Communicating Politics

COMMUNICATING POLITICS
RREZART LAHI
Rrezart Lahi
COMMUNICATING IN POLITICS
Researches, theories and essays

Democracy Influence on Political Communication DIPA Theoretical Model Developed
Powered by International Centre for Campaign Strategy Communicating Politics Copyright 2011 by Rrezart Lahi
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All rights reserved
Correspondence concerning this book should be addressed to Rrezart Lahi MSc , Department of Political Studies, International Centre for Campaign Strategy, Rr: Sami Frasheri, Pall: 20/3, Ap: 2, Shk: 2, Tirana, Albania. E-mail: rrezartlahi@yahoo.com, website: rrezartlahi.webs.com
Special Thanks to Nicoleta Anton MSc University of Amsterdam
Publisher: ICCS Research Centre: No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher or author.
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Short Biography of the Author Rrezart Lahi is a communication researcher mostly focused in political communication and campaign strategies. He is a lecturer at state Tirana University and he contributed successfully in the campaigns of 2009 and 2011 as image and strategist consultant. After graduating for Journalism he developed his academic knowledge at University of Amsterdam in European Communication. Apart of working for several years as journalist, chief editor, news director and general director of some Medias he also worked for international organizations such as OSCE/ODIHR, DTRA and US Government. In 2011 he founded the International Centre for Campaign Strategy, a research and consultancy organization mostly focused on political and promotional campaigns. In 2012 Rrezart Lahi is expected to publish his next book Affecting Politics where he places in practices the main theories about political communication, marketing, spin-doctors etc.
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Index
Political Advertising: How New and Old Democracies Make Use of It.....8 Introduction .9 Theoretical framework 14 Grouping democracies.16 Politics, media and citizens..17 Political Marketing ..22 Modernization of the campaign24 Format of Political Advertising28 Model of democracy influence in political advertising30 Method..35 Selection of countries . .35 Sample .38 Coding .39 Results...................................41 Discussion.................................58 References ....62 Is Political Marketing beneficial or detrimental for democracy?...............................73 1. 2. 3. Introduction.....73 Defining Political Marketing ....................................................................76
Arguments .....................................................................................................78
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3.1 Is style killing content?.............................................................................79 3.2 Spreading or distorting information..80 3.3 Interaction or lack of identity ...81 3.4 Is negativity positive in PM? ...83 3.5 Technology with a click84 3.6 Funding..86 3.7 Invading or being invaded.....87 3.8 Anybody seen ethics?...............................................................................88 4. Discussion89 5. References91 Obama vs. Mc Cain ; Where does their campaign advertising differ?.....................95 1. 2. 2.1 2.2 2.3 3. 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Introduction ...........................................................................................................95 Method.....100 Material.....................................................................................................100 Procedure ..................................................................................................100 Analysis ....................................................................................................100 Results ..................................................................................................................100 Tone ..........................................................................................................101 Content ......................................................................................................101 Background and editing.............................................................................104 Camera angle..............................................................................................104 Use of American flags................................................................................106
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4. 5.
Conclusion and Discussion..................................................................................119 Bibliography 123
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Political Advertising: How New and Old Democracies Make Use of It
Abstract This study investigates for the first time the influence of democracy on political advertising comparing the spots on Albania and Kosovo with the ones in Greece and Italy. Politicians employ different techniques to shape their message according to the contexts at hand. One of them is democracy, the maturity of which highly affects political actors, media and citizens, which all represent the essence of political communication. By introducing a model of democracy influence on political advertising (D.I.P.A.), this research evokes an innovative approach largely supported by results. Findings clearly show that in emerging democracies spots are dominated by leaders. New and old democracies differ on videostyle or in the issue they use or the way how they try to persuade the citizens. On the other hand, the conflictual environment on new democracies did not generate high level of negative spots. This 7|Page
study shows that the post-authoritarian countries are still led by the individualization of the campaign whereas developed democracies make their political offer to the voters based on party identity.
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Introduction One of the key missions of political advertising is to distinguish a candidate image or issue stand from its opponent, and it is best used in democracy where there is free political competition (Atkin and Heald, 1976). Political advertising has been a subject studied by a vast majority of scholars in several aspects such as issues versus images (Gross et al 2001), negative advertising (Pinkleton, 1997), videostyle (Kaid and Johnston, 2001) and electoral effects (Goldstein and Freedman, 2002). Surprisingly, all these components, until now, have not been explored in the light of another catalysing aspect such as the system where they find their best use, democracy itself. Thus, this study investigates for the first time the influence of democracy on political advertising by exploring each element that constitutes a political commercial. The political communication system was
investigated in the light of emerging and established democracies (Esser and Pfetsch, 2004; Voltmer, 2006), a perspective which scholars of political advertising did not develop. Therefore, a comparison of political advertising between new and old democracies is expected to stimulate a 9|Page
new area of research filling the perceived gap before mentioned. This would lead to scientific expectations and theoretical frameworks for the effect of democracy as a system in the way how politicians shape their messages through videospots. The main theoretical argument presented here is that political establishment, media and citizens, key aspects of political communication, differ between new and old
democracies. The consolidation of democracy leads the political actions toward consensual attitude (Linz and Stepan, 1996a). Responsibility and transparency are higher (Tavits, 2007) whereas the political interference on independent institutions and political negative language decreases. Developing a democracy means also increasing media freedom and
independence but also making citizens accept democracy as the main rule (Linz and Stepan, 1996b). As detailed later in the theoretical section, the process of shaping politics, media and citizens affects political communication and moreover political advertising. Drawing on this I argue that it is of the utmost importance to study to what extent political advertising, as a tool of political communication, interacts with democracy.
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Political advertising could have similar features in the United States, Canada, or the United Kingdom but it is less possible to have the same shape as in new democracies such as in Russia, Montenegro, or Bosnia-Herzegovina, where other technique, political language, and strategy are used. The increasing interest about political advertising had several reasons which included the impact of political actions in citizens life and the rapid increase of expenses in marketing politicians. Parties spend fifty to more than seventy five percent of the campaign funds on political advertising trying to persuade the voters through media messages (Kaid and Johnston, 2001). In order to really distinguish the extent of influence of democracy on political advertising I analyzed different countries in two stages: when a democracy is transitional and when it is established. First this study aims to understand whether new democracies reflect in political spots the conflictual, authoritarian and populist atmosphere that usually dominates the path of consolidation. Moreover, investigating if economic and social needs of new and old democracies approach political advertising into two different ways could reveal practical changes between two groups. These essential 11 | P a g e
issues will be best addressed by the main research question of how new and old democracies make use of political advertising. The answer will be given by outlining the differences and similarities between new and old democracies, based on theoretical frameworks offered by some of the leading political communication researchers (Esser and Pfetsch, 2004; Gurevitch and Blummer, 2004). Furthermore I introduce here a model of democracy influence on political advertising (D.I.P.A), an approach grounded on the theories of political
communication. Therefore the dual goal of this research is to develop the theoretical literature of the current field but also to support empirically and make the first step on investigating the effects of democracy on political advertising. For this purpose, the current study investigated political spots (N=120) in new and old democracies using content analyzes method. As countries with emerging
democracies, were selected the two Balkan countries Albania and Kosovo whereas as established ones Italy and Greece. These four countries can be clearly grouped as new or old democracies based on the definition given later. The findings will serve to test the theoretical model presented in this study but also as a
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new perspective for political scholars, communication experts, marketing strategists or political actors. This research will develop future expectations about key components that change between new and old democracies political advertising. Theoretical framework The theoretical framework of political advertisings dependence on democracy is in its first steps, thus this study aims to contribute into a fairly unexplored territory.
Nevertheless, many political communication researchers have established models of the comparative studies between democracies, building the basis for further focus on political advertising (Esser and Pfetsch, 2004; Gurevitch and Blummer, 2004). After presenting the main literature on political communication, this study will develop a model which shows the link between political advertising and democracy. Political advertising and political marketing are central aspects of political communication; therefore this study will first examine a broader relation, namely the one between political communication and the democratic process. To achieve common understanding, the different definitions of political 13 | P a g e
communication can be simplified to the term political language (Graber, 1981) but also to verbal, written or visual means that constitute a political identity or image (McNair, 1999). The first relevant step in comparing political communication was 35 years ago by Blummer and Gurevitch (1975), who suggested that an international comparative perspective is crucial. Further, Graber (1993) asserted that without comparative research, political communication cannot be studied due to the fact that different countries have different contexts. This study argues that democracy is one of them. When analyzed in relation to democracy, political
communication appeared to be different in several countries (Gunther and Mugham, 2000). The editors of several influential comparative studies Esser and Pfetsch (2004) pointed out that political communication depends more on what is called new and old democracies than on other issues. Investigating this path, we first focus on democracy and its definitions followed by political communication literature.
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Grouping democracies It is neither easy to define what new and old democracy means, nor to agree to which one a country belongs. However, drawing upon Huntingtons (1991) theoretical framework, there are three waves in which the transition to democracy occurred. In this study old democracies are considered those countries which belong to the first (18281926), second (1943-1964) or the beginning of the third wave (1974-1990) of democracy. On the other hand, as new democracies are classified those countries which changed from autocratic regimes during the end of the third wave (1990) or as some scholars argue in the fourth wave of democratization (Brown, 2000; McFaul, 2002). Democracy is considered a system, as reported by Dahl (1971), which has at least: a) extensive competition for all offices through regular fair and free elections, b) a high inclusive participation when leaders are selected and where no social group is left out c) liberties such as freedom of press, thought, and demonstration. However, only free and fair elections do not constitute a consolidated democracy (Linz and Stepan, 1996a). Drawing on Linz and Stepan (1996b), a 15 | P a g e
