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Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 33

THE EFFECTS OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION
as constructed by the photograph continued to exert an influence on voting
intentions.
The researchers acknowledged the methodological limitations of their
research, in so far as it was an artificial election with artificial candidates,
lacking ‘the social context and duration of a real campaign’ (ibid., p. 45), but
claim that they were able to repeat the experiment with similar results, thus
strengthening their validity.
Research conducted in Germany by Kepplinger and Dombach indicated
that certain camera angles, such as filming at eye level, produced a more
favourable audience response to a politician than others. They concluded
that ‘camera angles influence perception, particularly among a politician’s
supporters’ (1987, p. 71).
Some research has been concerned with the specific effects of different
media. Scott Keeter, for example, has found that of all voters, those who
watched television were the most likely to be influenced by the candidate’s
‘image’. He accepted, however, that this may not be ‘a reaction to the
particular stimuli of televised politics – although such a direct effect is
plausible – as a more general increase in the importance of candidate factors
resulting from various political changes in which television has played a role’
(1987, p. 336). Recent research has been concerned with the impact of the
internet on political behaviour and processes. Brundidge and Rice, for
example, explore how use of the internet is related to other factors such as
social class and age, and how it is related to variables such as levels of
political participation and knowledge (2009). Chadwick and Howard’s
Routledge Handbook of Internet Politics (2009) contains that essay and a
further thirty articles on the growing role of the internet and online social
networking in political communication.

THE EFFECT OF POLITICAL ADVERTISING

We noted above the importance of distinguishing between types of political
communication, such as election broadcasts and TV news interviews. If the
candidate’s image and personality (as perceived by the audience) is an important
factor in shaping voting behaviour so too, arguably, is the party’s political
advertising. As we shall see in Chapter 6, advertising is a major component of
modern political communication, consuming huge financial and creative
resources during and between elections. The fact of parties’ expenditure on
advertising might be thought to point to evidence that it works in shaping
behaviour. Such evidence is, however, conspicuously lacking.
Research cited by Diamond and Bates supports the ‘uses and gratifi-
cations’ thesis that the effects of political advertising (in which category we
include British party political broadcasts) are heavily conditioned by the
existing political attitudes of the audience. They note that ‘some supporters

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