By Flo Carter

I’m a recent Loughborough University graduate, having completed my BA History course in the summer of 2024. Loughborough’s IRPH programme allowed me to expand on an existing passion for modern history, developing it across the disciplines, as reflected in my final year dissertation.

I think it’s important to note that most undergraduate students do not have a eureka moment in which the thesis, method, and angle of their dissertation hits them with blinding clarity. Even in my first year as a History student, it felt like this grey cloud looming in the distance (albeit, quite far in the distance back then). How does any young adult decide on a topic suitable for dedicating 11,000 words? How can we possibly know what is too simple, too complicated, too niche, or too mainstream? All these were very real fears that crossed my mind any time the dreaded ‘D’ word was mentioned.

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In reality, the process of writing a dissertation was not nearly as overwhelming as I’d feared and actually pretty satisfying to complete. In my second year of study, a friend, who’d recently completed her final year, advised me to create a list, recording any time a lecturer mentioned something that I could see myself researching further. That is exactly what I did. By Easter of my second year, this list comprised of over 10 possible research ideas gleaned from various modules. But it was the very first one I jotted down that I kept returning to. Typed sometime during a Tuesday afternoon lecture with Matt Adams as part of ‘The American Century’ module. The note simply read: ‘US Presidents… did their gaffes mean anything????’

And so, as any lecturer would recommend you do when a seed is planted for a potential topic of study, I started reading. I began to scope out what academics really thought about the power of gaffes in US presidential elections in the late twentieth century. The reality was not much – literally and metaphorically. It was a topic that hadn’t received much scholarly attention, and when it had been mentioned, the discourse tended to be dismissive and disparaging. When I stumbled upon a piece of research by Gelman and King that labelled these moments as nothing more than ‘trivial’ variables, my little idea nearly came to the end of its journey (Gelman & King, 1994).

I supposed it was time to move on, work down the list until another topic yielded more nuanced results. But I couldn’t seem to shake the desire to keep reading about campaign trail gaffes (one of the most important aspects of any dissertation topic; are you truly interested in what you are writing about?). Surely somebody thought that these moments were more powerful than the likes of Gelman and King were suggesting? That’s when I stumbled upon an article by Sheinheit and Bogard (2016). Their focus was on gaffes in the internet age – entirely outside the realms of my project – but this lack of relevance seemed secondary when I found the following quote in their publication: ‘The process by which a gaffe is transformed into a meaning-laden defining campaign event is underanalyzed’ (p. 970). It was quite the gift. Just like that, I had a justification for my project. Other academics believed the topic deserved more attention; the show was back on the road.

From there, the last major hurdle I faced was the small task of actually proving my thesis. The big positive was that all my research neatly pointed towards using a particular primary source-based method: the analysis of public opinion poll data. The less good news was that many such depositories from my era of interest were not digitised and incredibly disordered. To make sense of the material required a level of mathematical skill that I did not naturally possess. But by now I had a growing sense of determination, a need to prove that there was a side of this story that had been left untold. After annoying many lecturers (both inside and outside of the IRPH department), a fair few arguments with Excel, and a LOT of caffeine purchased, I was onto something. The numbers were not only making sense… but they were supporting my argument!

My biggest piece of advice to anyone about to begin the process of writing a dissertation is to make full use of your supervisor’s office hours right from the very start. Regularly checking in with them and sharing ideas can keep the whole process moving forward smoothly and stop you inadvertently drifting too far off course. By Easter of my final year, I found myself with a nearly 12,000-word dissertation that addressed a gap in the literature (and a newfound understanding of what that specific term – a ‘gap’ in the literature – actually meant).

Essentially, using three specific case studies to form chapters, I found that in 1964, 1988, and 2000, the losing presidential candidate suffered from their own gaffe being expertly weaponised against them by the opposing party. After tabulating over 10,000 opinion poll responses in a longitudinal comparative analysis, my data was pretty conclusive. For Goldwater, Dukakis, and Gore, the consequences of a verbal misstep were especially severe because such moments helped illuminate that each possessed a deeper personality flaw. One that was particularly detrimental given the respective political backdrops against which they were campaigning. Goldwater’s trigger-happy comments fed into the illusion that he was militarily capricious, fuelling lingering public anxieties less than two years after the ‘world’s closest encounter with a nuclear World War III’ (Smith, 2003). Dukakis’s emotionally devoid debate response illuminated his supposedly soft approach to crime, a sore subject for an electorate aware that their nation’s violent crime rates were at an all-time high (Sumner, Mercy & Dahlberg, 2015). Gore’s embellishments made him appear dishonest, alarming a population that was still reeling from President Clinton lying under oath (Scott, 2003). These pivotal moments significantly impaired each candidate’s standing; their own words were mobilised against them by their rivals.

Ultimately, as corny as it sounds, writing my dissertation was an incredibly fulfilling experience. Being given the opportunity to become an expert in a field makes not only for incredibly satisfying dinner table conversation but also gives you an understanding as to how any lecturer becomes as passionate as they are about a specific area of study. I firmly believe that the hardest part of the whole process was writing the opening line (leave that until the end, do not try and tackle it at the start). I’ll leave you with mine, hopefully it is an effective hook…

On March 9th, 1999, as CNN’s Wolf Blitzer finished recording an episode of his Sunday talk show, Late Edition, he could not possibly have anticipated that his network had just captured footage that would dominate discourse throughout the 2000 presidential campaign, well over a year down the line.

References:

• Gelman, Andrew and Gary King, ‘Party Competition and Media Messages’ in L. Sandy Maisel, ed. The Parties Respond: Changes in the American Party System (Colorado: Westview Press, 1994): 255-95.
• Scott, Esther, Al Gore and the Embellishment Issue: Press Coverage of the Gore Presidential Campaign (Cambridge: Kennedy School of Government, 2003).
• Sheinheit, Ian and Cynthia Bogard, ‘Authenticity and Carrier Agents: The Social Construction of Political Gaffes,’ Sociological Forum 31 (2016): 970-993.
• Smith, Tom, ‘Trends: The Cuban Missile Crisis and U.S. Public Opinion,’ The Public Opinion Quarterly, 67 (2003): 265-293.
• Sumner, Steven, James Mercy and Linda Dahlberg, ‘Violence in the United States: Status, Challenges, and Opportunities,’ The Journal of the American Medical Association, 314 (2015): 478-88.

Photo by Chris from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-ad-photo-of-the-white-house-in-washington-dc-14320543/