democracy is established only when people consider democratic principles and institutions as the only game in town. In this perspective, Shin and Wells (2005) added that democracy involves the transformation of political institutions and cultural values.
Politics, media and citizens Established democracies have a long history of competition path in free elections and a different political culture from emerging democracies. This culture is crucial to understand how political messages are encoded (Gurevitch and Blummer, 2004). According to Gurevitch and Blummer (2004) the main significance about comparing two systems of political communication is to expose how political culture impinges on the language embedded inside media messages. These authors noticed that the language and vocabulary of politicians in democracy is mainly different between consolidated and emerging democracies because of the roots of their political communication culture (Gurevitch and Blummer, 2004). A concept of dynamic interaction between politics, media and
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audience, (Blummer and Gurevitch, 1995), forms the basis of political communication which depends on the performance of each one of these actors (Voltmer, 2006). There are several theoretical characteristics for new democracies. First, political establishment is moulded by political internal conflict, high level of division (Linz and Stepan, 1996a) and intolerance which is also reflected in political communication. During the transition from controlledstate to democratic system, the same individuals or parties that ruled previously are involved in the new developments (Voltmer, 2006). In contrast to an established democracy, the party system is shaped by political organizations that support autocratic elements into the government system (Klingemann and Hofferbert, 2000 in Fuchs and Klingermann, 2006). High levels of populism are a typical characteristic of leaders in new democracies, who use widespread support to constrain, distort or even suspend democracy (Wayland, 1999). Consequently, all these characteristics might lead to specific tactics during campaigning and influence how political communication, marketing, or advertising is done in these emerging democracies. The weakness of the parties causes the 17 | P a g e
increase of populism because they face few institutional obstacles on the way to the leadership of the party whereas strong parties obstruct the rise of these political actors (Wayland, 1999). With the modernization of the campaign, a weakness of the parties is seen also in established democracies (Farrel, Kolodny and Medvic, 2001; Gibson and Rmmele, 2001; Plasser, 2001) thus more populist mavericks leading the political landscape by personalizing it. Second, new and old democracies differ also in the media performance, the other pillar of political communication. The media in new democracies experienced essential political pressure, self-censorship, media bias (Krasnoboka and Brants, 2006) and often offer an extremely aggressive style, not because of the watchdog function but as an attempt to show their independence from political actors (Voltmer, 2006). Albeit the way to democratic consolidation, governments tend to control the media, especially TV, with methods similar to those used in the previous regime (Voltmer, 2006) whereas media in Western democracies have more autonomy and professionalism
(Karlekar, 2006). Since media freedom reflects the level of democracy, its consolidation mirrors in the performance of the
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media. As Voltmer (2006) puts it the way in which politicians package their message to voters is much a response to the demands and needs of the citizens as a function of the routines of the media (p. 7). In a conceptual perspective, values and political beliefs are converted into mediating orientation that has an effect on how citizens respond to political alternatives (Puntam, 1993). According to Voltmer (2006), voters react to the form, content, and quality of the massage sent by politicians through the media. The response might be different because the authoritarian countries were not given the same time for historical evolution as developed Western democracies, such as the cases of post-communist societies in East Europe (Merkel, 1998). It is obvious that some emerging democracies need to have a major shift in their political culture in order to consolidate their democracy (Klingermann, Fuchs, Fuchs and Zielonka, 2006). After collecting data for the concept of democracy in post-authoritarian countries, researchers elicited that their population perception was closer to autocracy rather than to democracy (Klingermann, Fuchs, Fuchs and Zielonka, 2006). 19 | P a g e
Moreover, the authors asserted that established democracies need democrats to be built and that citizens make the difference between two levels of democracy. In the Fuchs and Klingermann (2006) reports, citizens of new democracies showed less civic engagement, less trust in others and less lawabidingness. Using gratification theory, studies indicated that the effects of political advertising are extremely conditioned by the political attitude of the voters (McNair, 1999). In addition, Kaid (2004) note that the cultural constrains combined with political and media system influence determine the extent and the speed to which democracies adopt political advertising as key feature of the political campaigns. During electoral campaigns, citizens perception is analyzed, and the new message is shaped often based on political marketing tools creating this way, a circle of information from politics to voters and via verse. This model of interaction between three actors outlined above, politics media and citizens is considered by Voltmer (2006) as a guide when analyzing political communication in different contexts and particularly suited for new democracies. Also theories of
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agenda-setting suggest that political agenda is set by the juxtaposition of these three key elements (Norris, 1999).
Political Marketing Emerging democracies experienced massive floating voters preference (Diamand, Linz and Lipset, 1995) where important parties vanished from political environment in several election processes (Klingemann, Mochmann and Newton, 2000). Having weak organization structures (Plasser, 2001), fragile identity (Voltmer, 2006) or ideology, parties in new democracies are likely to adapt typical marketing techniques to their campaign, to hire political consultants for expertise (Swanson, 2004) and to personalize the campaign. In his book Key Concepts of Political Communication, Lilleker (2006) notes that political marketing is seen as the collapse of partisanship and as a rise of consumerism in politics, in Western an Eastern democracies. It expresses the use of marketing philosophy, tools, and concepts, within electoral campaigning, policy development, or internal relations (Lilleker, 2006).
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Political marketing is one of the means of political communication as described in figure 1 (Maarek, 1995). By using marketing tools, politicians shape the message they want to communicate to voters and spread it out in the form of a public message or political advertising (Maarek 1995). Following Lilleker (2006), political advertising is defined as a piece of communication, using a range of media, designed to garner positive feelings towards the sponsors (p. 147). Clearly, when the level of democracy affects political communication, it may have the same impact on political marketing or political advertising. This paper links the theoretical frameworks built for political communication in democracy and deriving it to the influence of democracy on political spots.
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CONSUMER PRODUCTS
PO LITICAL CO MMUNICATO N P O L IT IC A L M A R K E T IN G
Political Advertising (Former Propaganda)
MARKETING
Advertising
Market surveys
Public Opinion Polls
Fig 1. Commercial and political marketing: two parallel strategies. (Maarek, 1995)
Modernization of the campaign In an influential article Blummer and Kavanagh (1999) argue that the modernization of political electioneering and the dependence of politicians on campaign experts are features of the third age of political communication. Facing a decline of party identification and an unstable electorate, parties need to put more effort into convincing their voters, by adapting sophisticated models of political marketing (Voltmer, 2006) often referred to as Americanization (Swanson and Manchini, 23 | P a g e
1996). These campaigns that emphasised the personality of the leader were studied in a comparative approach in many democracies (Kaid and Holtz-Bacha, 1995; Swanson and Mancini, 1996; Mazzoleni and Shultz, 1999). In established democracies the modernization of electioneering took place during several years having a partial adaptation, whereas new ones adopted it almost immediately and intact (Swanson, 2004). According to Voltmer (2006) Americanized campaigns suit the parties in emerging democracies since they lack effective communication departments. Several studies proved empirically that Americanized campaigning has been widely successful in new democracies (Espindola, 2006; Rawnsley, 2006). Moreover, Holtz-Bacha (2006) argues that new democracies show less resistance than old ones when adapting modern campaigning techniques. Thus, political advertising investigation is expected to prove that postauthoritarian countries have significant traces of Americanization, which is operationalized here as less focused in party identity, less issue oriented and targeting more the leader image.
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From a theoretical perspective, Swanson and Mancini (1996) provided five characteristics of modern campaigns: a) personalization of politics, b) scientification of the political scene, c) detachments of parties from citizens, d) independent communication structure and e) making of the political landscape more spectacular. Although in lower levels, Americanization is expected also in the spots of established democracies because they experienced several social and political challenges (Gurevitch and Blummer, 2004). Scholars expressed their concerns about the detrimental effect of political marketing risking on turning politicians into prisoners of that public opinion (McNair, 199, p. 38). A crucial concept in political advertising is the information they provide during a few seconds spot. The need for information is of paramount importance for citizens in transitional democracies (Voltmer, 2006). In her book Mass Media and Political Communication in New Democracies Voltmer (2006) also explains that after the fall of the regime in authoritarian countries, people face a high level of uncertainty whereas before they had high degree of politicization.
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Voltmer (2006) points out that voters of transitional democracies might be extremely vulnerable to media messages and have a different reaction to the political messages compared to Western democracies, since the latter have a stable relationship between politics, media and citizens. This heterogeneous feedback toward political message juxtaposed with political marketing techniques potentially lead to distinctive features of political advertising. Therefore this study expects to find more information in political spots in emerging democracies. Parties in new democracies face damaged party credibility from charges of corruption (Voltmer, 2006), thus political actors often try to avoid this reflection. The problem of corruption, could be a point of difference between two groups, in new democracies a major problem and in old ones a minor issue. Moreover, this study expects that the highly contested electoral campaigns (Espindola, 2006) and the conflictual nature of politics of new democracies (Linz and Stepan, 1996a), have an impact on political advertising, by making it more negative. Several researchers showed concerns about the increase in
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negative political spots, arguing that it discourages electorate turnout (Ansolabehere and Iyengar, 1997). Democracy has a strong relationship with economy development (Diamand, Linz and Lipset, 1995) and as Lipset (1994) notes, the wealth of a country and its modernity are among the crucial preconditions for the stability of a democracy. Hence, post-authoritarian countries are expected to deal with basic issues like infrastructure, salaries, visa regime whereas Western developed democracies might be focused on issues involving further development such as emigration, reforms on education, health or tax system. Therefore, this study addresses also the difference between new and old democracies in the issues they focus. Economic development is connected further with the welfare of the citizens, issues followed by media and topics raised by politicians in their electoral spots.
Format of Political Advertising McNair (1999) argues that since the image and personality of a candidate can shape voting behaviour, so does political advertising. In order to analyze the political 27 | P a g e
