Page 251 - An Introduction to Political Communication Third Edition

NOTES

small, but crucial segment of the voters who are ‘floating’, or undecided;
(c) reinforcing support for a party or candidate; (d) attacking opponents;
and (e) raising money (1986).
4 S. Richards, ‘Interview: Clare Short’, New Statesman, 9 August 1996.
5 Three-Minute Culture, BBC2, 29 January 1989.
6 For an account of Livingstone’s political development and emergence as
GLC leader, see Carvel, 1984.
7 The Local Government Act 1986, London, HMSO, 1986.
8 Consultation Paper on the Reform of Party Political Broadcasting, p. 3.

7 PARTY POLITICAL COMMUNICATION II:
POLITICAL PUBLIC RELATIONS
1 For details of the most important of the American political public
relations specialists, see Chagall, 1981.
2 On coming to power in 1997, the Labour government reformed the
operation of Prime Minister’s question time, reducing its frequency from
twice per week to once while increasing the duration of sessions. As this
book went to press, opinion remained divided as to whether this had
improved the opportunities for the Prime Minister to be questioned by
opposing members of parliament (by allowing for more sustained and
detailed questioning), or restricted them by reducing his exposure.
3 ITV, 24 May 1987.
4 Butler and Kavanagh, for example, write of the ‘triumphalism’ of the
Sheffield rally (1992, p. 139).
5 At the outset of the 1992 general election campaign Channel 4 broadcast
a documentary, presented by Guardian columnist Hugo Young, in which
a succession of journalists and analysts made clear their concerns about
the democratic implications of intensifying media management by
politicians (Danger to Democracy, Channel 4, 1992).
6 For whom Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie have performed in television
advertisements.
7 As Eric Shaw observes: ‘this involved creating product recognition
through the use of trademarks and slogans; differentiating the product
from others by creating a unique selling proposition; encouraging the
audience to want the product by enveloping it in a set of favourable
associations; committing the audience to the product and its associated
promises by inducing it to identify with all the advert’s symbolised
meaning and ensuring that the audience recalls the product and its need
for it by repeated messages’ (1994, p. 65).
8 Quoted in D. Hencke, ‘The Cycle Continues’, Press Gazette, 21 January
2000.
9 A. Campbell, ‘We Will Survive’, Guardian, 22 December 1997.

8 PRESSURE-GROUP POLITICS AND THE OXYGEN OF
PUBLICITY
1 In Classes in Contemporary Capitalism (1975), for example, Poulantzas
argues that in addition to social classes defined by the exploiter/exploited
relationship, each social formation also includes fractions or strata

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