecting the middle east, particularly Israel. Bush is seen to be an ardent supporter of Israeli policies, but the press has also noted Kerry’s attempts to gain the votes of the Jewish lobby through attacking Yasser Arafat. The prevailing view is that he is not likely to be any more sympathetic to Arab interests.

The only difference perceived, is that Kerry would recognise it was a mistake for America to invade Iraq and acknowledge the problems inherent in Bush’s foreign policy strategy.

The print media in particular have expressed concerns about Bush's plans for “regional transformation” in the middle east if he is re-elected, particularly towards Iran and Syria. The political stance of American Muslims has also been considered.

Most of the Bahraini media seem in favour of a Democrat victory merely in order that Bush should be defeated.

Neo-conservatives, who wield a great deal of power in the Bush administration, have strong links to the Christian-Zionist movement in the US, with negative consequences for the Arab and Islamic world. It is hoped that a Kerry victory would restrict its influence on US decision-making.

There is also a general consensus that former Democrat presidents have been more interested in achieving peace and settling the Arab-Israeli conflict than previous Republican presidents, even though the bias towards Israel has remained throughout.

However, the Bahraini media generally assume that a Democratic victory would not significantly affect the influence of the Pentagon and the defence and oil industries on the US political process. It tends to support Kerry as the lesser of two evils, but demonstrates a belief that any candidate will be restricted by the military-industrial elites dominant behind the scenes of US politics.

Dr. Omar Al-Hassan is the Chairman of the Gulf Centre for Strategic Studies, based in Bahrain, Cairo and London. He has been published widely on Bahrain and related issues in the last twenty years, and his works include Human Rights, Human Development and Political Reform in Bahrain, February 2002 - 2003.

Alternative online media

Louise Speake

The majority of well-established alternative media sites have taken a firm anti-Bush line in their coverage of the US elections. This is no surprise given their staunch anti-war stance over the past years.

However, with the election build-up starting as long ago as January, simply reiterating the usual "Bush is bad" rhetoric was never going to be enough to sustain interest and establish credibility. So how have the alternative media added a twist to the coverage?

For most sites, attacking Bush and attacking the war are synonymous. A recent article on Alternet claims that more Bush voters are prepared to believe the weapons of mass destruction claims now than they were several months ago. This is taken as evidence that "Bush supporters choose to keep faith in their leader rather than face the truth either about their president or the world as it is".

Other sites have focused on promoting John Kerry rather than attacking Bush, with The Nation formally announcing its endorsement of Kerry with the assertion, "He is more than 'anybody but Bush.'"

This idea has been an important one, and many websites have gone to great pains to emphasise that although they have strong differences with Kerry on many policies, they believe he has the right qualities to make a decent president and are not merely backing him as a negative option.

While the politically focused alternative media has been channelling all of its energies into generating election fever, many of the more niche sites have been using election coverage to further their regular agendas.

Anti-corporate site, Corpwatch has been running a series of articles covering the corporate influence on the election. It has looked in detail at the involvement of specific industries - running for example an article on the involvement of "Big Tobacco" on the political system - as well as commenting more generally on the extent of corporate donations to the Republican convention in August.

Similarly, environmental alternative media sites have used the current political climate as an opportunity to emphasise disapproval of Bush's track record on the environment. Michael Oppenheimer, writing in Grist Magazine, commented on the president's "sheer indifference to and scepticism of human-caused global warming" and added that he is "crossing [his] fingers that we'll never find out" what a second term environmental policy might be.

Increasingly, it seems the alternative media has been setting itself up as an election watchdog as well as commentator, incorporating coverage of the latest problems with electronic voting technology and providing links to sites like Fair Vote, a campaign group dedicated to ensuring fair elections in America.

Looking beyond 2 November, if Bush wins it is likely that voting processes will come under increased fire. If he loses, there will be no room for complacency in the Kerry camp where alternative media groups are concerned. Their support could soon turn sour if he does not address the issues that they believe are most important.

Louise Speake is a Senior Researcher at Infonic and editor of Infonic's fortnightly email newsletter, 1%.

Latino media (US)

Stacey Connaughton

According to the 2000 US census, Latinos are now the largest ethnic group in the United States. The numbers of Latinos voting in US presidential elections has steadily increased over the years, reaching 5.5 million in 2000.

An examination of the election coverage in some of the US Latino print media such as La Opinión, El Nuevo Herald, Hoy, Hispanic Business, Latina, El Tiempo Latino, Puerto Rico Herald, and Washington Hispanic reveal some generalpatterns

Latino media articulate something called “the Latino vote.” In doing so, they cast Latinos as a group that receives unique appeals from political parties. Even when Latino media focus on Latino sub-groups (e.g., Puerto Ricans or Cuban Americans), they still allude to a generic bloc. The Latino media characterise Latinos as a sought after constituency for both Democrats and Republicans.

The Latino media proclaim that Latinos play a critical role in US politics. First, they frame Latinos as crucial in determining the outcome of this presidential election in states with a heavy concentration of Latinos many of which are swing states in 2004 (Arizona, Florida, New Mexico). Latinos are also portrayed as a bloc that is “up for grabs” in this campaign. In other words, the parties have to work for their allegiances and cannot take their votes for granted.

This election is characterized in the Latino media as a turning point election – one whose outcome will lead the country down one of two different paths.

In reporting on “high” numbers of Latino voters recently registered in key states (Arizona, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico) the media seem to be calling on more Latinos to participate.

The tone in the Latino media is for the most part positive. One notable exception is when the Latino media, playing a watchdog role, remind their audiences of the “mistakes” of the Florida 2000 election.

It is worth noting that Latinos have been heralded as critical to presidential electoral outcomes since 1980. Some argue that Latino voters, particularly Puerto Ricans, made a difference in tipping Florida for Bill Clinton in 1996. Yet others claim that the potential impact of the Latino vote in Presidential elections is overestimated and that turnout data tell this story.

Will the 2004 presidential election see even more Latinos at the polls than in 2000? And, will those votes make a difference in determining outcomes? We’ll have to wait until 3 November to find out.

Dr. Stacey L. Connaughton is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Rutgers University in New York. She is the author of Inviting Latino voters: Party messages and Latino party identification as well as several other articles and book chapters on Latino politics.