advertisement it is crucial to understand its categories and key features included in the codebook. First, Devlin (1986, in McNair 1999, p. 106) envisages three categories for the association strategy: a) Cinema verit spots portray the candidate in real life in interaction with other people, b) man-in-the-street spots are used when endorsement for a politician comes from ordinary citizens, c) testimonials political ads show respected and famous personalities whom support the candidate. Another category is added by Jamieson (1992, in McNair 1999, p. 106) that is d) neutral reporter spot which invites the voters to make a judgement based on facts about a candidate or his opponent. These categories were inserted on the codebook created for this research and only the significant ones are shown on the results section. Two of the most reputable scholars of political advertising, Holtz-Bacha and Kaid (1995), when studying spots in German elections, coded the political advertisements by their characteristics: a) for the dominant format (e.g., issue presentation, candidate statement), b) for the format of the production (e.g., studio presentation, testimonial) c) production
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technique (e.g., filmed outside), use of special effects and music. Results indicated that the parties were more images oriented and used more the format of candidate statement than presentation of issues. What links their study to this one is that the spots of East Germany (with a previous dictatorial political culture) and the ones of West Germany (a democratic political culture) drew out differences in many aspects between them. Differences where noticed on how candidates were evaluated and political video spots comprehended, in two areas of Germany. The authors argued that the explanation could lay in the differences in political background.
Model of democracy influence in political advertising As the societies on the road to democracy are increasing there is a need for a clear path of comparison with established democratic systems in respect of political
advertising. Based on the theories presented above this study aims to bring forward a model which integrates the main components of political communication ending up to political 29 | P a g e
advertising. As elicited in the foregoing arguments, crucial factors which influence political advertising are different in rising democracies and consolidated ones creating the possibility to put the basis for theoretical models. The effect of democracy on other components of political establishment is better visualised in figure 2, developed by the author, which shows the model of democracy influence on political advertising (D.I.P.A.). There are some boundaries that characterise this model which can be applicable only when a) used in democratic systems b) during electoral campaigns and c) other components of the model interact with democracy and political advertising.
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LEVEL O F DEMO CRACY
Political culture
Media
Citizens
Political communication system
Political marketing
Political Advertising
Fig 2. Model of Democracy Influence on Political Advertising (MDIPA)
This model shows that the direct impact of democracy is on political culture, media and citizens. The effect is also vice-verse, affecting democracy consolidation or stability. The interaction between political culture, media and citizens consolidates and thus the influences of political political
communication.
Moreover,
interaction
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communication with political marketing fosters political advertising. Several studies proved that political advertising has a significant influence on citizens (Norris, 1999) whereas political spots are affected by citizens through marketing techniques and political communication system (Maarek, 1995). Further, through the message and the political language used in the political advertising, political culture is affected. In sum, this study argues that all components described in D.I.P.A. model, influence each other creating a pyramid from democracy to political advertising. This model theorises that the democracy level affects all the other actors of this model including political advertising. This exploratory research does not intend to test every connection that this model presents but it rather examines the essential function of the top-bottom pyramid: to what extent democracy influences political advertising. In the future, other links which this study points out but does not develop can be further scrutinized. These bridges include the interaction between political marketing political culture, political
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marketing media or level of democracy political marketing. The main question of this research is further explored in six different aspects of political advertising to measure it accurately. They probe attention on negative spots, issues, images, personalization of the spots, persuasion methods and videostyle. By investigating all these key elements of political commercials, each of them discussed in the theory section, I intend to give a full-argued answer to the main research question.
RQ1: Is there a difference between new and old democracies when using negative advertising? RQ2: Are spots in new democracies more imageoriented than the ones in old democracies? RQ3: Do the issues used in political advertising differ between new and old democracies? RQ4: How new and old democracies persuade the voters through political advertising? 33 | P a g e
RQ5: Is the campaign more personalised in new democracies than in old ones? RQ6: Do new and old democracies differ in videostyles?
Method The present study used content analysis to answer the research questions. This is one of the most applied methods to understand political advertising (Kaid and Holtz-Bacha, 2006). Using qualitative data this research can provide accurate results of the differences and similarities of political ads, which cannot be obtained by qualitative analyzes. In this study the data were analyzed in SPSS using chi square tests. Selection of the countries, parties, and sources were crucial on avoiding bias and other variable influence. Selection of countries First, Albania and Kosovo were chosen because they can be considered beyond any doubt as new democracies but also because of my significant knowledge about their
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political campaigns. Although with different governments and flags, these two countries have the same language and similar culture and development. In this way the variable of cultural differences or geographical distance can be less influential in the outcome of political advertising as it would be if grouping Albania for example with Chile in new democracies. This study intended to take countries that are part of the same region and do not have extreme differences in national or political culture. Albania started its democratic process in the beginning of 1990 and is still considered by European institutions as a new democracy in development (Bahiti and Shahini, 2010). As described also in the theoretical section, the political establishment was leaded in the last twenty years by politicians that had influence since the post-authoritarian regime, which might have affected the political culture. Kosovo, the other Albanian region, actually the youngest country in the world, was ruled by Serbia until the war of 1999 and won its independence in 2008. Therefore, the political action is in the very first steps and its system is considered a fragile democracy (Holohan, 2005). Investigating Kosovo political advertising can be considered a unique case 35 | P a g e
because it is one of the first studies on the first electoral campaigns in the history of this country. These two countries are not members of European Union (EU) and are in continuous monitoring from EU institutions as countries in developing steps. Geographically close to these new democracies are two old ones: Italy and Greece. Although in the last years they faced significant economical (Greece) and media freedom problems (Italy), their democracy is considered consolidated (Papas, 1999). Italy began its democratic process after the Second World War whereas Greece in the middle of 1970s. Both these countries are part of the European Union meanwhile Italy is also part of G8, the top eight major industrialised democratic countries in the world (Hajnal, 2001). Democracy has a symbolic meaning for ancient Greece and Italy (Rome) since it is the place where this system was born and later developed. All four countries have the same media system characteristics as described by Hallin and Mancini (2004), Polarized Pluralist or in other words the Mediterranean model. Albania, Kosovo, Italy and Greece appear highly fascinating to be observed in the perspective of new and old
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democracy having each of them its differences and unique elements. Sample This research analyzed a total of 120 spots. There were several criteria for a spot to be selected. They must be official commercials published on the website of the sponsored party and shorter than four minutes. The sample contained 30 commercials from each country, which had been broadcasted in the elections of 2008-2009. This time frame was chosen to get the latest data of political advertising in these countries. One of the conditions was that half of spots had to be owned by incumbents and the other half from challengers in each country. This balance is used to avoid the bias that might come if the number of spots between incumbents and challengers would be different among two groups. The misbalance perhaps would affect the negativity of spots, image and issues focus or other element of the commercials. The political commercials were selected from the main official parties website. The researcher counted the latest 15 commercials published in the incumbents party website 37 | P a g e
during the first the campaign in 2008-2009. If the first incumbent party had less than fifteen spots, the researcher selected other commercials from the second incumbent party (based on previous elections results) until the number fifteen spots was reached. The same procedure was followed for the challenger parties and for each country. This study does not focus on how many times or in which media channels these political videospots were broadcasted but just on how politicians in new and old democracies shaped their messages through political ads. Coding The intercoder reliability was 0.92 calculated with Krippendorffs alpha. High agreement between coders has paramount importance when employing content analysis (Neuendorf, 2002). The codebook was created based on theories regarding to this topic and the on the key elements what this study wanted to investigate. This codebook and the table used in the result section were mostly influenced by Kaid and Johnston (2001).
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Several elements were recorded during coding process such as: the focus on issues or on images, which where the most stressed issues, which politicians applied more negative spots, appearance of leader, or spots personalization by the candidate or party. Videostyle was another crucial aspect of the coding which analyzed the format of the spot, its music, and its background. The category tone was divided in positive, negative and both. Negative ads were coded those spots which focused more on denigrating the opponent rather than putting values on the sponsor. Positive ads strengthen the image of the sponsor whereas with both were coded the spots which included assaults for the opponent and support for the sponsor candidate. Also with direct attack were coded the ads when the opponent was attacked directly by saying his name, surname, position or any other information that clearly shows who is the target. Indirect attack were coded there spots which did not have a precise target. In addition, another important category in this study is the videostyle used in political spots. First, the documentary style is a format which describes a chronological story, usually 39 | P a g e
the life of the candidate. The second format, cinema verit shows the leader meeting people. The feature film is a video production similar to a movie which has a storyboard. Still images spots are made of non-motion pictures. The fifth videostyle is graphical which includes all the spots that are made in its majority by graphical computer production. Next is the man on the street style, which shows ordinary people expressing their perception and thoughts about an issue or the candidate. And last is the leader speaking style in which the main candidate speaks to the camera or to the people. Results RQ1: Is there a difference between new and old democracies when using negative advertising? Albeit post-authoritarian countries theoretically are inclined to have a more intolerant and conflictual environment compared to old democracies they actually had more positive videospots. In two out of ten commercials, new democracies candidates attacked their opponents. As shown in table 1, contrary to theoretical expectations, there are less negative advertisements in new democracies. Mixed messages, which
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were found in 10% of the commercials, contained attack toward the opponent and positive information for the sponsor. Seven out of ten political spots were used to improve the candidates image and to bring positive feeling toward the sponsor. Table 1. Negative and Advertisement in New and Old Democracies
Type of spot Dem
New Dem
Old
(N=60) Negative Positive Mixed Total percentage 20% 70% 10% 100%
(N=60) 28 % 59 % 13 % 100 %
On the other side, old democracies were slightly more negative in the political spots attacking in 28 % of the spots. 41 | P a g e
