Page 137 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 116

COMMUNICATING POLITICS
And here, precisely, is the great danger, as opponents of paid political
advertising on British broadcasting perceive it. As was noted in Chapter 3,
the growing importance in political campaigning of paid-for media
inevitably favours those who can pay, and discriminates against those who
cannot. In an unequal society, in which political and economic resources are
already closely linked, the concentration of power and the disenfranchise-
ment of the economically deprived would be even greater than it currently
is. In Britain, to put it simply, the political party with the richest friends and
supporters would have much greater access to paid-for broadcast advertising
than their opponents.
To some extent the debate about political advertising parallels that on the
future of broadcast news and current affairs (McNair, 2009c). In a media
environment where wavelength scarcity is no longer a determining factor and
in which there is a multitude of channels beaming to increasingly frag-
mented, ‘targeted’ groups, why not allow some overt political advertising, as
is permitted in the US and other countries? We have it in our print media, so
why not on television and radio?
Opposition to this viewpoint is based not only on financial grounds, but
also on resistance to the ‘trivialisation’ of the political process and the
degradation of the public sphere discussed in Chapter 3. This returns us
once again to a debate that continues to defy neat resolution. As this book
went to press, there were no government plans to permit paid political
advertising on British television or radio, and it seems unlikely that such a
form of political communication will ever be permitted on the main
‘terrestrial’ channels. A consultation paper released by the main British
broadcasters (BBC, ITV, Channels 4 and 5, Independent Radio) after the
1997 election, with a view to reforming the system of party political
broadcasting in the UK, stressed that ‘there is little enthusiasm amongst
either broadcasters or the political parties to move to a system of paid
political advertising’. 12 But some change is inevitable, probably in the
direction of concentrating the transmission of party political broadcasts
around election campaigns and reducing the number of broadcasts which
take place outside campaign periods. For example, the broadcasters would
like to discontinue the tradition of transmitting a ten-minute ‘talking head’
piece to camera by the Chancellor, after the annual Budget Speech in
parliament (which is by convention ‘answered’ by the main opposition
spokespersons). This is argued to be a reasonable reform in the context of
expanding live coverage of parliament and the extended media coverage of
it which now takes place. On the other hand, should not the public be
permitted to hear the Chancellor explain, in his or her own words, without
the mediation of journalists, what the budget that year is about?
Here and in other features of the British PPB system, new technologies
which allow more and better coverage of parliament (and the political

116