Political communicators and their strategies

1
Political communicators and their strategies

• Propaganda
• Public relations
• Political Marketing

2
Political communicators

• Governments
• Domestically and abroad
• Political parties
• Interest groups
• Non-governmental organizations
• Military
• Terrorists

3
Autocratic regimes and communication

• Absence of a public, public sphere, or public
  opinion
• Subjects are assumed to be immature and
  politically inept, in need of leadership and
  control
• "..a wise prince should establish himself on that
  which is his own control and not in that of
  others he must endeavour to avoid hatred, as is
  noted. ... It is best to be both feared and
  loved however, if one cannot be both it is
  better to be feared than loved. (Machiavelli, Il
  Principe, 1513)
• No modern regime can be based on pure violence
  and control
• Most of what formerly could be done by violence
  and intimidation must now be done by argument and
  persuasion. (Laswell, Theory of Public
  Propaganda, 1927)
• Most autocratic regimes employ ideologies to
  facilitate control
• And, according to Herman and Chomsky
  (Manufacturing Consent, 1988), so do democracies
• Ideological regimes are transformational and
  doctrinal, hence necessarily propagandist

4
Propaganda

• Derived from from the Latin verb propagare
• 'to reproduce (a plant) by cuttings spread for
  sprouting propagate enlarge'.
• 1622 Congregatio de Propaganda Fide
• (the congregation for propagating the faith).
  Established by Pope Gregory XV in order to
  centralize all of the Roman Catholic Church's
  missionary activity.
• 1789 Increasingly secularized appropriation of
  the term during the French revolution
• 1842 political meaning overshadowing the
  religious, thereby already taking on a
  derogatory connotation
• "Derived from this celebrated society for
  propagating the faith, the name propaganda is
  applied in modern political language as a term of
  reproach to secret associations for the spread of
  opinions and principles which are viewed by most
  governments with horror and aversion." (W.T.
  Brande, Dictionary of Science, Literature, and
  Art)
• 1922 First separate entry in Encyclopedia
  Britannica

5
Laswells theory of political propaganda

• Deliberation
• search for the solution of a besetting problem
  with no desire to prejudice a particular solution
  in advance
• Propaganda
• the management of collective attitudes by the
  manipulation of significant symbols
• very much concerned about how a specific
  solution is to be evoked and put over
• Propaganda objective to organize attitudes
• towards a person, a group, a policy, an
  institution, a mode of personal participation
• Function of propaganda in modern life
• Attributable to social disorganization in the
  advent of technological changes
• Most of what formerly could be done by violence
  and intimidation must now be done by argument and
  persuasion.

6
Propaganda techniques

• Institute of propaganda analysis (1937)
• Name-calling
• Glittering generality
• Euphemisms
• Transfer
• Testimonial
• Plain folks
• Bandwagon

7
Propaganda by the deed

• Three Italian anarchists (Errico Malatesta, Carlo
  Cafiero and Emilio Covelli) conceived and
  developed the idea of Propaganda by Deed through
  a series of letters to each other between July
  and October 1876
• By actions which compel general attention, the
  new idea seeps into peoples minds and wins
  converts. One such act may, in a few days, make
  more propaganda than thousand pamphlets. Above
  all, it awakens the spirit of revolt. . .
  (Kropotkin, Russian Anarchist)
• Terrorism is symbolic violence
• Violence aims at behaviour modification by
  coercion. Propaganda aims at the same by
  persuasion. Terrorism can be seen as a
  combination of the two. Terrorism, by using
  violence against one victim, seeks to coerce and
  persuade others. The immediate victim is merely
  instrumental, the skin on a drum beaten to
  achieve a calculated impact on a wider audience.
  (Schmid, Frameworks for Conceptualizing
  Terrorism, 2004)
• The success of a terrorist operation depends
  almost entirely on the amount of publicity it
  receives (Walter Laqueur, Terrorism, 1977)

8
Public relations

• the management of communication between an
  organization and its publics (Grunig Hunt,
  Managing Public Relations, 1984)
• using communication to adapt relationships
  between organizations and their publics (Botan,
  International public relations, 1992)
• historically, most PR has been weak propaganda
  (Moloney, Rethinking PR The Spin and the
  Substance, 2000)
• Two myths of PR
• Edward Bernays myth
• that public opinion could be manufactured for a
  price, bought and sold like any other commodity
• Asymmetrical/functional approach
• Ivy Lees myth
• that PR is natural, honorable and honest - part
  of the "two-way street" process of democratic
  communications between businesses and their
  "publics"
• Symmetrical/ co-creational approach