More than one (13%) in ten commercial were mixed with negative and positive messages whereas 58% of the videospots were totally positive. In total, old democracy political ads contained 8 % more negative messages than the ones in emerging democracies. For most researchers these results might sound surprising which show that old democracies do more conflictual campaigning using more negative tone in the political message. Despite the diversity noted above, the chi square test showed no significant difference between emerging and established democracies when negative advertisements are examined. RQ2: Are spots in new democracy more imageoriented than the ones in old democracy? The orientation toward image or issues has been one of the most studied areas in political advertising (Kaid and Johnston, 2001). Although populism and individualism are expected to be more influential in new democracies, these countries were less image oriented compared to developed democracies (table 2). 48 % of the commercials were focused on issues, both in new and old democracies. Some spots had mixed stressing both the image and the issue, an element observed
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more often in new democracies. Again data shows that new and old democracies do not change when using image and issues spots. Table 2. Image vs. Issues in New and Old Democracies Focus on New Dem (N=60) Image Issue Both 37% 48% 15% Old Dem (N=60) 44 % 48 % 8% 100 %
Total percentage 100%
RQ3: Do the issues used in political advertising differ between new and old democracies? The findings support the expectations based on theory that the differences in economy and country development
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influence political advertising. The chi square test showed significant difference between the two groups about the use of issues (table 3). New democracies heavily stressed on social problems in the political ads in 42% of them (X2 = 6.541, df = 1, p < .05). In developed democracies social issues were a second hand subject and were used in only 30 % of the spots. Table 3. Fields of Issues Focus on New Dem (N= 90) Social issues * Economical issues Political issues Other 38 Spots 19 15 18 29 18 8 Old Dem (N= 79) 24
Note: A political spot can be focused in more than one issue. * p < .05 Moreover the opposite situation is when talking about economics. Politicians in new democracies focused on
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economic issues in two out of ten commercials (21%) whereas campaigns in established ones used economical topics in 37% of the spots. This difference can be explained by the dissimilar contexts and priorities that these two groups have. Emerging democracies possibly have crucial needs for social service meanwhile developed democracies facing economical
instabilities give their rational choice for economical issues like taxes, banks or salaries.
Table 4. Issue Focus Style New Dem (N=98) Corruption * Abuse of power Salaries Health Education * Taxes 8 Spots 7 4 6 14 4 6 8 45 | P a g e Old Dem (N=62) 1 6 5 1
Employment* Foreign affairs Environment Infrastructure *** Emigration Visa * Traditional Values * * p < .05, *** p < .001
17 3 8 20 0 5 2
8 4 11 2 2 0 8
Each of the main issues where divided into smaller subjects to create a base for better understanding on the topics mostly used in political ads. As expected, new democracies are concerned about corruption making a significant difference when compared to old democracies (X2 = 5.886, df = 1, p < .05). The second topic where chi square found significance was the education (X2 = 3.840, df = 1, p < .05). New democracies did focus more on the system of education often promising reforms and investments in this sector. The most significant difference was found in the topic of infrastructure (X2 = 18.033, df = 1, p < .001), such as
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building roads, schools, hospitals, and water supply systems (table 4). New democracies focused significantly also in the employment (X2 = 4.093, df = 1, p < .05) and the visa issue (X2 = 5.217, df = 1, p < .05). On the other side established democracies were more likely to change from new democracies when stressing their traditional values and history (X2 = 3.927, df = 1, p < .05). RQ4: How new and old democracies persuade the voters through political advertising? Table 5 shows that post-authoritarian democracies based their spots on past achievements (X2 = 12.102, df = 1, p < .001) and future promises (X2 = 9.600, df = 1, p < .01). New democracies consider information as an important element when creating a videospot. Results suggest that the new democracies commercials contain more detailed information when compared with old democracies (X2 = 4.518, df = 1, p < .05).
Table 5. 47 | P a g e
Focus of Image Focus on New Dem (N= 65) Past achievements * Experience Abilities Character Future promises * * p < .05 19 6 4 8 28 Old Dem (N=24) 4 1 2 5 12
Emerging democracies use the information in order to offer voters more rational arguments. In addition chi square test showed that Albania and Kosovo were more rational in their spots (X2 = 13.393, df = 1, p < .001) compared to Italy and Greece which produced more emotional advertisements (X2 = 12.063, df = 1, p < .001). The information given in new democracies campaigns was further developed on offering solutions for the issues they raise. Albeit solution element is
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more often noticed in emerging democracies, the difference is not significant.
RQ5: Is the campaign more personalised in new democracies than in old ones? Modernization or Americanization produces more personalized campaigns focusing on the candidate rather than on the party. As assumed in the theoretical section, postauthoritarian countries are more likely to adapt Americanization techniques due to fragile parties identity and a decline of party identification; therefore there is a tendency of personalization of the campaign by the leaders. This expectation is supported by the findings of this study. First, new democracies focus on candidates rather than on parties. The leaders appear twice the amount of time compared to their peers in developed democratic systems. Despite old democracies having more image ads, the time they use for the leader appearance is lower than the one for spots in new democracies. This element confirms the expectation of
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more individualism and personalization of the campaign by the main candidates which is also a technique of Americanization. Graphic in figure 3 shows that advertisements of old democracies emphasise more the role of the party. Chi square test confirm that the difference is highly significant (X2 = 12.862, df = 1, p < .05) when using image ads. Videospots in old democracies highlight both the image of the party and the candidate in the same commercial, thus creating more balance between them. The double image is rarely used in postauthoritarian countries.
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Figure 3: Focus of the image Leaders in new democracies appear almost in two out of three commercials (58%) and once each three seconds. Politicians in established democracies are present in one out of three commercials (35%), once each ten seconds, creating this way a significant difference (X2 = 9.631, df = 1, p < .01). Candidates names in new democracies spots are mentioned 23 % more than in old democracies. Second, the party symbol, the logo, is applied more rarely in new democracies with a mean of 5, 5 seconds per spot. On the other hand old democracies use the party logo almost three times more often, with a mean of 14, 62 seconds per spot. Moreover the name of the party is mentioned more often in old democracies with a significant change (X2 = 17.778, df = 5, p < .01). Emerging democracies avoid mentioning the name of the party in six commercials out of ten. Alternatively, old democracies emphasise the name in 61% of the political spots. Third, politicians in both groups usually attacked the opponent directly by mentioning his or her name, or position. What personalizes the campaign is that the attack of new 51 | P a g e
democracies was focused on the opponent candidate rather than in the opponent party, a significant change compared to old democracies spots (X2 = 4.368, df = 1, p < .05). Table 6 shows that old democracies use negative commercials to assault opposite parties, a method rarely applied by post-authoritarian politicians (X2 = 7,703, df = 1, p < .01). Italy and Greece attacked their opponents mostly on their issues rather than on their image (X2 = 4.289, df = 1, p < .05). Moreover the spot assault is significantly different on the reason why is done. New democracies attack their opponents because of their characteristics (X2 = 7.511, df = 1, p < .01) whereas old ones attack because of opponents issues stand (table 7). Table 6. Target of Negative Spots Message target New Dem (N=24) Opponent candidate* Opponent party ** Opponent issue* 13 Spots 2 9 Old Dem (N=43) 10 13 20
Note: Some spots were focused in more than one element. * p < .05, ** p < .01
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Table 7. The Purpose of Attack Message target New Dem (N=33) Opponents characteristics** Opponents issue Opponents affiliation Opponents performance ** p < .01 9 Spots 10 3 11 Old Dem (N=34) 3 18 1 12
RQ6: Do these two groups differ in video style? Personalization of the campaign can be clearly noticed also in the videostyle chosen for the political spots. The data from 120 commercials confirmed that the new and old democracies communicate differently with the public through political ad format (X2= 23.282, df = 7, p < .01). Politicians in post-authoritarian countries used more the leader speaking style which emphasizes the role of the candidate by describing 53 | P a g e
his or her qualities, experience or vision about different issues (table 8). Leader speaking was used in 38% of new democracy commercials whereas developed democracies applied this format just in 13% of the ads. The most applied style in Italian and Greek commercials were graphic advertisements overruling with 30%. This style was used in 12 % of Albanian and Kosovo political spots. Table 8. Videostyle Style New Dem (N=60) Documentary Cinema verite Feature film Still images Graphics Men on the street Leader speaking Other Total percentage 5% 15% 7% 3% 12% 13% 38% 7% 100% Old Dem (N=60) 0% 22% 17% 8% 30% 3% 13% 7% 100 %
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An interesting fact is that 5% of new democracy spots contained information about leaders life since birth, introducing them to the public. This format categorised as documentary had no single use in old democracy videostyle. In addition, new democracies used man on the street, ordinary people supporting the leader, in 13% of the political spots whereas old democracies just in 3% of them. The interesting division of ads in videostyle confirms the expectation that new democracies put much more stress on the role of the leader compared to old democracy by broadcasting the leader talking to the people. Despite the different style between two groups of democracies they have the same trend on the musical style or its personalization. Figure 4 shows that the most used music is a sound repeated in most of the spots but not created specifically for the campaign. However both groups had musical products created just for the campaign but the difference was not significant. An important element in creating a style of a commercial is its length. Political spots in Albania and Kosovo resulted shorter than the ones in Greece and Italy. New democracy countries had a mean of 41 seconds per spot whereas 55 | P a g e
established ones have 63 seconds per spot or 54% longer. Nevertheless the chi square test showed that the difference is not significant. I argue here that new and old democracies differ significantly in the videostyle whereas in music personalisation and length of a spot the change is not scientifically relevant.
Figure 4: Personalisation of the music
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Discussion This study examined the connection of democracy with political advertising by seeing the differences and similarities in new and old democracies. Results suggested that new democracy spots are more personalized by the leader weakening the role of the party during a political campaign. Hence new and old democracies changed significantly in many aspects such as issues, information they provide, leader appearance or videostyle they choose. Actually, these findings created the first empirical data to support D.I.P.A model presented in the current article, which suggest a path of interaction of democracy with political advertising. Literature served as a base to create the expectations which connected the theory with the outcome of the quantitative results. The main surprising result not consistent with the theory was that the conflictual environment in new democracies did not generate more negative spots. The Americanization of the campaign was seen more often in new democracies by personalizing every aspect of it. Politicians in emerging democracies were the point of 57 | P a g e
reference in a majority of political spots. They mostly talked in person to the public during the commercials, described their lives to the voters, and showed their past achievements or future promises. Politicians in developing democracies tried to avoid the name and the image of the party within a spot. These findings suggest that new democracies are mostly focused on leaders and old ones on parties, based on the evolution of democracy as a crucial variable. The development of a country along with democracy proved to be essential on influencing the issues used on political spots. Drawing upon D.I.P.A model political advertising can be also affected by the citizens and the problems they face. Hence, the significant difference noticed here can be explained by the difference that these countries have in economy and democracy progress. The implication of this research contributes to understand better contextual variables which influence political advertising. Albeit the present study can be used for further investigation on this area there are some limitations to be addressed. First the geographical selection of Balkan countries might differ in outcome from other parts of the world and thus
