Page 226 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

CONCLUSION

control of affairs’, but to those groups of greater or lesser
marginality whose political objectives are to challenge, subvert,
or capture that control.
The revolution in the ‘persuasive arts’ is the consequence, as we
noted above, of far-reaching political and technological
developments leading to universal suffrage on the one hand, and
ever more efficient media of mass communication on the other. For
as long as democratic principles underpin advanced capitalism and
communications technologies develop further towards simultaneity
and inter-activity, the revolution can be expected to continue.
Political fashions may change, but the need to fashion political
messages will not.
Most participants in the political communication debate will agree
with these assertions, and with the further point that, as political
actors and media have grown dependent on each other, politics has
become not only a persuasive but a performance art, in which
considerations of style, presentation and marketing are equal to, if
not greater in importance than, content and substance. It is here, of
course, that the arguments begin.
Chapter 3 identified two broad perspectives on the democratic
significance of modern political communication. One might be said
to be pessimistic, in so far as it asserts that our culture is degraded
and democracy undermined by the intrusion of the ‘persuasive arts’
into politics.
A liberal variant of the argument is founded on adherence to the
notion of the rational citizen, the importance of choice in democracy,
and the role of the media in promoting material which makes that
choice meaningful. In the liberal critique, mediated or performance
politics lack rationality and substance, breeding voter apathy and
shallow populism. They are more a means of ‘self-promotion [for
politicians] than of information for the public’ (Denton, 1991a,
p.93).
Pessimists on the left of the ideological spectrum share many of
these objections, but add that the pursuit of performance politics is
inconsistent with a coherent, radical left message. Thus, Greg Philo
has criticised the post-1985 Labour Party (and blamed its 1992 defeat)
on its reliance on ‘the shallow science of Imagistics’ (1993b, p.417).
For much of the post-war period, as Chapters 6 and 7 indicated,
such views drove the British Labour Party’s communicative strategy,
and despite the scale of the 1997 victory, they remain influential
amongst the left in Britain and elsewhere.

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