9
Quotes

• We always tell our clients that honesty is the
  best policy. All our work is done in the
  open. We aim to supply news. . . . Our plan is,
  frankly and openly, on behalf of business
  concerns and public institutions, to supply the
  press and the public of the United States prompt
  and accurate information concerning subjects
  which it is of value and interest to the public
  to know about. (Ivy Lee, Statement of
  Principles, 1906)
• If we understand the mechanism and motives of
  the group mind it would be possible to control
  and regiment the masses according to our will
  without their knowing it. . . . Theory and
  practice have combined with sufficient success to
  permit us to know that in certain cases we can
  effect some change in public opinion with a fair
  degree of accuracy by operating a certain
  mechanism, just as the motorist can regulate the
  speed of his car by manipulating the flow of
  gasoline. (Edward Bernays, Propaganda, 1928)

10
Public relations practice

• Applications
• Crisis management
• Reputation management
• Issue management
• Investor relations and labour relations
• Grassroots PR (astroturf PR)
• Tools
• Press conference
• Press releases
• Publicity events (stunts)
• The circuit
• Sponsorship
• Objectives
• Credibility
• Publicity

11
Political marketing

• Empirical phenomenon
• Social change
• Electoral change
• Increasing importance of campaigns
• Professionalization of campaigns
• Research paradigm
• Market models of politics
• Expansion of marketing to non-commercial
  applications
• Marketing model of party behaviour

12
Social and electoral change

• Social change
• Decreasing identifiability and relevance of
  social class
• Increasing social mobility
• Increased education
• Decreasing relevance of ideology
• Emergence of new issues/cleavages (Inglehart)
• Electoral change
• Dealignment
• Increasing electoral volatility
• Decreasing explanatory power of variables like
  age, gender, class
• Decreasing importance of projection/issue
  alignment
• Issue voting pocketbook voting retrospective
  voting

13
Increasing importance of campaigns

• Campaigns are no longer predominantly about
  mobilizing support
• With decreasing base support, voters need to be
  attracted through campaigning
• Campaign context impacts on economic, issue,
  leadership evaluations
• More floating voters to compete over
• Increasing importance of mass media
• new findings challenging the minimal effects
  model providing campaigners with reasons to
  trust in effectiveness of electioneering

14
Professionalization of campaigns

• Exponential increases in campaign spending
• Use of consultants, pollsters, commercial
  advertisers
• Increasing influence of campaign consultants on
  policy content of manifestos
• Policy convergence ? need for distinguishing from
  competitors
• Market research (focus groups, private polling,
  direct-marketing, database-marketing)
• Changing media focus, from coverage of issues,
  coverage of leadership, image and the race, to
  coverage of strategy, party-media interaction,
  and the role of spin

15
Market models of politics

• Schumpeter
• Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1947)
• Elitist model of democracy
• Function of voting to restrain elites, not to
  manifest common will
• Downs
• An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957)
• Rational choice model of voting
• Assuming material self-interest as primary
  motivation of elites and voters
• Median voter theorem party platforms will
  converge, to accommodate voter preferences
• Wellhofer
• Contradictions in Market Models of Politics the
  Case of Party Strategies and Voter Linkages',
  European Journal of Political Research 1990
• Vote production
• vs.
• Vote maximization

16
Marketing model of party behaviour

• Three-stage development of modern business
  practice applied to evolution of organizational
  behaviour of political parties
• Parties may simply stand for what they believe
  in, or focus on persuading voters to agree with
  them, or change their behaviour to follow voters
  opinions (Jennifer Lees-Marshment, 2001 p. 701)
• Product-oriented party
• Sales-oriented party
• Market-oriented party

17

• Product-oriented party
• Ideological
• Representing/leading social movement
• Unresponsive to social change
• Electoral success not an objective in itself
• Electoral goal vote production/supporter
  mobilization
• Sales-oriented party
• Ideological
• Intra-organizational choice of policies,
  leadership
• Using market research, advertising, communication
  techniques to sell itself, its policies
• Electoral goal persuasion
• Market-oriented party
• Using market intelligence to identify voter
  demands
• Assessing deliverability of demanded policies
• Assessing intra-party acceptability of policy
  changes
• Designing product (party manifesto, leadership
  selection, etc) accordingly
• Electoral goal adapting to the market

18
Reconciling reputation with theory

• Reputation
• Political marketing considered to be manipulative
  (spin doctors), dishonest, close to propaganda,
  placing style over substance
• Effect
• Political marketing practice appears to turn
  people off (decreasing turnout in US since 1970s,
  collapse of turnout under New Labour since 1997)
• Public demand for politicians of conviction (but
  consider the paradox of Margaret Thatcher the
  pioneer of political marketing in UK, nonetheless
  understood as principled and ideological)
• Theory
• Positivistic, presenting political marketing as
  potentially regenerative force for democracies
  (by basing policy on public preferences)