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the extent to which these findings can be generalised needs further confirmation. Second, the countries selected especially in the old democracies category have national characteristics that might affect the results. In Greece, during the elections of 2009, the economic crisis was the headline of political language which might influence the issue focus. In Italy the personalization of the campaign by the actual Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, might have increased the real use of image spots in established democracies, filling the gap expected from the theory. Third, advertisements were analysed only during two year elections in four countries. The extension of this time-frame in some years or decades might confirm or not, the main outcomes of this research. And last, this study explored only TV political spots therefore political advertising in posters, billboards, newspapers or radios would made wider the understanding of D.I.P.A model. In conclusion, the notion of democracy influence on political advertising was drawn through the whole study and supported by the results. This is an important step toward further exploration of political spots in democracy. In the future several 59 | P a g e
elements can be scrutinized such as the difference in language use between leaders, the use of populism, or the effects of voters in new and old democracies. This study aimed to open a new perspective on political advertising and to bring forward the use of theoretical expectations as powerful tool for political consultants when campaigning in new or old democracies.
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Is Political Marketing Beneficial or Detrimental for Democracy?
Where is the limit? When asking a simple question we might face a difficult answer. To be able to say whether political marketing helps democracy or threatens it, one should consider the fine line between influencing and manipulating the voters, and where to draw the borderline between these two. According to Harrop (1990), the elections which took place in the last decades have made marketing inevitable in politics. Moreover, with each election, politicians must struggle evermore to re-win previous voters, except new ones, by using sophisticated communication channels (Mazzoleni & Schulz, 2001). In order to achieve their goals, Graf (2008) argues that
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politicians have always embraced the latest technology available to influence voters . Political parties use at least 50 to 70 % of the campaign funds on advertising (Simpson, 2008). However, political marketing means more than just a number of paid commercials. It includes the marketing and public relations efforts done on a daily basis by experts in these fields, which help or influence people to decide for whom to vote. In a previous study conducted by Harrop (1990), 31% of people who voted for the first time accepted that TV influenced their choice, while 18% of all electors gave them an idea for which party to vote . Despite the claims of some researchers that marketing drives the ranking in elections, it is rather difficult to prove this due to other different variables that affect voters attitudes (Scammell, 1999; Lock & Harris, 1996). The use of political marketing helps voters decide what image to vote, due to the fact that they rarely meet a candidate personally (Kotler, 1982). Marketing can be considered part of the democratic process, since it implies that there is competition and every candidate stands equal rights to be chosen. Nevertheless, there are some issues such as 73 | P a g e
disinformation, the use of privacy data, manipulation, the influence of supporting lobbies in creating laws, which raise important concerns about the effects of political marketing over democracy. Although it is generally accepted that political marketing is the most powerful tool in modern politics, several researchers criticise it for the detrimental effects it has on democracy (Devine, 2008; Simpson, 2008). Moreover,
campaign strategists or political media advisers participate in an ongoing debate for their role in manipulating the information or using dishonest practices to improve their party image or/and damaging their opponents. Concerning the same issue, there are several points of view of different authors which will be considered further on. For instance, technology development is seen by Howard (2006) like an increasingly used way of manipulating and consequently threatens democracy. On the other hand, Simpson (2008) assumes that the use of the latest developments in technology in political marketing increases participation and makes people more active in the decision making process.
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In light of all that is written above, a primary goal of this essay is to evaluate what the consequences of political marketing on democracy are and how they are shaped. Also, for a better understanding of the arguments which will be presented further on and on the entire context in which this paper addresses its issue, a detailed definition of political marketing will be presented. 2. Defining Political Marketing In order to be able to study the effect of political marketing on democracy, one first needs to understand what the subject of analysis is. Scammell (1999), for instance, suggests that there is no general consensus either about the definition of political marketing, nor whether it includes the everyday job of public relations specialists, spin-doctors or other media experts who work for different organisations. In his article, The marriage of politics and marketing, Lees-Marshment (2001) proves that there is a combination of two disciplines, which contain elements of both marketing and politics. Moreover, political marketing is defined as a tool that political parties use in order to achieve their goals (Lees75 | P a g e
Marshment, 2001). Political marketing consists of creating the belief that a party has the ability to lead. Field experts of both opposition and government manage to create this image by employing various marketing strategies. In addition, among their best qualities are competence, reliability and consistency. Furthermore, political marketing is considered to be more broad that just communication, connected also with political party behaviour (Lees-Marshment, 2001). Almost five decades earlier,Deutsch (1963) argued that marketing in politics is, in fact, communication, and that this is the main aspect of the whole political concept. The term of political marketing is associated also with political management, promotional politics, packaged politics or with modern political communication (Scammel, 1999). Although there are disagreements about this concept, in this paper, by political marketing, the reader should understand the products of campaign strategists, spin-doctors, and public relations specialists. The sale-orientation helps us understand why political marketing is hitherto seen as spindoctors work (Lees-Marshment, 2001). It is neither easy to define democracy, nor to agree which countries have a democratic system. Trying to explain
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this concept, the co-editor of Journal of Democracy, Lerry Diamand (2002), asked whether any researcher could consider Russia, Nigeria, Ukraine, Indonesia or Turkey as democratic regimes. Some of the main pillars of democracy are the following ones (but not limited to): regular elections, majority rule, variety of competitive processes and channels,
transparency to public, civic rights, protection of minorities, no monopolies of representation, cooperation of politicians and public, control over governments decisions, the right of free speaking, high participation of the public in decision making and free media (Schmitter & Karl, 1991) These concepts alone do not define democracy, but they are indispensible to its existence. As Schattschneider (1975) puts it, democracy has to serve the people and not the other way around. 3. Arguments Instead of dividing the essay in two cement blocks with positive and negative arguments, the reader will find them mixed as the eight pillars of this chapter. The following arguments were influenced from the theoretical approach that different authors had towards political marketing, and my ten
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years
experience
in
political
journalism
and
political
advertising. 3.1 Is style killing content? Image has become an increasingly important element in political communication. Scammel (1999) from LSE University suggests that parties must focus on their image if they want to be serious players in the political market. It is helpful for voters to have an image of politicians, their attitude and values. However, in order to improve this image, in recent years campaign strategists have been focusing on the style of political communicating and paying less attention to the content. By killing the content, people are misled into focusing only on the image and style of the political actors, instead of following the debate on more relevant issues. Therefore, putting more importance on style rather than content and debate transform politicians in showbiz celebrities (Moloney, 2000).As an example, in the USA presidential elections in 2008 most of the people knew more about the political style and image of Obama than about his detailed programme.
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3.2 Spreading or distorting information Communication with the public is a necessary dimension on the modern political stage (McNair, 1996). By spreading information about their political activity, programmes or points of view about different issues, parties inform their voters. Political policies cannot be marketed if people do not understand them or not know what they are. Harrop (1990) proposes that politicians direct their efforts towards persuading opinion leaders, since they are the ones advising voters who to rely on. Therefore, spreading information is helpful for
democracy because it increases participation and creates debates. A key component of democracy is transparency towards the public and access of information for all. Therefore, we can argue that the information distributed by political marketing strategists, during electoral campaigns or not, is a positive approach for the transparency towards the public. Delivering information to the public might increase awareness and reduce the uncertainty of voters. On the other hand, according to Lock & Harris (1996), this clarity cannot come
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from political party broadcasts, produced with professional marketing guidance. Moreover, marketing or public relations experts, based on their party needs, want to control the message as much as possible (Gabber, 2000). They often try to convince journalists how to look at a story (Leighton, 2006). Furthermore, the information presented from the political marketing/public relations department might not be true, can be distorted, misleading or hiding the truth. This can lead to manipulation and can be considered as a threat to democracy. By using media, especially TV, political parties may influence voters by making rhetorical accusations towards the opposing candidates. But what is the risk if the charges are fake or not proved? Critics of political advertising argue that the using of information that is exaggerated or has little connection with the truth, can lead to manipulation of the public (Ansolabehere & Iyengar, 1995; Ferguson, 1976). 3.2 Interaction or lack of identityWhat is more important: the ideology or the shift toward the voters preference? According to Scammel (1999), voters
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search for parties that have the ideology or policies close to their needs or vision. She argues that greater the market-orientation, the greater the success that a party will achieve. In a marketing perspective, the philosophy of investment is not important, if the return is good. For instance, the Conservative party in the United Kingdom during the years 1992-1997 became extremely product-oriented, thus neglecting some aspects of political marketing, such as listening to the market preferences. On the other side, the Labour Party became very market-oriented and won the elections. Of course, that was not the only factor, but one can argue that these shifts in focus from both parties played a role in the outcome of the elections. (Lees-Marshment, 2001). Democracy benefits from interaction between parties and voters. Political actors become more conscious that if they do not communicate or make efforts to understand the voters needs and will, they will not achieve their goal to win the elections. Today, a market-oriented party is much more likely to satisfy customers (voters), compared with a product-oriented one (Levitt, 1960). In the article of 2001, Lees-Marshment notes that the idea that parties design their programmes according to the voters needs conflicts with old politics. He summarizes that 81 | P a g e
politicians are becoming more responsive to electors, which is good for democracy. Also, Scammel (1999) agrees that political marketing may help democracy by the interaction with voters. Parties use political marketing techniques such as market research to get feedback for certain policies. This element plays an important role in modern electoral politics. Although opinion research challenges the party leaderships, they offer potential enlightenment to political actors (Wring, 1997) 3.4 Is negativity positive in political marketing? Political Marketing lead to higher levels of negative campaigns in media (Esser & Spanier, 2005). This technique is considered as the most typical aspect electoral campaigns (Ansolabehere & Iyengar, 1995). A research conducted by Teinowitz (2002), showed that 30% of political candidates use negative advertisement in their campaign while parties did that in half of the ads. They spend a lot of money, time and energy for blaming and accusing the opposite candidates. This might bring to democracy less political consensus and more aggressive communication between candidates. Therefore, political
