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professionals, i.e. those who can help it communicate with the outside world. Although
such ‘new’ political professionals may not necessarily have an exclusive relationship
with one political party, this is still a rare occurrence as most usually align themselves
with particular parties and candidates who are close to their own ideological positions
(see Kolodny,2000).

Most political parties in Western democracies now use professionals in some capacity
to help them organise themselves before, but more usually during, election campaigns.
Whether we adopt Maggie Scammell’s framework that draws attention to a
displacement of party bureaucrats or Mastropaolo’s suggestion that the party
professionals are now employed to run parties as election vehicles, it remains the case
that the focus of interest is still fairly narrowly defined. The focus is, in the main, on a
small number of high profile actors – the professional political consultants – ‘who have
become prime and semi permanent sources of information and insight for political
reporters, and [they] are rewarded with an uncritical press and frequent, beatific
headlines’(Sabato,1981,p.4).

Whilst there is nothing untoward with focusing on such individuals and the ‘dark arts’
often associated with them, that focus inevitably overlooks the fact that a process of
professionalisation – defined very generally as adaptations to meet key objectives –
might have also infected others within organisations, be they party bureaucrats,
politicians or government departments.To give a concrete example, there is a history of
professional consultants being employed by British political parties to train
parliamentary candidates and Members of Parliament to deal with the media. Whilst
this is clear evidence of outsiders playing a part in enhancing the electoral prospects of
politicians, it also demonstrates that political actors are themselves going through a
The Professionalisation of Political Communication
process of professionalisation. The same would be true in respect of the
professionalisation of the whole governmental publicity machine (see Davis, 2002), as
well as of political parties themselves as they undergo change and employ new staff
(see Webb & Fisher,2003).

A further consideration is that the specialisation of tasks may be a far more significant
dimension of professionalisation than has been alluded to in the past. Whilst high
profile experts have attracted much attention, the fact that political parties and
candidates can buy specific services such as polling expertise and data, call centre
services and data,on a contractual,out-sourcing basis,suggests that parties can change
in such a way that they retain their core activities as political organisations, but can
then employ others to run campaigns. This, in essence, lies at the root of Johnson’s
distinction between consultants as strategists and others who sell services (specialists
and vendors) (2000, pp. 37–42) need no longer rely on foot soldiers to collect
information or deliver leaflets, nor need they rely on local party organisations.
Centralisation of policy making and election planning become viable alternatives to
grass roots organisations with members heavily involved in running elections.
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