Turn on the television, flip through the cable news channels, and you’re certain to see it: political pundits poring over the complexities and nuances of a politician’s communications campaign. In an era when analysis of the news far surpasses the time spent on actually reporting it, no speech, advertisement, or poll goes unnoticed, or unscrutinized. Consider Senator Clinton’s “3 a.m.” TV ad, or Senator McCain’s attempt to compare his election opponent with such starlets as Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. Dissecting and debating these 30-second creations has become a central component of the electoral conversation.

Beginning next week, Web visitors will be able to peruse the history of such communications when the Museum of the Moving Image relaunches a new-and-improved edition of “The Living Room Candidate,” at livingroomcandidate.org. A quadrennial survey of the way politicians are branded, packaged, and marketed via television, the new edition of the Web site is scheduled to launch Monday evening, in conjunction with a special event at the Museum featuring “Saturday Night Live” mastermind Lorne Michaels and cast members from the show, which has a long history of lampooning political gamesmanship, and of giving politicians a television platform.

As it is currently structured, the Living Room Candidate Web site offers visitors the chance to navigate among 14 national campaigns, beginning with 1952 — when the number of American homes with a television stood at 19 million, up from 400,000 in 1948 — and running all the way through the presidential election of 2004.

When the 2008 campaign is eventually added to the site, visitors will be able to compare Walter Mondale’s “3 a.m.” ad from 1984 with that of Mrs. Clinton earlier this spring, as well as the wartime ads of Mr. McCain to those of George W. Bush and Richard Nixon.

More than just suggesting parallels between this year’s campaign and those of years past, the Living Room Candidate offers a fully stocked catalog of the myriad ways in which the medium, the messages, and the acts of manipulation have evolved through the decades.

Watching the spots from 1952, one can palpably sense how political advisors were grappling with the challenges of converting a stump speech into an abbreviated sound bite. In the election between Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson, the ads tended to employ a direct approach — a single on-screen subject, talking into the camera, at the viewer. In one spot from that year dubbed “Sturdy Lifeboat,” Eisenhower fields questions from average citizens: “General,” one citizen says, “I’d like to get married, but we couldn’t live on the salary I get after taxes.”

“Well,” Eisenhower responds, “the Democrats are sinking deeper into a bottomless sea of debt and demanding more taxes to keep their confused heads above water. Let’s put out a sturdy lifeboat in November.”

The spot, comprising only three sentences, is so short, so simple, and so direct that it makes today’s counterparts seem cluttered and bloated by comparison.

It’s possible at the Living Room Candidate to jump between election cycles, and to compare the tenor and tempo of the ongoing national debate. (There is also a special teachers’ area, in which educators can sign up for access to lesson plans that make use of these ads for a wider discussion of media, politics, and the democratic process.)

Flipping between the 1960 and the 2004 campaigns, it’s remarkable how different, yet somehow similar, the political ads are. In 1960, both President Kennedy and President Nixon relied less on metaphors, tag lines, and montages than on direct appeals to voters. Speaking plainly, Kennedy focused his messages more on strengthening the nation at home, while Nixon emphasized conflicts overseas, linking American resolve to defeating the ideals of Communism and Nikita Khrushchev.

Flash-forward 44 years, and one can’t help but notice the legacy of this campaign coloring the 2004 election, not to mention the obvious similarities of the candidates on either side of the ticket. Senator Kerry fixes his focus on issues affecting the middle class, while President Bush’s campaign touts his ability to protect America from another terrorist attack. In a sense, it is only the production values that have been updated to speak to a more media-savvy populace — instead of talking into the camera, the new generation of politicians offers music-infused montages and metaphors for strength. Also fascinating is the evolution of the attack ad, which has grown at once more subtle and more pointed.

The Living Room Candidate also offers users the chance to search by such topics as “civil rights,” “taxes,” and “war” to see how various complex topics are boiled down and addressed via television commercials.

ssnyder@nysun.com