marketing in negative campaigns does not focus on what a politician can do for his/her country, but what he/she believes
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the opponent did badly. Hereby some empirical studies indicate that negative campaigns make voters less interested in the political process (Pinkleton, Um & Austin, 2002). Some other researchers suggested that the increase of negative ads is the single biggest cause of the new regime (Ansolabehere and Iyengar, 1995). On the other hand, Goldstein & Freedman (2000) support the idea that negative campaigning does not increase voter cynicism and does not decrease participation. It makes people look for more information and it is healthy scepticism that helps democracy. The positive side of a negative campaign is that it gives more information that the other candidate may have wanted to hide and makes the audience pay special attention when they vote. Harrop (1990) puts forward the idea that a state of the art campaign needs a combination of elements like charismatic leader, united team, able lieutenants and a good dose of fear. 3.5 Technology with a click In this third age of political communication one of the key elements in advertising is the use of technology. They use 83 | P a g e
microtargeting for small groups, internet advertising, e-mail, phone calls, sms, blogs, different websites, in order to create an online campaign (Simpson, 2008). With just one click each voter can have an enormous amount of information about the candidate, his/her political programme, agenda, previous news and opinions about different issues. Therefore, everybody can access the information provided from technology and this factor is beneficial for democracy, since transparency helps people to judge in depth about their choice and think through their decisions. Howard (2006) describes the hypermedia campaigns as a possibility to send significantly different messages to potential voters due to technology.
Internet can make more active a large number of voters in order to participate in Election Day (Simpson, 2008). Nevertheless, having access to technology might spring up actual important debates such as the use of private data. It is disturbing for democracy when campaign strategists use voters profiles from electronic databases to send personalized messages to different chosen target groups. Researchers are concerned about the possibility that politicians staff can get hold of too much private data about individuals and use it to
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manipulate their voting decision. The social platform Facebook which has over 350 million users and Google are considered the Big Brothers of the virtual world that observe everything and everyone. Several concerns are raised for the risk that these giants of technology misuse privacy data for different purposes. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20091212/tc_pcworld/facebo okandgooglecontrastsinprivacy_1) Politicians are focusing a lot on technology paying less attention to face-to-face meetings and decreasing the human contact. Simpson (2008) focuses on the importance of not substituting physical contact with voters in political marketing. According to him, a campaign can have the best candidate, more funds than the opposite candidate, the best publicity, but if their staffs ignore door to door strategy, it is often destined to fail. However, using technology, especially the internet, is a very effective way to increase the budget of an electoral campaign. 3.6 Funding For the US presidential campaign, in the first six months of 2007, Barack Obama gathered $ 10.3 million donations and recruited 258.000 contributors through internet (Simpson, 2008). Thus it encourages thousands of people to be contributors 85 | P a g e
to a political party and feel represented and responsible for their vote. Such amalgamation between politics and people has democratising potential as it symbolizes the people and not just a group of rich people that support politicians for their personal future interests. Since political marketing is a need nowadays, politicians accept enormous funding, which raises critical questions about the influence in their future decision making. Media often accused politicians for making laws that favour one specific group that by chance was a relevant fund supporter of the party in power. This is harmful for democracy and detrimental for free market competition. Political marketing can imply also using public funds or government infrastructure for political advertisement. They also use and meanly use media to achieve their goals. 3.7 Invading or being invaded Media is air for political marketing. Without it political marketing dies. So the need to be visible goes through a filter of transparency and analysis, which media is considered. Journalists are constantly suspicious of politicians promises or their past. Brants & Praag (2006) state that professional media are more critical and assertive: the healthy scepticism of the
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watchdog that does not accept negative answers. They emphasize the fact that the public is informed of what they should know in order to reasonably participate in a democracy, and not what politicians allow them to know. Political marketing helps people know better the candidates through the information broadcasted by mass media. But the information distributed from political marketing consultants may mislead the journalists and therefore also the public. Marketing is here also to tell media how to look at a story (Leighton, 2006) and this happens because public relations experts try to gain more control of the message and the channel where it is transmitted. Furthermore, this attempt at message control intimidates the public sphere and journalists feel in danger of losing their autonomous position (Esser, 2005). 3.8 Anybody seen ethics? Political marketing is used to promote the advantages that a party or candidate has towards the opposite ones. Ethics used by professional politicians can create a culture of consensus and fair competition among the public. Ethics is appreciated and supported by most of the voters. However, there 87 | P a g e
are extensive concerns about ethics in the marketing of politics. In 2002, the president of the British Institute of Public Relations called the communication experts to sign a general industry ethics code because of the frequent lack of rules on this subject (Leighton, 2006). In electoral campaigns sometimes children are used as an image in order for politicians to associate their image with that of a family lover and concerned about the future of the country. Until which point the use of children for marketing purposes in a campaign should be used is a problematic issue. What about the negative campaigns, accusations against the opposite candidate and the words used there? For instance, is a commercial of a party that supports one group by discriminating another ethical? These techniques of political marketing, if applied, can violate human rights, therefore be detrimental for democracy. 3. Discussion When evaluating these paragraphs, the reader might have changed his/her opinion about the effect of political marketing on democracy several times. Actually, that was the aim of this essay, brainstorming to come to a conclusion that might be
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different for each reader. Politicians buy credibility by selling image. Some of them when employing techniques of political marketing, instead of giving information, try to control it in their favour. History showed us that not everything that is in the free market is good for democracy. Hitler used marketing or propaganda in a pluralist regime, to persuade Germans that the Arian race is superior compared to others. And he succeeded. I began this essay convinced that political marketing was beneficial for democracy. After reading relevant literature and analysing in depth the arguments, I found that if there are no borders for marketing (influencing and manipulating), it then might be harmful and detrimental. Thus I ask again: Where is the limit of Political Marketing?
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3. References
Ansolabehere, S., & Iyengar, S. (1995). Going negative: How political advertisements shrink and polarize the electorate. New York: The Free Press. Brants, K. & Praag, P.V. (2006). Signs of media logic-Half a century of political communication in the Netherlands, Javhost The Public, 13, 25-40. Deutsch, K. W. (1963). The nerves of government: Models of political communication and control. New York: Free Press of Glencoe. Devine, T. (2008). Paid Media In an era of revolutionary change, Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3, 27-47. Diamond, L (2002). Elections without democracy Thinking about hybrid regimes, Journal of Democracy, 13:2, 21-35. Esser, F. & Spanier, B. (2005) 'News Management as News; How Media Politics Leads to Metacoverage , Journal of Political Marketing, 4:4, 27 57.
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Ferguson, J. M. (1976). Political information: Comment. Journal of Law and Economics,19, 341346. Gaber, I (2000). Government by spin: an analyses of the process. Media, Cultures and the Society, 22, 507-518. Graf, J. (2008). New media The cutting Edge of campaign communication, Campaigns on the Cutting Edge,4 ,48-68. Goldstein, K., & Freedman, P. (2000). New evidence for new arguments: Money and advertising in the 1996 Senate elections. Journal of Politics, 62, 10871108. Harrop, M (1990). Political marketing, Oxford University Press, 277-291. Howard, P. N. (2006) New media campaigns and the managed citizen, Cambridge University Press, 3. Kotler, P., & Levy, S.J. (1969). Broadening the Concept of Marketing. Journal of Marketing, 33, 10-15 Lees-Marshment, J. (2001). The Marriage of Politics and Marketing, Political Studies Association, 49, 692713.
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Leighton, A. (2006). Spin: from tactic to tabloid. Journal of Public Affairs, 6: pp.3145. Levitt, T. (1960). Marketing myopia. Harvard Business Review, 4556. Lock, A., & Harris, P. (1996). Political marketing Vive la Diffrence. European Journal of Marketing, 30;10/11, 14-24. Pinkleton, B. E., Um, N., & Austin, E. W. (2002). An exploration of effects of negative political advertising on political decision making. Journal of Advertising, 31, 1325. Mazzoleni, G., & Schulz, W. (2001). "Mediatisation" of Politics: A Challenge for Democracy?, Political Communication, 16: 3, 247 261. McNair, B. (2004). PR must die: spin, anti-spin and political public relations in the UK. Journalism Studies,5;3, 325338. Moloney, K. (2000). The rise and fall of spin: Changes of fashion in the presentation of UK politics. Journal of Public Affairs. 1;2, 124-135. Scammel, M.(1999). Political marketing: Lessons for political science, Political Studies, 718-739.
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Simpson, D. (2008). Campaigns and democracy - Into a new era; Campaigns on the Cutting Edge. 12, 194-206. Schmitter P.C & Karl T.L (1991). What democracy isand is not. Journal of Democracy, 2;3, 75-88.
Schattschneider, E.E. (1975). Semisoverig people A realists view of democracy in America. Dryden Press, 126-139. Teinowitz, I. (2002). Political ads hit $1 bil mark. Advertising Age, 173, 3. Wring, D. (1997). Reconciling Marketing with Political Science: Theories of Political Marketing. Journal of Marketing Management, 13, 651-663.
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Obama vs. Mc Cain ; Where does their campaign advertising differ?
Martje van de Kamp (The Netherlands) , Artjoms Kohonov (Lithuania) , Rrezart Lahi (Albania)
The history of political communication in the United States knows three ages distinguished by Blumler and Kavangh (1999). The first age of political communication, which started right after World War II, was called the golden age of parties. During this age, a great partisanship existed among the
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electorate and the communication of parties was decentralized; faithful volunteers promoted their party in their own cities or villages. The second age started in the beginning of the 1960s. This age was characterized by the introduction of television and the decrease in party loyalty. Finally, the third age, from the beginning of the 1990s until now, is characterized by the fact that the main means of communication are proliferating. This means that the amount of television channels are multiplying and digital television is developing quickly. Besides, the equipments, such as televisions, in peoples homes have been improved. Thereby comes that party loyalty is decreasing even more, which leads to the fact that politicians have to compete more with each other in order to win votes of floating voters and they have to make sure that they keep their loyal voters to vote for them. This competition currently takes place on a multitude of television channels (Blumler & Kavangh, 1999). It is generally accepted that political marketing is the most powerful tool in modern politics (Devine 2008). Nowadays political advertising is inevitable (Harrop, 1990) and that is the reason why parties use at least 50 % 70 % of the 95 | P a g e
