Political Communication in the Global Age - Essay Example

Before voting, it is of crucial importance that the electorate or voters know who and what they are voting for. This after all is democracy – the freedom of choice, the freedom of speech, participation by all and access to information. This information is provided by the candidates themselves in the form of political advertising, campaign advertising, or political communications – all terms to describe the adverts (content and media together) shown by candidates to create awareness about their strengths and the weaknesses of others, usually around the time of elections. Most of their competitive campaigns include huge numbers of advertisements and negative appeal. Such campaigns can overwhelm voters. It makes them think these communications are manipulative and may turn them off. However, at the same time, such communications and campaigns are responsible for giving people access to information, keeping them up to date and engaged, it mobilizes them, gives them choice, gives them freedom, help those who are politically unsophisticated and bring many other advantages that positively impact democracy. Political advertising supports democracy by giving people choice and access to information as it is but to enable it to facilitate order and democracy even more, it should be driven by some regulations. More research needs to be carried out to identify gaps in political advertising versus democracy. Does Political Advertising Undermine or Support Democracy? Introduction When customers are in the process of making a decision about a commercial product – whether to buy it or not; they need to have information about that product. Better yet, they should be able to engage and interact with the product to get a better idea about it. In my opinion, having this information makes these customers powerful and facilitates decision-making. However, whether this decision is the “best” one or not is unclear until customers actually start using a product after purchase. Similarly, before voting, customers might need relevant information to be able to vote. At the same time however, well-equipped and even better funded candidates and political parties can devastate the voter with their political advertising campaigns that may include negative, competitive and attack ads. This paper will look at the arguments for and against political advertising and its relationship with democracy. It will then conclude whether political advertising undermines or supports democracy. To give readers a head start, the following section will explain what political advertising is and how, as a marketing tool, it is used. This will enable readers to better grasp the concept of how political advertising affects voter behavior. What is Political Advertising? Political Advertising, Campaign Advertising or Political Marketing are all terms used to describe the kind of advertising done by political candidates, around the time of elections (Wymer and Lees-Marshment, 2006). The reason for this advertising is usually to create awareness amongst the voters as to the strengths of the candidate and weaknesses of opponents. However, today political ads have become distorted and are shown in such high frequencies that they may overwhelm the voters and may change voter behavior. Moreover, a lot of negative advertising is carried out now attacking the opponent candidates. This can be confusing and worrisome for the citizens of a country. The aim is to generate outcomes using any and all means necessary to ensure a win, even if it offends the voters. The most common medium used today for political advertising is the television. However, there are many and as defined in Federal Election Commission (2010) regulations, the term "public communication" includes: Broadcast, cable or satellite transmission; Newspaper; Magazine; Outdoor advertising facility (e.g., billboard); Mass mailing (defined as more than 500 pieces of mail matter of an identical or substantially similar nature within any 30-day period); Telephone banks (defined as more than 500 telephone calls of an identical or substantially similar nature within any 30-day period); or Any other general public political advertising. General public political advertising does not include Internet ads, except for communications placed for a fee on another person’s web site Voters are bombarded with adverts that are hardly regulated for their content. These ads are distorted and tell only one side of the story (Brasch, 2010). This is especially true and even more horrid in developed countries such as the US where this year $3.5 billion to $4.5 billion are expected to be spent on political ads (Brasch, 2010). With so much spent on advertising alone, voters expect to be bombarded this year. There are many different kinds of advertisements. An example of an attack advertisement is as follows where Gordon Brown is attacked by the Conservative Party Source: Adapted from The Guardian, 2010 The advert shows a bad picture of Gordon Brown and straight-forwardly tells voters that if they vote for him, they can expect no or lesser pensions. At the same time, it tells them about another option they have that might be better for them. The impact of such an advertisement might be dubious. Supporters of Gordon Brown may rethink their support given only that evidence is provided. However, neutral people may be affected the most and are highly likely to vote for the Conservative party after seeing an ad like this one. The underlining question remains – does political advertising support or undermine democracy? Democracy is that form of government where the government comes into power as voted by the electorate where in sometimes, they may be forced (Wymer and Lees-Marshment, 2006). There are many different theories of democracy such as competitive elitism and deliverative democracy (O’Shaughnessy et al, 2009). In the context of this paper, we will take democracy refers to a non-elitist approach to mean freedom of choice: people voting for the candidate they wish to see elected, access to information and participation open to all (Quelch and Jocz, 2007). The question about whether political advertising will hold back people from voting for their chosen candidates will be answered and discussed in the following