Page 110 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

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PARTY POLITICAL
COMMUNICATION I

Advertising

Robert Denton argues that in America, thanks to the growth in the
role of television in political campaigning, the pre-eminent form of
political oratory has become the advertisement. The political ad, he
writes, is ‘now the major means by which candidates for the
presidency communicate their messages to voters’ (1988, p.5). Nimmo
and Felsberg suggest that ‘paid political advertising via television
now constitutes the mainstream of modern electoral politics’ (1986,
p.248). In Britain and other comparable countries too, although
regulatory and stylistic conventions differ from those of the United
States, political advertising is central to political communication.
Advertising’s power—if power it has (a by no means uncontentious
assertion, as Chapter 3 suggested)—is exercised on two levels. Firstly,
the political advertisement disseminates information about the
candidate’s or party’s programme to a degree of detail which television
journalists can rarely match. As Chapter 4 argued, television news
has developed generic conventions and narrative practices which
inhibit in-depth analysis of political parties’ policies. Instead, the
broadcasters fasten pack-like on to the day’s soundbites (often
deliberately planted by the politicians’ public relations staff) which
are repeated endlessly. Hart’s analysis of TV coverage of US
presidential speeches shows just how few, on average, of a
speechmaker’s words are reported in the news (1987), and how much
amounts to mere repetition of a few key words and phrases. In this
context, to the extent that television is the major source of political
information for most people, the advertisement is the format in which
a political actor has the greatest opportunity to impart ‘the issues’ as
he or she sees them.
Of course, as in the world of commerce, the advertisement does
not merely inform individuals in society about the choices available
to them as political consumers. They are also designed to persuade.

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