Page 52 - An Introduction to Political Communication Third Edition

THE EFFECTS OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

For this tradition, understanding the effects of media messages
required an understanding of the social semiotics of a given
communication situation, acknowledging the potential for differ-
ential decoding of the message which always exists; the plurality of
meanings which it may acquire across the diversity of groups and
individuals who make up its audience; and the variety of responses
it may provoke.
These variations in meaning and response will be dependent first
on the context of reception of the message, incorporating such
factors as the political affiliation, age, ethnicity, and gender of
the receiver, and, second, on the type of message transmitted. A
party election broadcast on British television, for example, is clearly
labelled as a motivated, partisan piece of political communication:
if not ‘propaganda’ in the most negative sense of that term then
undoubtedly a heavily skewed statement of a party’s policies and
values. The viewer knows this, and will interpret the message
accordingly.
Using Stuart Hall’s list of differential decoding positions (1980), 2
we might reasonably hypothesise that a Labour Party broadcast will
prompt in a Labour supporter a dominant decoding, in which the
receiver shares the world-view underlying the construction of the
broadcast, its interpretation of the ‘facts’ behind current political
and economic debates, and its preferred solutions. The ‘floating
voter’, lacking in strong commitment to any particular party, might
well adopt a negotiated decoding, agreeing with some aspects of
the message and rejecting others. Such a response would include one
in which the need for a more equitable distribution of income was
accepted, but specific proposals for tax increases were rejected as
being too draconian. The Conservative supporter, on the other hand,
will adopt an oppositional decoding position, rejecting both the
values and the specific policy proposals contained in Labour’s PPB.
The broadcasts of the other parties will meet with similar
diversity of response. In short, one’s knowledge that a piece of
communication is partisan will to a large extent predetermine
one’s ‘reading’ of it. If, on the other hand, a political message is
communicated through a news report, a chat show interview, or a
live debate in a US presidential campaign (all contexts in which
editorial control of the message is seen to reside beyond the
politician him or herself) the audience may take the opportunity to
judge abilities and policies from a more detached perspective. There
will be less interference in the communication process, and the
audience may be more open.

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