Transcript Political Communication - E

Political Communication
Course overview
Deadlines, resources
Introductory lecture
Defining the concept “political communication”
Social change and the rising importance of political
communication
Course overview
 Lecture topics
 Propaganda
 Public relations
 Political marketing and
spin
 Media as political actors
 Media effects
 Election campaigns
 Rhetoric and manipulation
 Foreign affairs and political
communication
 Terrorism as/and communication
 Deliberation, e-democracy, and the
virtual public sphere
 Truth, lying and bullshit in political
communication
Deadlines and resources
Deadline for submitting essay: 08/12/2005
Tutorial presentation and essay topics
All titles on the reading list are accessible online or in
the Heavy Demand section of Queen Mother Library
Search engine
http://scholar.google.com
E-journals databases
http://www.il.proquest.com/pqdauto
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/search/advanced
E-journals alphabetical listing
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/diss/library/ejournal/alphalist.shtml
E-books
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/aberdeenuniv
Defining “Political Communication”
McNair (1995) Introduction to Political Communication
“Any book about political communication should begin by
acknowledging that the term has proved to be notoriously difficult to
define with any precision, simply because both components of the
phrase are themselves open to a variety of definitions, more or less
broad.”
McQuail (1992) “Political Communication” in
Encyclopedia of Government and Politics
“Political communication […] refers to all processes of information
(including facts, opinions, beliefs, etc.), transmission, exchange and
search engaged in by participants in the course of institutionalised
political activities.”
McQuail’s definition
communication in the political (constitutional) system
of democratic society
media fulfilling instrumental functions in political
communications
as a reporter of events
as a platform for the expression of political opinion
as an instrument of political party organization and weapon in interparty conflicts
as a watchdog on governmental actions
as an instrument of government for information and influence
Exchange between elites and masses
Watts (1997)
 understands function of mass media to be that of “intermediaries in
the process of political communication, enabling the government and
its opponents to speak to the electorate and the electorate to
communicate with its leaders”
Perloff (1998)
 defines political communication as “the process by which a nation’s
leadership, media and citizenry exchange and confer meaning upon
messages that relate to the conduct of public policy.”
History of political communication research
Beginning with the study of propaganda during and
between the two world wars
Walter Lippmann’s “Public Opinion” (1922)
Harold Lasswell’s “Propaganda Technique in the World War”
(1927)
Early focus on war/fascist/stalinist propaganda
resulting in a general preoccupation with persuasive
effects of political messages (through media)
According to McQuail (“Mass Communication
Theory”), first period of communication studies
(1920s-1940s) characterised by belief in omnipotence
of mass media
Social, technological, structural change
1940s-1950s first empirical studies of media effects, in
particular campaign studies
Minimal effects model
 Lazarsfeld et al, The People’s Choice (1944)
 Low levels of information, high levels of partisanship, habitual voting
Social change since 1960s
 Dealignment
Technological change
 TV becoming main information medium
 Commercialisation, visualisation, tabloidisation
Professionalisation of political communication
 Political marketing, campaign consultancy
Third age of political communication
Blumler (2001)
First age 1950s:
 easy access to media, political communication reflecting partisan
positions, reinforcing rather than persuading, strong and stable
political institutions
Second age 1960s-1980s:
 Limited-channel network television, dealignment, consumerism,
public skepticism about elites, increasing importance of political
communication, and increasingly important role for media in political
process, “the modern publicity process”
Third age 1990s-present:
 Proliferation within and beyond mainstream media, abundance of
channels, unlimited reach, possibility for interactivity
Effects of abundance
Change in the politics-media relationship
 Limits of efficacy of news management
 Costs vs. benefits of political spin
 Decentralisation, localisation, diversification of campaigning
 Possible reintroduction of political substance at expense of spin
Hypercompetition
Populism
 “talk-show democracy”
Centrifugal diversification
 Abundance of channels allows to move away from universal audience
appeals towards fragmented targeting
Internet
 Virtual public sphere
 E-democracy
Reading for week 13 (Propaganda)
• Chapman, James (2000) “Review Article: The Power of
Propaganda” Journal of Contemporary History 35(4): pp.
679–688
• Harrison, Shirley (1999) “Propaganda, Persuasion, and
Symmetry: Local and Central Government Perspectives
on Communicating with the Citizen” British Journal of
Management 10: pp. 53-62
• Klaehn, Jeffery (2003) “Behind the Invisible Curtain of
Scholarly Criticism: Revisiting the propaganda model”
Journalism Studies 4(3): pp. 359–369
• Taylor, Philip M. (2003) Munitions of the Mind: a History
of Propaganda from the Ancient World to the Present
Era. Manchester: Manchester University Press