campaign funding in commercials (Simpson, 2008). In 2004, political actors in the United States spent 1.6 billion dollars, while 4 years later this amount was 80 % higher, 2.6 billion dollars (Seelye, 2008). However spending money does not guarantee a successful campaign. More important is the way how this money is used to create commercials and how these advertisements affect voters decision. This is the main reason why it could be really important to analyze in details the images, issues and techniques used in the US president advertisements in 2008. The US presidential campaign of 2008 raised plenty of attention for the way how the two candidates used political advertising. After Obama victory several researchers analysed the steps of this important campaign. In this study we aim to find out how the advertising of Obama and Mc Cain was, where they differed and where they were similar. The use of political advertising helps electors decide what image to vote, due to the fact that they rarely meet a candidate personally (Kotler, 1982). Political advertising is considered crucial to receive relevant information about the
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candidate programme, future actions about different issues, social parts of the society, reforms etc. As seen later most of the Obama Campaign is focused on explaining his plan about economy , the reform in health or education. While Mc Cain uses his advertising to show his position toward war and terrorism. In light of all that is written above, a primary goal of this essay is to evaluate how Obamas and McCains advertising campaign were shaped, where they differed, where they were similar, and what was the image used by Obama that affected his victory against McCain which has led to the research question and sub-questions below. The following chapter explains the methodology used to analyze the US presidential commercials.
What are the differences and similarities in political advertising between the Democrats (Barack Obama) and Republicans (John McCain) during the 2008 US presidential campaign? What are the differences in tone between
the commercials of the Republican and the Democrat parties? 97 | P a g e
What are the differences in content
between the commercials of the Republican and the Democrat parties? What are the differences in interaction
between the commercials of the Republican and the Democrat parties? What are the differences in background
and editing between the commercials of the Republican and the Democrat parties? What are the differences in camera angles
between the commercials of the Republican and the Democrat parties?
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1. Method 1.1 Material
Twenty-four videos from the presidential campaigns in 2008 have been analyzed, whereof twelve videos coming from John McCain and twelve from Barack Obama. Since there is no database of these videos, the first twenty-four videos found on Youtube with a duration between thirty seconds and one minute have been selected for the analysis. The videos with this duration were the most frequent videos on Youtube and by taking videos with the same duration; a better comparison could be made. Videos are analyzed as a whole; the aim of the research is to compare commercials from Democrats and Republicans during the 2008 election campaign, in which dividing in phrases or words was not directly necessary. Every video has been analyzed on several aspects, discussed in the following paragraph. 1.2 Procedure
In order to analyze the content, a codebook has been developed which will be described per topic in the following paragraphs. 99 | P a g e
Tone First of all the tone of each commercial has been analyzed. A commercial was negative when the opponent candidate was mentioned, a commercial was positive when the candidate did not mention the opponent candidate and was promoting his own policies and ideas. The messages were that short (30 seconds to 1 minute) that the commercial was coded completely positive (1) or completely negative (0), which also appeared actually the case in the commercials.
Content Secondly, the content of the videos has been analyzed in order to compare whether there are differences between the two candidates when it comes to topics they treat in their promotion videos. The content has been divided into different categories of topics, which are: economics, science, education, multiculturality, justice, mobility, war/terrorism, disasters, environment, health, culture, sports and the category others. These categories are coming from Ro-Sa (Rol en Samenleving VWZ: http://www.arbeidinbeeld.be/
ZienWerken/methode/codeboek/Codeboek.html) which is an institute which investigates representations in media. After
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watching a few testing videos to get familiar with the sort of commercials, the category own accomplishments has been added because this was an often returning topic. Each topic could be coded with a 0 when the topic was not present and with a 1 when the topic was actually present in the commercial.
Appearance of the candidates and their activities The appearance of the candidate has been measured in the visual presence of the candidate in the video (yes = 1 or no = 0) and if yes, how he appeared on camera. For this appearance, the facial expression has been measured (smiling, serious or both) together with the outfit of the candidate (formal or informal). Besides, candidates are not only shown while they are talking and smiling, but they are also executing other activities. These activities have been measured in this research according to a variable of Waldman & Devitt (1998). These authors have analyzed presidential candidates in pictures, in which one aspect was the variable activities divided in several items: speaking at podium, shaking hands and sitting and reading. These items have been adapted to the situation of moving pictures (videos) which has lead to the following items: speaking at 101 | P a g e
podium, shaking hands, sitting and talking, standing and talking, walking and talking and other. The item reading has been deleted, since candidates reading in a movie appeared to be not very common. All the items had to be coded with a 1 (yes, present) or a 0 (no, not present). Interaction Besides the above activities, the candidates also interact in the videos. This variable is also analyzed partly according to the already existing variable of Waldman & Devitt (1998) and partly with new items. The item interaction with cheering crowd has been taken over from these authors and the item interaction with colleagues has been changed into interaction with men in suits since it was not always clear whether these people were colleagues or people from the business world. Moreover, the items interaction with children, with workers and with older people have been added to the list because candidates could choose to interact with these groups to appear more socially interested. Finally, with the camera has been added, which is different from an analysis of pictures, since candidate can also directly talk to the camera to reach the people at home. All the items had to be coded with a 1 (yes, present) or a 0 (no, not present).
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Background and editing Background and editing mean all other aspects, besides the candidate, that are present in the commercials. Besides the candidate, there are also other features visible in the movies. These features have also been measured by several items of Waldman & Devitt (1998): American flags, signs with candidates name and natural vistas (nature). Hereby, people, streets, an office, buildings and no identifiable background have been added. All the items had to be coded with a 1 (yes, present) or a 0 (no, not present).
Camera angle The camera angle could be important when it comes to differences between candidates, since a camera angle from below makes a candidate bigger and from above smaller. This depends on how the candidate wants to be presented. In order to analyze the camera angle in the movies the variables shots from below, eye-level shots and shots from above (yes = 1and no = 0) have been created (Waldman & Devitt, 1998). Racial appeals Finally, there was one white and one black candidate in this presidential election. This could lead to more or less racial 103 | P a g e
appeals by one or the other (McIlwain & Caliendo, 2009). For this reason, for every video had to be decided whether there were racial appeals present in the movie or not. When there were racial appeals present, these videos were coded with a 1 and when they were not present they were coded with 0.
1.3
Analysis
The commercial videos have been analyzed by three coders, with a reliable intercoder reliability of 94% according to Krippendorffs alpha. The data that came out of the analysis have been analyzed and compared for the two candidates. Besides, Pearsons correlations and t-tests have been executed in order to find associations between the different variables and to find the significant differences between the Republican McCain and the Democrat Obama. The results will be discussed in the following chapter.
Results The results of our research have shown several differences between the election campaign of the Republican party candidate John McCain and Democrat party candidate
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Barack Obama. There are also several important similarities between the TV commercials of the two candidates. In the following chapter these similarities and differences will be discussed in the order of categories that have been analyzed. Finally, from the results appeared that American flags correlated with different variables for McCain and Obama. These will be discussed in the last paragraph. 1.4 Tone
The analysis has shown that the tone of the message was predominantly positive in the TV commercials of both candidates. Nevertheless, both candidates also had negative commercials in which they were accusing the opponent candidate by claiming that, for example, he is not ready to lead the country (McCain about Obama) or does not understand the basic principles of economics (Obama about McCain). 83% of the McCain commercials and 58% of the Obama commercials had a positive tone (See also Diagram 1 below). So McCain was slightly more positive in his commercials than Obama. However, this difference was not significant. The tone of the message was closely related to the topics discussed in the advertisements. For instance, in the pre-election 105 | P a g e
campaign of McCain topics as science (in 8% of the McCain commercials) and culture (also in 8% of the McCain commercials) correlated negatively with the tone of the messages (r = -,674, p < .05 and r = -,674, p < .05). This means that these topics, science and culture, were mentioned more in negative messages than in positive messages, which leads to the fact that these topics cannot be considered as the priorities of the candidate (McCain) himself. In case of the Obama campaign analysis showed one significant association between war and terrorism and the tone of the commercials (r = .598, p < .05). This result means that in the campaign commercials of Obama, war on terrorism is predominantly mentioned in positive messages. Diagam 1: Tone of the message (1 = positive, 0 = negative)
1 0,9 0,8 0,7 0,6 0,5 0,4 0,3 0,2 0,1 0 Tone McCain Obama
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Content As shown in Diagram 2 below, the most discussed topic in the TV commercials of both candidates was economics (Obama in 83% of his commercials, McCain in 58% of his messages). Such a result is not surprising as current economic recession was one of the top priorities worldwide during the preelection period. The second most mentioned topic in the campaign of Obama was health (42%), as he proposed some of the major changes in US health policies. In the campaign of McCain on the contrary, health was a less important subject, only mentioned in 17% of his analyzed TV advertisements. McCain was making greater emphasis on his own experience and accomplishments in politics and during his military service in Vietnam (42% of his messages) than Obama did about his own accomplishments (17% of his messages). Meanwhile, the fact that the pre-election campaign of Obama was not emphasizing the previous achievements gave space to topics such as education (8%) and justice (17%): topics which were not or merely mentioned by the opponent candidate, McCain. War and terrorism was a topic to which both of the candidates have paid equal attention. Both McCain and Obama
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talked about this topic in 33% of their messages. Science and culture are only discussed by McCain, but as already mentioned in the above paragraph, these items correlated with the tone of the message.
1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0
McCain Obama
Diagram 2: Topics discussed in the commercials (1 = yes, 0 = no). 1.5 Background and editing
Diagram 3 shows the differences in background and editing of the TV advertisements of both candidates. Background and editing means all the aspects that are visible in the commercials. First of all, people are very often shown in
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the commercials of both candidates (Obama in 67% and McCain in 75% of his messages). There are almost always people (other than the candidate) visible in the commercials. Secondly, there were three significant differences between the commercials of McCain and Obama when it comes to the background and editing. The first significant difference was shown in the showing of the candidate with an unidentifiable background (t(22) = -2.24, p < .05). Obama was shown more often with an unidentifiable background (in 58% of his commercials) than McCain (in 17% of his commercials). The second significant difference between the candidates appeared to be the variable American flags in the commercial (t(22) = 2.93, p < .01). In the commercials of McCain, American flags were used much more often than in the commercials of Obama (58% in the McCain commercials versus 8% in the Obama commercials). This could possibly be seen as an appeal to the traditional conservative Republican voters who are generally considered to be more patriotic and less cosmopolitan than traditional Democratic Party supporters. The final significant difference between the commercials of the two candidates when it comes to the editing and background variable is the showing 109 | P a g e