paragraphs. Arguments: Against and For Like advertisements for everything else, political advertisements are also manipulative – maybe even more (Jamieson, 1993). They are created in the first place to sway public opinion. The aim is to ensure a win for the candidate and everything will be done to guarantee this. Political advertisements are often misleading because they tell only half the truth and may be distorted (Brasch, 2010). Even if they are negative adverts, they may be attacking opponents for something that isn’t entirely true or valid. Therefore, these advertisements tend to or may seem to manipulate voters (Quelch and Jocz, 2007). This can be taken as a strong argument for why political advertisement undermines democracy. When people vote for a candidate, they expect the candidate to remain the same after he has been elected. However, since most of the advertisements are misleading, such is not the case. This is, thus, an undermining of democracy because people voted for someone who they were made to believe is the one they wish to see elected. Another reason why political advertising undermines democracy is because during the time of the elections, televisions are flooded with political ads and the amount of political communications people see only makes them immune to it and turns them off altogether. This could render them to not vote at all for any candidate. Moreover, negative advertising may turn many voters off because either they make them unsure of which candidate to vote for, create confusion and worry the voters. In order to avoid making an incorrect decision about who to vote for, they might not vote at all. Therefore, political advertising then acts as an inhibitor of democracy because on the whole, all people are not electing the government. Morover, President Obama also recently announced that he believes that political campaigns that are anonymously financed and funded may destroy democracy (Johnston, 2010). Coming from one of the most powerful presidents of the world, this argument must have significant weightage, however, he refers to just anonymously financed campaigns, not transparent ones. On the bright side, political Advertising is a way of informing voters of the strengths of a candidate and weaknesses of opponents (Franz et al, 2002). This leads voters to make informed and logical decisions. In other words, political advertising is responsible for increasing the number of sources of information and the level of information available to voters (Quelch and Jocz, 2007). In my opinion, the impact on democracy is greater if voters make informed voting decisions driven by their own reasoning. Political advertising may be manipulative, may sway public opinion and in some cases, it may turn voters off. However in reply to this, at the end of the day, the ultimate voting decision is the voter’s own and this is democracy. Democracy will prevail as long as the form of government in a country officially stays Democratic. For example, even if a voter is manipulated to vote for the Conservative party by being informed that Gordon Brown might take a share of his pension. If indeed he votes for the Conservative Party, the final decision was his own, and this counts as democracy. Moreover, the problem with political marketing is that the message encoded may be interpreted and encoded differently, and the advertisement may appear to be a manipulative, in a political context, even if it is not (OShaughnessy and Henneberg, 2002). Therefore, political advertisement is not always be manipulative but may seem so. Political marketing can engage voters (Quelch and Jocz, 2007). Franz et al (2002) agrees that political communication engages the voters. It keeps them involved as opposed to them not knowing anything about the candidates they will be expected to vote for. Throughout the process, voters are kept up to date. Candidates, in their campaigns, directly address the voters and are talking to them to engage them. Moreover, now social media such as websites and even offline media are used where voters are physically engaged. A list of marketing benefits for voters is given in the diagram below. Furthermore, political communication mobilizes the people (Franz et al, 2002). It keeps them together – they are all in it together and it activates them. As discussed above, they are engaged and updated throughout the time. To take it a little further, Franz et al (2002) in their book calls television adverts the “multivitamin for American Democracy” because they are “attractively (and expertly) packaged, simple to comprehend, easy to digest” (p. 23). Furthermore, as far as negative and attack advertisements are concerned, they are found to be especially effective in getting people to vote because it gives them choice (Quelch and Jocz, 2007). The adverts mostly address policy matters and are simply ads about the other candidate (Franz et al, 2002). They are also sometimes targeted at the candidate’s family and may direct at the candidates emotional weakness or break down, if there is one in response to negative advertisements. However, the citizens of a country are smart enough to know which weakness of the other candidate will have the greatest impact on them and in reasoning and prioritizing, they keep these in mind. In an earlier paragraph, specific mention has been given to ‘neutral people’. These are people who have no preconceived notions about any candidate or political party. If given the opportunity, they might not even vote at all because of either their lack of interest in politics or not having sufficient information about political candidates. These people are known in Franz et al’s (2002) book as politically unsophisticated people and enough evidence from their study is provided in the book that suggests that campaign or political ads are especially significant for the these people because it can capture their attention, generate their interest, inform them and at ultimately get them to vote. Also, then it gives all people equal choice and rights for voting which is termed as Inclusion (Quelch and Jocz, 2007). Additionally, in my opinion, when candidates market themselves, present original ideas, address the people, address policy matters and give creative advertisements, they seem intelligent and approachable to the general public. An