Page 31 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

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

POLITICS IN THE AGE OF MEDIATION
The audience

The purpose of all this communication is, as has been noted, to persuade.
And the target of this persuasion – the audience – is the second key element
in the political communication process, without which no political message
can have any relevance.
The audience for a particular political communication may be broad, as in
a billboard advertisement or a US election ‘spot’, where the objective is to
persuade an entire nation of voters. It may be narrow, as when the editorial
of a leading newspaper ‘of record’, such as the UK Guardian, calls on the
Labour party to change its leadership (or to retain it, as the case may be). The
audience may be both broad and narrow, as in the case of the ETA bombing
of a Spanish tourist resort. Such a ‘communication’ has at least two levels of
meaning, and is intended for at least two audiences. One, the Spanish people
as a whole, are being told that they should not view the Basque conflict as
something of irrelevance to them. A second, more selective audience, the
government, is being warned that ETA has the ability and the will to carry
out such acts, and that appropriate changes to policy should be forthcoming.
Whatever the size and nature of the audience, however, all political com-
munication is intended to achieve an effect on the receivers of the message.
From US presidential campaigns to the lobbying of individual MPs and
senators, the communicator hopes that there will be some positive (from his
or her point of view) impact on the political behaviour of the recipient.
As every student of the media knows, the effects issue is one of great
complexity and unending controversy. In political communication, as in
Hollywood cinema or pornography, the audience’s relationship to the
message is ambiguous and extremely difficult to investigate empirically.
Attempts have been made to do so none the less, and Chapter 3 will examine
the evidence for and against the efficacy of political communication (as
measured against the intentions of the communicators), including such issues
as the importance of a politician’s visual image in shaping voters’ percep-
tions; the impact of ‘biased’ media coverage on election outcomes; and the
relationship between ‘public opinion’ and attempts (by both politicians and
media organisations) to set agendas. We also examine the broader effects
issue: what ‘effect’ has the rise of political communication had on the
democratic process?

The media
Which brings us to the third element in the political communication
process – media organisations, which today comprise print, broadcasting
and online channels. These include websites operated by established media
organisations such as the BBC, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal; blogs
and independent sites such as Wikileaks which are devoted to reporting,
aggregating or commenting on political issues; and social networking sites

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