Page 32 - The Professionalisation of Political Communication Chaning Media, Changing Europe Volume 3

Political Communication.qxd 12/7/06 7:30 pm Page 29
Political Communication.qxd 5/1/07 15:05 Page 31

THE PROFESSIONALISATION OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION IN EUROPE | 29

In the UK, for example, one can begin to identify the use of a range of advisers from the
2
immediate post-1945 period. There are examples of the Conservative Party using
surveys and advertisers in the 1950s and even of the Labour Party – traditionally
opposed to marketing and advertising techniques – carrying out two ‘small
experimental survey(s) concerned largely to measure voters’attitudes toward the major
issues facing the political parties’ and, to a lesser extent, to assess the party’s ‘image’
carried out in 1956 and 1957.(Abrams,1963,p.14; see also chapter 3).

From both the US and British experience we begin to see the development of
specialisms: of personnel involved in polling, or creating advertising material, of
developing strategies, and so on. Alongside these developments, there is also an
acquisition of knowledge and developments in related disciplines that give rise to a
growth of interest in the field and of a greater appreciation of what can be done and
the newer ways of achieving such objectives.Louis Harris predicted in 1963:

As we develop pollsters who better understand the mechanics, language and Gestalt
of politics, and as we develop candidates who are better informed about polls and
social science research, inevitably the mating of the two professions will become
more frequent and relations will be closer (1963,pp.6–7).

These two reasons point towards a gradual growth of a set of specialist occupations in
the field of government, and politics more generally, and to the accumulation of
knowledge, in part as experiences spread and new techniques become possible. Our
working definition, general though it is, does have merit in allowing us to see the
longer-term development of specialist roles but, nonetheless, roles that have
something in common.That is, the objective of persuasion and mobilisation. In this way
we can connect the idea of professionalisation in discussions of improved electoral
practices with the idea of professionalisation in discussions of new styles of
campaigning and governance, and the idea of professionalisation as a response to
changes in information and communication technologies. We can, in other words, add
depth and some coherence to many contemporary uses of the idea of
professionalisation in political communication. A brief digression into some of the
contemporary uses will illustrate the overarching nature of our approach. The Professionalisation of Political Communication in Europe

Professionalisation – as better campaigning, as a different model of campaigning and as a
response to new technologies
The idea of the professionalisation of political communication is very often used to
signify a host of changes in organisation, practices and thinking that lead to a more
‘professional’ and so less amateurish set of practices. For example, the use of opinion
polls, the use of political consultants, the creation of a ‘war room’, and the use of focus
groups, is used to illustrate what is often described as the ‘modern’ election campaign,
and the professionalised paradigm (Blumler & Kavanagh, 1999). Maggie Scammell
makes a similar point when she writes that ‘all the distinctive features of modern 31