Volovyk E.A., Scientific supervisor: Lavlinskyy R.A.
Donetsk National
University of Economics and Trade
named after
Mikhailo Tugan-Baranovsky
Political communication is concerned with the role of communication within
the political process. Consequently, the development of new forms of mass media
at the turn of the twentieth century foreshadowed significant changes in the
study and practice of this phenomenon. This was also the period when there was
significant growth in adult literacy as well as a major expansion of the
electoral franchise among the most advanced industrial societies. The arrival
of (near) universal suffrage alerted political elites to the limitations of
their traditional interpersonal forms of address and of the increasing need for
them to be able to address a much enlarged, more heterogeneous public.
Political communication through different media then became the norm for
campaigns that increasing went beyond simply trying to inform or publicize an
issue or candidature to seeking to engage and persuade a mass audience.
Political communication (also called psychological operations (psy-ops)
or information operations), encompasses a wide range of communicative behaviors
that have political ends. One element encompasses the conduct of an effective
election campaign, to disseminate the candidate's message and to counter the
message of one's opponents. Governments also employ propaganda techniques to
build support for policies and stifle dissent.
The first half of this article reviews how the development of
communication technologies, and the spread of both communication media and
education among the masses, contributed to the evolution of democracy. The
second half of this article deals with how modern communication media,
especially mass media, function in a pluralistic democracy.
Pioneering theorists with an interest in political communication
recognized that sometimes emotive imagery would increasingly become prominent
in what passed for public debate as competing politicians particularly sought
to attract the attention and support of the large numbers of new voters. The
resulting forms of address were far removed from the kind of rational debate
that many critical theorists argue is a central component of a healthy
functioning public sphere. The debasement and “refeudalization” of the latter
took place with the rapid growth of commercially driven forms of communication,
such as advertising and public relations.
Contemporary public intellectuals active in interwar politics were among
those keen to welcome and explore the potential interplay between mass media
and mass democracy. It is no coincidence that the 1920s saw the publication of
important books with major relevance to the development of strategic
communication including C. Higham’s on advertising and W. Lippmann’s treatise
on public opinion, which promoted the desirability of elites manufacturing
consent. Similar sentiments underpinned E. Bernays’s popularization of the
concept and practice of public relations as a means of influencing mass opinion
through the solicitation of favorable coverage from a range of news media
outlets with large audiences.
Lippmann and his fellow practitioners and theorists of political
communication held to patrician notions of an essentially benevolent party and
media elites managing debate and influencing the popular will. Their
complacency was seriously challenged by the destruction of many European
democracies during the
1930s. The Nazi takeover, in particular, was conceived of as a response
to economic and civil crises but also as the result of a concerted campaign
that demonstrated the power of mass propaganda. The perceived success of this
debauched strategy contributed to a belief in the “hypodermic needle” model,
which suggested an influential media coexisted with a largely passive,
suggestible audience. The idea of this strong effect was reinforced by other,
more-discreet and less-disturbing incidents, such as Orson Welles’s notorious
1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds, in which he caused panic in the rural
Midwest with his all-too-vivid radio dramatization.
The strong effects model encouraged the pioneering work of early
political communication scholarship involving Harold Lasswell and his
colleagues at the Institute of Propaganda Analysis. Their attempt to develop
typologies of the different kinds of manipulative activity was superseded by
Paul Lazarsfeld and others’ attempts at researching the relationship between
media consumption and voter participation. These and other studies led to the
forging of an influential limited effects consensus that argued the primary
influence of the media over voters was reinforcement not change.
The inherent difficulties in accounting for the impact or not of
different forms of political communication shaped postwar research and led to
the flourishing of other debates as to the relationship between politicians,
voters, and media. A discernible trend among researchers toward going beyond
the “voter persuasion paradigm” led to the revisiting of debates begun in
earnest by Lippmann and others during the interwar years as to the strategic
role and function of political communication in a democracy. Much work was
devoted to understanding how media and campaigns attempted to set the agenda or
frame issues in a way that was presumed to have an impact on public
understanding. Unlike other subjects, these functions were perceived to be
important because for many citizens politics was still a remote topic of only
periodic interest to them.
Neoliberalism has had an obvious impact on the public and private sphere
if judged by the rise of rapacious consumerism and the significant growth in
the size and reach of the marketing industry. Democratic debate has not been
immune to these trends, and there has been a notable marketization of political
communication apparent in the excessive attention now devoted to electoral
advertisers (image makers), public relations consultants (spin doctors), and
opinion researchers (pollsters). Central to this approach is an excessive focus
on a few target voters at the expense of all others, which helps resolve the
apparent paradox as to why turnouts are falling in spite of the use of the most
supposedly professional political communications.
What is evident from a historical review of the relationship between the
forms of communication (especially mass media) and the power elite is that in
any society with a well-educated population criticisms of government policies
and demands for participation in the political process are bound to be heard.
There are only two ways to deal with this eventuality: either to suppress these
criticisms and demands or to coexist with them. Historically, political leaders
of almost all the countries in the world have chosen the former option at
first. In countries where printing developed earlier than in other parts of the
world, however, the latter choice, coexistence, was preferred, but only after
much struggle and bitter experience. Thus, ‘free criticism of the government,’
which is practically the same as ‘freedom of the press,’ became the paramount
prerequisite for a modern pluralist democracy.
In modern societies where communication technologies are highly
developed and the freedom of the press is permitted, mass media have to compete
not only with each other but also with all other forms of communication media
and information flows. If a mass medium loses credibility with its consumers,
it will lose their support. Under the capitalist market system this could lead
to financial ruin, whereas under a one-party dictatorship this could mean the
loss of the people’s trust in the party and a subsequent toppling of the
government.
As discussed elsewhere, the mass media appears to have some influence on
individual attitudes, opinions, and behavior under certain conditions. However,
even if it is proved that people are influenced by the mass media that they are
regularly exposed to, the political implications for society as a whole are not
quite clear because the mass media in pluralist democracies represent such a
diversity of opinion. As long as the mass media remain diverse, their influence
on actual policy and decision making is unclear. The political implications of
mass media’s influence on individual opinion become clearer only when the entire
mass media become monolithic or united in a common cause. In what kinds of
situations do mass media coalesce their opinions and have a marked influence on
government policy and decision making?
Apart from basic social norms, public opinion is clear and decisive on
certain issues. Taxes and war or military involvement are good examples. On
these issues, the mass media tend to follow public opinion (partly because of
their fear of losing circulation or ratings) and the mass media as a whole
become less diverse as a result. Competition among relatively monolithic mass
media further reinforces public opinion, and their combined demands and
criticisms of the government become intensified. The term ‘climate of opinion’
has been used to explain this pressure. Under these circumstances, the
government is often obliged to concede to the wishes of the mass media-public
opinion alliance. This alliance is democratic in principle and, therefore,
usually desirable. As described above, however, the possible danger of such an
alliance in a mass society should not be ignored.
Literature
1. Kurt Lang and
Gladys Engel Lang. "Noam Chomsky and the Manufacture of Consent for
American Foreign Policy." Political Communication, 21:93-101, 2004, p. 94.
2. W. Lance Bennett
and Robert Entman, eds. 2000. Mediated Politics: Communication in the Future of
Democracy. Cambridge University Press.; Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson,
(2006) Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion Owl Books.
3. Pippa Norris 2008.
A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in Post-Industrial Democracies.
Cambridge University Press.
4. Bruce Bimber 2007.
Information and American Democracy: Technology in the Evolution of Political
Power. Cambridge University Press.