Page 20 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

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

PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION
in government, or campaigning towards that goal, but to their publics and
those who might oppose their policies. Apart from using the internet to make
available information which would otherwise have remained secret or
hidden, members of the online public were able to comment on and mani-
pulate political messages. They could watch ads and campaign messages on
YouTube and Twitter, but also subvert and ‘mash’ them using widely acces-
sible editing tools. The capacity for loss of control of political messages – for
communication chaos, as I have described it elsewhere (McNair 2006) – has
been enhanced beyond anything seen in the pre-internet era.
Another advantage of the internet, for readers of a book such as this in
particular, is that the US campaign spots cited in the chapter on advertising,
for example, or the live leader’s debates which featured in the 2010 UK
election, can now be viewed after the fact and at leisure on YouTube, BBC
iPlayer, Sky News and other sites. This author was trapped in Boulder,
Colorado by the disruption caused by the Icelandic volcano in April 2010,
and thus missed key media moments in the UK general election campaign of
that year. I was able to watch them online however, at a convenient time in
my motel room at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.
In this sense the internet has dramatically increased public and scholarly
access to materials which in the past would have been available only in
library archives. Readers are encouraged to follow links where provided in
the text, and to watch for themselves examples of contemporary political
communication such as Hillary Clinton’s controversial ‘3 a.m.’ spot for the
2008 presidential campaign on YouTube.
As is customary, the time which has elapsed between the previous edition
and this one saw numerous changes in the political complexion of govern-
ments all over the world. The US saw the election of its first black president,
and the UK of its first coalition government since World War II. After the
resignation of Kevin Rudd in June 2010 Australia saw the appointment of its
first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, who was subsequently elected to
office on August 21 of that year. In Iceland following the collapse of that
country’s banking system in the global credit crunch of 2008, a lesbian
feminist, Johanna Sigurdardottir, was elected prime minister. In June 2010 she
‘married’ her partner under the terms of an Icelandic law defining marriage
as a union between two consenting adults regardless of sex.
Governments come and go, then, but the need for and importance of
effective political communication, using all the tools made available by
advancing technology, continues to be central to the democratic process
everywhere. I trust that this fifth edition will continue to assist students,
teachers and researchers in understanding the principles and practices
applied by political actors of all kinds, everywhere in the world where com-
munication with democratically empowered publics is deemed important.
Brian McNair
December 2010

xix