Page 52 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 31

THE EFFECTS OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION
Arguments of this type are highly speculative and – given the afore-
mentioned difficulty of establishing cause and effect relationships – practi-
cally impossible to prove. It is beyond doubt, however, that public opinion
polls become a part of the political environment they are designed to
monitor. Just as a thermometer alters the temperature of the air around it,
so a public opinion poll becomes part of the data upon which individuals
calculate their future political moves.

Voting behaviour
A second way in which the effects of political communication can be
measured is to observe patterns in actual voting behaviour. Such evidence is
clearly more tangible than opinion poll data, and frequently contradicts the
former (as in the 1992 general election, when most opinion polls failed to
predict a Conservative victory). It is no less difficult to interpret, however. The
relationship between a party’s campaign and its eventual vote may not be
apparent. Despite the famous ‘Kinnock – the Movie’ party election broadcast
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(PEB) shown during the 1987 campaign, and a communication strategy
widely viewed as superior to that of the Conservatives, the latter’s actual vote
on polling day was virtually identical as a percentage of the national elec-
torate to figures generated by opinion polls taken at the beginning of the
campaign (43 per cent). Labour’s support rose by only 3 per cent from the
beginning to the end of the campaign, to give them a net gain of twenty seats
on the 1983 result (Butler and Kavanagh, 1988).
This could be interpreted in several ways. Perhaps the campaign had no
significant impact on the electorate (as opposed to the commentators who
almost universally praised it). Perhaps Labour’s vote would have been even
worse without the softening impact of a good campaign. Perhaps voters
recognised the quality of Labour’s campaigning but regarded policies as
more important than image, and preferred those of the Tories. Any or all of
these assertions could be true, highlighting the deeper truth that even
‘objective’, empirically verifiable measures of voting behaviour (this is how
people actually voted) are subject to wide variations of interpretation.

Experimental research
The third method of assessing the effects of political communication shares
with the first the fact that it relies on asking questions of people. Numerous
experiments have been conducted in which a particular element of the politi-
cal message is isolated before a subject group. Their responses are then noted
and conclusions drawn.
This laboratory-based approach is a much-used tool of behavioural effects
research, frequently employed, for example, in the study of sexually explicit
or violent material. The methodological objections to it are, once again,

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