Page 70 - Comparing Political Communication Theories, Cases, and Challenge

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DavidL.Swanson

centrist positions that shift with changes in voters’ opinions in prefer-
encetodefinedprogramsandsustainedideologicalcommitments.Atthe
core of the modern, catch-all political campaign is, often, the personality
of the party leader, whose appealing qualities are featured to catch the
attention and support of voters.
The modern model of campaigning has also become the modern
model of political communication in governing more generally, as so
many have observed. With political power resting on the transitory opin-
ions of voters whose support must be cultivated continuously through
communication, the culture of image management and perpetual spin
has come to dominate the discourse of political leaders and government
officials. Political marketing has thus become a critical part of what are
considered the primary functions of government.

Political News as Expos´ e
Oneofthetransnationaltrendsthatledtodevelopmentofthemodern
model of political communication is the proliferation of mass media
driven by commercial values. The expansion of privately owned media
to compete with public broadcasters has created in nearly every country
an intensely competitive media environment. There is greater pressure
than ever before on news media to compete for audiences in a market in
which it is increasingly difficult to do so. This competitive pressure has
been identified as one of the causes of particular changes in the content
and character of news, especially news about politics (e.g., Hvitfelt 1994;
McManus 1994; Underwood 1995; Pfetsch 1996).
In general, intensified competition and growing commercialization
of the media sphere are thought to have led to greater infusion of enter-
tainment values into editorial decisions and political reporting, covering
politics “only in the ways and to the extent that it is good business to
do” in order to attract and hold the audience (Swanson 1997, 1269). The
competitive pressures driving construction of political news have been
linked to, among other things, “sound bite” coverage in which politi-
cal actors have little opportunity to express their thoughts in their own
words (e.g., Hallin 1992), and coverage of politics that centers always
on conflict, such as “horse race” news that covers election campaigns
as suspenseful contests more than policy disagreements (e.g., Patterson
1993, 1996; Cappella and Jamieson 1996, 1997).
With mass media becoming the arena in which so much of politics
and government is conducted and presented to the public, news cov-
erage of politics and government has assumed greater importance to

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