Page 54 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

THE EFFECTS OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

behaviour patterns, but will rarely change them. Cundy discusses
research suggesting that the effects of political advertising are in
inverse proportion to the audience’s knowledge of the party or
candidate being advertised, and that ‘once a candidate’s image has
been developed, new information is unlikely to generate any
appreciable change’ (1986, p.232).
This is true regardless of the aesthetic qualities of the advert.
Advertising may receive praise from commentators and analysts,
while failing to improve a party’s votes. In the 1987 general election,
the ‘Kinnock—The Movie’ PEB, as we have already noted, attracted
numerous accolades for the skill of its construction, to the extent
that it was shown twice on television during the campaign (a first
for British political advertising). Labour’s vote on polling day was
not substantially affected, however, unless one believes that it would
have been even lower without the positive image of Kinnock presented
in director Hugh Hudson’s film. In the 1988 US presidential election,
on the other hand, the Republican’s infamous ‘Willie Horton’ spot,
accusing Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis of being
dangerously liberal on crime, is widely believed to have contributed
substantially to Bush’s victory.
When all the empirical evidence is taken into account (and there
is not so much of it as one might expect, given the extent to which
image-management has become a central feature of political
campaigning) we can conclude that there do appear to be ways in
which a political message can be constructed so as to produce a
favourable response in the audience. The cut of a suit, a hairstyle, a
camera angle or the colour of a stage-set, are examples of formal
aspects of the message which might, all other things being equal,
positively influence audience perceptions of the communicator and
his or her message. In other words, there are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ examples
of political communication, as judged by aesthetic criteria. Political
communication can be directed, and increasingly is, by the burgeoning
political public relations industry (see Chapters 6 and 7). Like other
types of communicator, the politician must work within conventions
which are known and understood by the audience. These conventions
may be poorly executed, competently realised or creatively subverted,
in the manner of aesthetic innovation through the ages. The political
communicator is a performer, and will be judged by the audience, at
least partly, on the quality of performance.
It must not be forgotten, however, that an array of mediating
factors intervene in the communicator-receiver relationship, affecting
the meaning of the message and its likely impact on attitudes and

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