intelligent and original campaign can make way for creating buzz in the market. These candidates are talked about and their advertisements may even generate anticipation within the electorate. On the other hand, if no such campaign marketing is carried out and no candidate comes up to the marketing expectations of the electorate, then people have no other choice but to vote based on bland marketing using candidate name recognition as a basis for voting. Therefore, there are many reasons why political communications must be carried out and how they help democracy. At the pivot of it, such campaigns keep the people informed from where other democratic advantages are achieved. (A comprehensive compilation of the six marketing benefits for voters is presented in Figure 1). In assessing its effectiveness for democracy, we need to ask ourselves what we will prefer – staying informed or being kept in the dark. Figure 1 Six Benefits of Marketing (Source: adapted from Quelch and Jocz, 2007) Conclusions In the preceding paragraphs, we have seen arguments against political communications and its effects on democracy followed by arguments for it. To summarize, ways how political advertising destabilizes democracy is by manipulating people into making voting choices and turning them off altogether by flooding them with the number of regular political ads and negative appeals. Arguments for political advertising and its impact on democracy are that campaign marketing keeps the electorate informed, it keeps them up to date and engages them, it mobilizes and activates them, it gives them reasons to believe in political candidates, and it may help the politically unsophisticated into making better decisions. At a glance, there are many more reasons why political advertising must be given as opposed to why it should not be. Looking into more detail, again it is logical and plain to see that political communication will support democracy more than undermine it. It is true that it will impact voter behavior in the sense that they will vote, however, not much can be said about whether campaign advertising influences vote choice and election outcomes. That is a separate story altogether but has grounds for more research. Nevertheless, having had considered the arguments presented above, I conclude that Political Advertising indeed supports democracy. Quelch and Jocz, (2010) agrees that marketing techniques are crucial for enhancing and facilitating a democratic process. However, techniques alone are not enough and the vehicles used along with the content of the ads and its message are likely to lead to the success of the candidate or party. Though we have established that political communications are good for democracy, there are still a number of factors that are missing and must be looked into further. My first insight is that although political advertising has a positive impact on democracy as it is, most of it also depends on the kinds of ads that are shown to people. It would have a greater impact if some regulations could be followed. For instance, it would be so much more effective if adverts were backed up by evidence. It would be so much easier for the people to make decisions if they knew that what they were given was the truth and nothing else. Therefore, there must be regulations governing the content of the ads – especially regulations for the truth told in advertisements- so that democracy can be supported in its true essence. Also having had read up on the text provided by Franz et al (2002) on American democracy, it is plain to see that a lot if left for further examination especially conditional relationships such as which types of voters are more likely to respond to negative appeals. Moreover there are many other political fundamentals that still need to be looked into. Judging from the political advertisement campaigns that have been carried out in the past, competitive campaigns are those that show more ads than the opponents and particularly include more negative appeals. What needs to be examined, however, whether and how strategic political leaders respond to each other throughout a campaign in the context of their advertising decisions. Conversely, going into this area might be considered a bit of a digression. Therefore, to conclude, I propose that less marketing is really not what is required in politics right now –it is better marketing that is needed. Advertising supports democracy as it is but it would enhance it further is these advertisements are driven by existing and emerging people’s needs, some advertising regulations, plans for development and information for citizens about them. Bibliography Franz, M. M. Freedman, P. B., Goldstein K. M., and Ridout., T. M. 2007. Campaign Advertising and American Democracy. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Jamieson, K. H. 1993. Dirty Politics. London: Oxford University Press. OShaughnessy, N. and Henneberg, S. C. M. 2002. The Idea of Political Marketing. USA: Greenwood Publishing Groups OShaughnessy, N., Scammell, M. and Henneberg, S. C. M. 2009. Political Marketing Management and Theories of Democracy. Theory of Marketing, 9(2), pp. 165-188. Quelch, J. A and Jocz, K. E. 2007. Greater good: how good marketing makes for better democracy. Harvard Business Press. Wymer, W. W. and Lees-Marshment, J. 2006. Current Issues in Political Marketing. Binghampton, NY: Routledge. Armstrong, S. 2010. General Election 2010: The best election ad campaigns. The Guardian [Online] 10 May. Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/may/10/general-election-2010-advertising [Accessed November 1, 2010]. Brasch, W. 2010. American TV Political Ads: Ditching Democracy 30 Seconds at a Time Mathaba [Online] 18 Oct. Available from: http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=625062 [Accessed November 1, 2010]. Johnston, N. 2010. Obama Says Anonymously Financed Campaign Ads `Destructive to Democracy. Bloomberg. [Online] 18 Sep. Available from: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-18/obama-says-anonymously-financed-campaign-ads-destructive-to-democracy.html 2010. Special Notices on Political Ads and Solicitations. Federal Election Commission. [Online]. Available from: http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/notices.shtml [Accessed November 1, 2010]. Read More