Page 50 - An Introduction to Political Communication Third Edition

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THE EFFECTS OF POLITICAL

COMMUNICATION

This chapter:

• Outlines the main approaches to the effects of political
communication within media studies
• Examines the evidential bases of effects research.

As with all categories of media output there is a wide variety of
approaches which one can take to the ‘effects issue’ in political
communication, none of which produces easy answers to the
question, ‘does it work?’ For the sake of clarity, this chapter
approaches the effects issue from three broad perspectives.
First, we shall consider the extent to which the purposeful
communicative behaviour of political actors, such as political
advertising and conference speeches, can influence the attitudes and
behaviour of the intended audience. Effects of this type can be
examined at the micro-level of the individual consumer of the
message, or at the macro-level, when individual responses to
political communication are aggregated together in the form of
public opinion polls and other indices of collective political will.
Second, we shall examine how the political process of democratic
societies – their procedures and practices – has been affected by the
growing importance within them of mass communication.
And third, we shall consider the systemic impact of the rise of
political communication on advanced capitalist societies such as the
UK and the US.
Political communication, as already noted, is largely mediated
communication, transmitted through the print and electronic
media. The media alter the message, in their roles as reporters

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