Page 226 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 205

CONCLUSION
The revolution in the ‘persuasive arts’ is the consequence, as we noted
above, or far-reaching political and technological developments leading to
universal suffrage on the one hand and ever more efficient media of mass
communication on the other. For as long as democratic principles underpin
advanced capitalism and communications technologies develop further
towards simultaneity and inter-activity, the revolution can be expected to
continue. Political fashions may change, but the need to fashion political
messages will not.
Most participants in the political communication debate will agree with
these assertions, and with the further point that, as political actors and media
have grown dependent on each other, politics has become not only a per-
suasive but a performance art, in which considerations of style, presentation
and marketing are of equal if not greater importance than content and
substance. It is here, of course, that the arguments begin.
Chapter 3 identified two broad perspectives on the democratic significance
of modern political communication. One might be said to be pessimistic, in
so far as it asserts that our culture is degraded and democracy undermined by
the intrusion of the ‘persuasive arts’ into politics.
A liberal variant of that argument is founded on adherence to the notion
of the rational citizen, the importance of choice in democracy and the role
of the media in promoting material which makes that choice meaningful. In
the liberal critique, mediated or performance politics lack rationality and
substance, breeding voter apathy and shallow populism. They are more a
means of ‘self-promotion [for politicians] than of information for the public’
(Denton, 1991a, p. 93).
Pessimists on the Left of the ideological spectrum share many of these
objections, but add that the pursuit of performance politics is inconsistent
with a coherent, radical Left message. For much of the post-war period, as
Chapters 6 and 7 indicated, such views drove the British Labour Party’s
communicative strategy, and despite the scale of the 1997, 2001 and 2005
victories, they remain influential amongst the Left in Britain and elsewhere.
One might view both variants of this pessimism as ‘romantic’ in their
tendency to compare unfavourably contemporary realities with idealised
pasts. The liberal concern for the health of present-day democracy presumes
that there was such a thing as true democracy beyond the elite circles of John
Stuart Mill’s educated men of property. But if democracy is, as Bobbio
suggests, principally about the legitimation of government by drawing more
citizens into the political process, then its expansion in advanced capitalism
is precisely coterminous with the development of mass media and, through
them, mass political communication.
The pessimists of the Left, on the other hand, continue to presume that
there is a natural constituency of left-wing voters, from whom an ‘authentic’,
clearly delivered left-wing message – as opposed to ‘shallow’ image-making –
can produce an electoral majority. If such a constituency exists, why should

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