Page 60 - An Introduction to Political Communication Third Edition

THE EFFECTS OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

that the media reflects its views on favourite topics. Public
opinion is monitored through opinion polls. An election
campaign is increasingly seen by those in charge as an
exercise in marketing and many of the skills of selling
goods and services to customers are now applied to the
electorate. These developments have given greater scope to
experts in opinion polling, advertising and public relations,
and sometimes lead to tensions with the politicians and
party offices.
(1992, p. 77)

For many observers the trends described by these authors are
dangerous and damaging for the political process. If politicians
have become more sensitive to public opinion as measured in polls
they have also, it is frequently argued, become prisoners of that
public opinion, allowing it to dominate the processes of policy-
formulation and decision-making. Governments, and those who
aspire to govern, allow their principles to be diluted on the
recommendations of market researchers. Ideologies and value-
systems are abandoned on the alter of popularity, and the activity
of political persuasion becomes a cynical response to whatever
this week’s polls say. Not only policies, but leaders are selected and
jettisoned according to the whims of public opinion, regardless of
their intellectual qualities. The image of the leader, it is argued,
counts for more than his or her abilities; the smoothness of delivery
of a political message for more than its content. The integrity of
7
politics, in short, is undermined.
Undoubtedly, image is perceived to be more important than it
once was. Ronald Reagan, it is universally accepted, was not a great
American president because of his ability to govern, but because of
how, with the assistance of his actor’s training, he articulated his
simple, homely messages. He was ‘the great communicator’ rather
than the great thinker. Conversely, Michael Foot, the Labour Party’s
leader from 1980 until 1983, was acknowledged by supporters and
opponents alike to have been a formidable intellectual and a skilful
party manager. In the age of television, unfortunately, he did not
look and sound ‘right’. After Labour’s 1983 defeat he was quickly
shunted off into back-bench retirement, to be replaced by the more
‘media-friendly’ Neil Kinnock.
The examples of Reagan, Foot (and, to a lesser extent perhaps,
the 1984 and 1988 US Democratic challengers for the presidency,
Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis) are regularly cited by those

39