Presidential Candidate Images

This engaging look at presidential candidate images features a wide range of essays that dissect how these images are formed and manipulated during campaigns. As more and more emphasis is placed on a candidate's persona and how it affects our voting decisions, Presidential Candidate Images provides a variety of frameworks and cases for analyzing candidate images in past, current, and future elections.

Understanding the cross-currents of candidate image creation and voter perception/evaluation stands at the center of presidential campaign communication. Professor Hacker and the volume's contributors provide a much-needed and frequently provocative update on this always important area of political communication research., Congratulations to Professor Hacker and his associates for addressing the important topic of candidate image in campaign communication. There is a real need for this new examination., Kenneth Hacker's collection of essays and research about the formation, stability, content, and impact of presidential candidate images provides vibrant insights, and some clear conclusions, about how candidate images function. This collection's balance between creative insight and research methodology makes it a valuable read for anyone interested in studying political communication., Kenneth Hacker has assembled a fine group of scholars to investigate how images are formed and what impact they have on voters. The contributors present careful and thoughtful ideas on the theory and methodology of image formation. They are serious about their craft and creative in how they address controversies in this area. For scholars interested in image formation, political communications, and voter decision making, this is an important book., The volume effectively describes the current state of research on presidential candidate images, identifies weaknesses in the literature, highlights some of the disagreements, and suggests avenues for future research. Of interest to various disciplines as well as anyone interested in presidential and candidate images. Highly recommended.

Kenneth L. Hacker is professor of communication studies at New Mexico State University, Las Cruces.