Page 28 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

POLITICS IN THE AGE OF MEDIATION

It may be narrow, as when the editorial of a leading newspaper ‘of
record’, such as the Sunday Times, calls on the Conservative party
to change its leadership (or to retain it, as the case may be). The
audience may be both broad and narrow, as in the case of the IRA
bombing of a Manchester shopping mall in 1995. Such a
‘communication’ has at least two levels of meaning, and is intended
for at least two audiences. One, the British people as a whole, are
being told that they should not view the Northern Irish conflict as
something of irrelevance to them. A second, more selective audience,
the government, are being warned that the IRA has the ability and
the will to carry out such acts, and that appropriate changes to
policy should be forthcoming (as, with the election of a Labour
government in 1997, they were).
Whatever the size and nature of the audience, however, all political
communication is intended to achieve an effect on the receivers of
the message. From US presidential campaigns to the lobbying of
individual MPs and senators, the communicator hopes that there
will be some positive (from his or her point of view) impact on the
political behaviour of the recipient.
As every student of the media knows, the effects issue is one of
great complexity and unending controversy. In political
communication, as in Hollywood cinema or pornography, the
audience’s relationship to the message is ambiguous, and extremely
difficult to investigate empirically. Attempts have been made to so
do none the less, and Chapter 3 will examine the evidence for and
against the efficacy of political communication (as measured against
the intentions of the communicators), including such issues as the
importance of a politician’s visual image in shaping voters’
perceptions; the impact of ‘biased’ media coverage on election
outcomes; and the relationship between ‘public opinion’ and attempts
(by both politicians and media organisations) to set agendas. We
also examine the broader effects issue: what ‘effect’ has the rise of
political communication had on the democratic process?

The media
Which brings us to the third element in the political communication
process—media organisations. In democratic political systems media
function both as transmitters of political communication which
originates outside the media organisation itself, and as senders of
political messages constructed by journalists. As Figure 1.1 indicates,
the role of the media in both respects is crucial.

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