of an office in the commercials (t(22) = 3.32, p < .01). McCain is very often shown in an office (50%) while Obama is never shown in an office in the analyzed commercials. McCain could possibly be creating an image of the serious middle class politician who knows how to take serious decisions. Furthermore, an aspect on which the candidates almost differed significantly was the showing of signs with the name of the candidate in the movie (t(22) = 1.96, p = .06). McCain showed more signs with his name (in 42% of his messages) than Obama (in 8% of his messages). Finally, nature and streets in the commercials are only shown by McCain and not by Obama, which differences were not significant.
1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0
McCain Obama
Diagram 3: Background and editing of the commercials (1 = yes, 0 = no)
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1.6 In the
Interaction analyzed TV commercials Obama is
predominantly (in 42% of his commercials) communicating directly with the camera and by doing so with the TV viewers. Meanwhile, McCain mostly communicates with the crowd (in 50%) followed by communicating with the camera (in 42% of his commercials). Besides, there is a significant difference between the commercials of McCain and Obama when it comes to the interaction with men in suits (t(22) = 2.80, p = .01). McCain is communicating significantly more with socalled men is suits (42%) than Obama, since Obama did not communicate with men in suits at all. This can also be considered as an appeal to the traditional Republican voter. Besides, McCain also communicates more with big crowds in his commercials than Obama, which difference is almost significant (t(22) = 1.77, p = .09). On the other hand, Obama is more often shown communicating with different groups of society such as workers (8%), children (17%) and (see also Diagram 4 below). elderly people (17%) therefore appealing to wider society than McCain
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1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 Interaction Interaction Interaction Interaction Interaction Interactio with with with men with with with older camera crowd in suits workers children people Diagram 4: Interaction of the candidates with others. (1 = yes, 2 = no)
McCain Obama
1.7
Appearance of the candidates and their activities First of all, it is interesting to notice that both candidates show serious facial expressions in their TV advertisements (Obama 82%, McCain 73%) and they are both always formally dressed. Furthermore, as can be seen in Diagram 5, activities executed in the TV commercials by both of the candidates are quite similar. The biggest differences in activities deal with speaking at the podium and the unidentifiable activity, which means that the candidate is zoomed in until his chest which makes it hard to see whether he sits or stands. Speaking at a
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podium is more dominant for McCain (which he does in 25% of his commercials) rather than for Obama (in only 10% of his commercials). This difference was slightly close to being significant (t(22) = 1.77, p = .09) . However, this is not surprising because as said before, McCain is also interacting with crowd more frequently than Obama. Meanwhile, Obama is shown closer much often (42%) than McCain (8%). This difference also appeared to be almost significant (t(22) = -1.96, p = .06). Although, it is also important to mention that both candidates are not present in all of their commercials. Research has shown that McCain was presented in 83% of the analyzed advertisements of his pre-election campaign while Obama was present in 58% of the analyzed advertisements.
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1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0
McCain Obama
Diagram 5. Activities of the candidates (1=yes, 0 = no)
1.8
Camera angle
The camera positioning is mostly on the eye level of both candidates. Both McCain and Obama were shot from an eye-level position in 83% of the analysed commercials. Secondly, McCain has significantly more shots from above in his commercials (in 33%) than Obama (in none of his commercials) (t(22) = 2.35, p < .05) (see also Diagram 6 ).
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1.9
Use of American flags
The analysis of the data also shows significant associations between some variables and war and terrorism. First of all, it is possible to say that if the advertisements of the McCain campaign are devoted to war and terrorism, than it is very likely that on the background there will be seen American flags (r = .598, p < .05). The results also showed that shaking hands and standing and talking correlated positively with the showing of American flags (respectively r = .598, p < .05 and r = .657, p < .05) which means that when there are flags in the background of the commercial, that the McCain is more likely to shake hands to stand and talk. Meanwhile, in campaign commercials of Obama American flags showed associations with other variables. American flags were most likely used while speaking about justice (r = .674, p < .05) and the own accomplishments of Obama (r = .674, p < .05) and while interacting with older people and children (r = .674, p < .05). It is also very likely that next to the American flags, the signs with the name of the candidate will be seen (r = 1, p < .01).
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The results of the study show that both candidates combine different visual and textual symbols to create stronger message. The appeal to the so-called traditional voters of each political party is also clearly visible and thus creates the difference in the design of the message. Nevertheless, the emotional appeal is relatively common for the campaigns of both candidates.
1 0,9 0,8 0,7 0,6 0,5 0,4 0,3 0,2 0,1 0 Shots from below Eye-level shots Shots from Above McCain Obama
Diagram 6: Camera positioning in the commercials (1 = yes, 0 = no)
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2. Conclusion and Discussion The aim of our research was to understand main differences and similarities in political advertising between the Democrats and Republicans during the 2008 presidential campaign in US. To do so, we have been particularly focusing on such variables as tone, content, interaction, background and editing, and camera angle in the visual advertisements available on the internet. The results have shown that the tone of the advertisements of both candidates was rather similar. Both candidates emphasized their own positive sides and accused the opponent. For both of the candidates the tone of their advertisements was predominantly positive. That allows us to suggest that the attacks on the opponent are not considered to be a major path to achieve successful results in the elections. It is also interesting to mention that although Obama was generally very skeptical about the policies of previous US president regarding war on terrorism and Iraq, analysis shows that in his campaign commercials war on terrorism is mostly shown in positive context.
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The dominating topics in the content of the analyzed advertisements were also relatively similar. The economics was in the center of both campaigns which is not surprising as current economic recession was one of the top priorities worldwide during the pre-election period. In the campaign of Obama the great emphasis was also made on the health reform, as he proposed some of the major changes in US health policies. McCain was proud of his own experience, own accomplishments in politics and on the military service during the war in Vietnam. Thus, it is possible to say that by doing so McCain was trying not only to prove that he is ready to be the president of US and the commander-in-chief of US army, but also point at the inexperience of his much younger competitor. It is also important to mention that in some cases candidates are apparently forced to react on the issues raised by their opponent and include several topics in their own agenda. For instance, analysis has shown that McCain was talking about science only as a response to Obama. As for the interaction of the candidates with other actors in advertisements we can see that Obama is mostly looking directly to the camera thus talking to the TV viewers at home. His idea of change and bringing all citizens of US together is
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supported by communication with several different groups of society. McCain is interacting with the crowd and men in suits. Therefore, it is possible to say that messages of Obama appear as more personal addressing everyone individually. While McCain tries to show that he is a true leader who can lead the masses and have their support. In many of the Obama campaign advertisements he is seen in front of the unidentifiable background. Most often this is some kind of room which cannot be clearly identified as office, living room or bedroom. Such technique leaves viewers space for interpretation and thus helps candidate to gain access to different and wider audience. Meanwhile, McCain is often shown in his office therefore creating an image of the serious white middle class politician who knows how to take serious decisions. Important part of background and editing differences can be seen in using such emotional and patriotic sign as American flag. In the campaign of McCain American flags are used much often then in campaign of Obama. The analysis of camera angle did not show major differences between both candidates. The eye-level shots are dominating in the advertisements of the both candidates which generally creates neutral image. Although, it is worth to notice 119 | P a g e
that McCain had significantly larger amount of shots from above while Obama didn't had any. Thus, generally the research has shown that the image and the message of both presidential candidates during the 2008 US presidential campaign was generally constructed according to the common/traditional perception of the qualities that belongs to the Republican and Democrat party candidate such as nationalism vs. cosmopolitism, rural vs. city, low education level vs. high education level etc. Nevertheless, there are several significant similarities in the campaign approach of the both candidates. That allows us to suggest that there are several techniques that are considered to be modern and effective regardless of the candidate or the electorate that he or she addressees. The scope of this research does allow us to make wider generalizations about such techniques but that would be an interesting question for the possible follow-up study. The relatively small sample used for this content analysis allows us only to make general assumptions about certain trends that are visible in the advertisements of both candidates. In order to get more in-depth results it would be necessary to increase the size of the sample or use multi-method approach applying some of the qualitative research methods. Nevertheless, our study
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gives a good overview of the analyzed topic and is a good basis for future research.
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3. Bibliography
Blumler, J.G. & Kavangh, D. (1999). The Third Age of Political Communication: Influences and Communication, 16, 209-230. Devine, T. (2008). Paid Media In an era of revolutionary change, Campaigns on the Cutting pp.27-47. Edge, 3, Features. Political
Harrop,
(1990).
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marketing,
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Kotler, P. and Levy, S.J. (1969), "Broadening the Concept of Marketing", Journal of Marketing, 33, pp.10-15.
McIlwain, C.D. & Caliendo, S.M. (2009). Black Messages, White Messages: The Differential Use of
Racial Appeals by Black and White Candidates. Journal of Black Studies, 39(5), 732-745.
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Simpson, D. (2008). Campaigns and democracy - Into a new era; Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 12, pp.194-206.
Seelye, K. Q. (2008, December 3). A $2.6 billion ad bill. New York Times. from
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html.
Waldman,
P.
&
Devitt,
J.
(1998).
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Photographs and the 1996 Presidential
Election:
Question of Bias. J&MC Quarterly, 75(2), 302-311.
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Conclusion and Discussion..................................................................................119 Bibliography 123

Political Advertising: How New and Old Democracies Make Use of It

Public Opinion Polls

LEVEL O F DEMO CRACY

Political communication system

Type of spot Dem

Total percentage 100%

more often noticed in emerging democracies, the difference is not significant.

Figure 4: Personalisation of the music

Communication. London: Sage.

Is Political Marketing Beneficial or Detrimental for Democracy?

Obama vs. Mc Cain ; Where does their campaign advertising differ?

the commercials of the Republican and the Democrat parties? 97 | P a g e

What are the differences in content

between the commercials of the Republican and the Democrat parties?

1. Method 1.1 Material

ZienWerken/methode/codeboek/Codeboek.html) which is an institute which investigates representations in media. After

1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0

Diagram 3: Background and editing of the commercials (1 = yes, 0 = no)

Interaction analyzed TV commercials Obama is

1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0

Diagram 5. Activities of the candidates (1=yes, 0 = no)

Use of American flags

Diagram 6: Camera positioning in the commercials (1 = yes, 0 = no)

University Press, pp.277-291.

Photographs and the 1996 Presidential

Question of Bias. J&MC Quarterly, 75(2), 302-311.

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