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Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 35

THE EFFECTS OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION
ist?), as is the form of the message (advertisement, conference speech or
terrorist act) and the social semiotics of its reception. One could have
admired the communicative abilities of Ronald Reagan, for example,
although one’s position as an unemployed steelworker or environmentalist
campaigner might have prevented acceptance of the Reagan ‘message’. One
may find George W. Bush’s rhetoric about ‘smoking out evil doers’ irritating,
while agreeing with the need to defeat terrorism of the type which destroyed
the World Trade Center. The politician can shape and work the message, but
has relatively little control over the environment into which it is inserted and
the uses to which it will be put.

POLITICAL COMMUNICATION AND THE
DEMOCRATIC PROCESS

An alternative to the empirical approach, with its emphasis on the effects of
political communication on behaviour and attitudes, is to consider its impact
on the democratic process itself. There is, undoubtedly, something qualita-
tively different about a political system in which the main means of com-
munication are the mass media. Do these differences have negative or
positive implications for the democratic ideal, as it was outlined in the
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previous chapter? Butler and Kavanagh observe that
more than ever, election campaigns are managed and orchestrated.
Each party attempts to shape the agenda so that the media reflects
its views on favourite topics. Public opinion is monitored through
opinion polls. An election campaign is increasingly seen by those in
charge as an exercise in marketing and many of the skills of selling
goods and services to customers are now applied to the electorate.
These developments have given greater scope to experts in opinion
polling, advertising and public relations, and sometimes lead to
tensions with the politicians and party offices.
(1992, p. 77)

For many observers the trends described by these authors are dangerous
and damaging for the political process. If politicians have become more
sensitive to public opinion as measured in polls they have also, it is frequently
argued, become prisoners of that public opinion, allowing it to dominate the
processes of policy-formulation and decision-making. Governments, and
those who aspire to govern, allow their principles to be diluted on the
recommendations of market researchers. Ideologies and value-systems are
abandoned on the altar of popularity, and the activity of political persuasion
becomes a cynical response to whatever this week’s polls say. Not only
policies, but leaders are selected and jettisoned according to the whims of

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