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As the 2024 presidential election approaches, C&IS met with Ben Pyle, Ph.D., and Josh Bramlett, Ph.D., to discuss all three presidential debates this year.
Pyle is an assistant professor in Communication Studies and the director of the Alabama Forensic Council, and Bramlett is an assistant professor in Advertising & Public Relations, whose research covers political public relations content, processes and outcomes across media. During their discussion, they defined what a “debate” is, discussed how viewers should “read” a debate and critiqued key moments from the Trump/Biden, Trump/Harris and Vance/Walz debates.
The following contains highlights from their conversation. The full story is coming this January to Communicator.
WHAT IS A DEBATE?
Ben Pyle
As academics defining terms – for me, debate is about structure. Rather than staging arguments, we’re building a structure for a conversation. We’re not attacking each other; we’re attacking an idea. When both parties know what that structure is going to be beforehand, then they understand what their role is in each section and know when to can shift gears and listen to the other person.
That’s not what we witnessed in this year’s presidential debates, but that is what a debate truly is. And I don’t think the public gets exposed to that regularly, if at all.
Josh Bramlett
I agree with Doctor Pyle. When I had to answer comprehensive exams for my Ph.D., I had to explain the difference between three forms of political communication: debate, deliberation and dialog. Both debate and deliberation have structure and rules. In a deliberation forum, you have a group of citizens gathering, discussing and coming to a consensus. Debates have rules about when to speak or form a rebuttal.
And those are different from what we’re doing right now, which is dialog. While debates can be more adversarial than deliberation, both of those are more structured than dialog and political talk.
Now, presidential debates, those are a campaign ritual more than anything.
HOW SHOULD WE READ PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES?
Ben Pyle
In an ideal world, I would rather see a debate centered on one agreed-upon topic. And the candidates could even have preparation time in advance. For example, each could receive a piece of paper and 30 minutes to write down all their talking points. Once those 30 minutes expire, the moderators flip a coin to decide who goes first and give each speaker six uninterrupted minutes to explain their position. After, the candidates would be allotted a small amount of time to address each other directly.
Obviously, this structure isn’t perfect, but I think it could be read more deeply than the present format.
As is, I think the way to read a debate is – how does the media want to spin it? The impact, I think, comes down to what people are saying about the debate rather than the most salient solution presented in the debate.
In the debates’ current format, candidates are given a couple minutes to answer questions about a wide range of topics, leading them to act like they’re playing a collectible card game, like Pokémon or Magic: The Gathering, wherein one candidate says something like, “I play border security!” and the other says something like, “Okay, let me go through my deck. I play more security!”
Josh Bramlett
I agree, the current presidential debate structure can be like a card game where you spend 30 seconds saying your stump speech and not diving into an issue.
To learn about where a candidate stands on issues, I recommend paying attention to their podcast appearances. Kamala Harris’s appearance on Call Her Daddy was 30 minutes about women’s issues, and the Donald Trump’s appearance on the Dave Ramsey Show was 30 minutes on the economy and finance. Both appearances were great for diving deep into a single issue in a non-combative format. Podcast hosts like Alex Cooper and Dave Ramsey – they are more curious rather than combative, and that lets the candidates let their guard down and just talk.
Ben Pyle
I liken the public’s relationship with presidential debates to the Kendrick Lamar/Drake diss track battle last summer. Given the high-profile, polarizing nature of the feud, people that don’t even care about hip-hop became aware of it, started rooting for a “team,” and then became entrenched in the public conversation about who “won.”
That, unfortunately, is how people view these presidential rituals. And so, when we finally got to the more grounded vice-presidential debate between Vance and Walz, people found it boring because they couldn’t latch onto any particular “diss track.”
ANALYZING TRUMP’S “THEY’RE EATING THE DOGS”
Ben Pyle
I think the lead up to this moment matters a lot because Kamala has Donald Trump “against the wall” here. She’s being more aggressive and pressing him on personal issues and policies. And so, like a card game, he’s scrambling to pull a response that counters Harris.
In response to Harris’s ribbing, he’s decided to come across as aggressive here, leaning forward, looking to the audience and saying, “They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats!”
And it’s an overstep. It’s a miscalculation of the “cards” in his hand, and Harris responds by letting him speak.
Josh Bramlett
From an argumentation point of view, I noticed that Vice President Harris built several moments throughout the debate to rib the former president. She mentioned several things that were clearly bait, like Trump’s alma mater, Wharton School in Pennsylvania.
And he took that bait every time.
When I look back on the night from Trump’s point of view, I view it as a missed opportunity. He was responding to Harris and on the defensive too much. Even in his closing remark, he went back to something she said that irritated him and missed one last opportunity to finally talk about policy.
Another note about Trump’s debate performance: it reflected his information environment.
President Trump is notorious for being very online. He won the presidency in 2016, in part, through his use of Twitter. And so, he’s consuming conservative media and speaking about things that are perhaps not in the local news.
This moment also set off voters because a lot of them aren’t online as often as Trump and likely don’t consume the same media. Because they’re not on those social media platforms where this news story was being discussed, he comes across as off-kilter.
Ben Pyle
I agree with Doctor Bramlett, and I’d like to add that a big part of debate is using credible sources for your arguments. Any time we speak about policy or current events, we must cite our sources.
Want to read more? Check out the full story this January in Communicator.