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Political communication is the 'production and impact of persuasive political messages, campaigns, and advertising, often concerning the mass media.' [1] It is an interdisciplinary field that draws from communication, journalism and political science. Political communication is concerned with ideas such as: information flow, political influence, policy making, news, and the effect on citizens. [2] Since the advent of the World Wide Web, the amount of data to analyze has increased and researchers are shifting to computational methods to study the dynamics of political communication. A key theorised system within political communication in advanced economies is the concept of the propaganda having the capacity to be organically spread, via self selection systems in democratic capitalist countries via the propaganda model. In recent years, machine learning, natural language processing, and network analysis have also become key tools in the field. The field also includes: the study of the media, the analysis of speeches by politicians, those that are trying to influence the political process, and conversations among members of the public. Today many universities offer courses in political communication. [3]
Political communications origins are tied to the history of persuasion and propaganda. The roots of political communication can be traced back to ancient civilizations where rulers used symbols and monuments to communicate their power and authority to the masses. In ancient Greece, public speeches such as those delivered by Pericles in Athens, played a crucial role in shaping political discourse and rallying public support. [4]
During the era of the Roman Empire, political communication took on a much more sophisticated form with the use of propaganda, rhetoric, and public spectacles in order to try and influence public opinion. [5] Figures such as Cicero mastered the art of persuasion through their speeches and writing.
The creation of mass media in the 20th century transformed political communication, giving rise to new forms of propaganda, advertising, and public relations. [6] Political leaders such as Winston Churchill and Franklin. D. Roosevelt utilized radio broadcasts to reach millions of listeners during times of crisis and war.
During the 1990s and the early 2000s (off the back of many incredibly successful campaigns by corporate advertising companies) political spin started to come into mainstream usage. This started with the governments of Tony Blair in The United Kingdom and George W. Bush. [7] Alistair Campbell, a journalist turned Downing Street Press Secretary (who was referred to as a 'spin doctor' in the media, [8] whose job it was to deflect or 'spin' bad situations that showed the government in a 'bad light', via press briefings with the british media [9] ), with Campbell becoming an influential and controversial addition to the political communication toolkit of Tony Blair's Labour government in the United Kingdom. This practice has now become standard in subsequent governments in Western countries like the United Kingdom [10] and the United States.
In the digital age, political communication has shifted to online platforms with social media playing a central role in shaping political discourse and mobilizing supporters. Barack Obama's presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012 are notable, as they helped innovate the use of social media to engage voters and raise funds. [11] Volodymyr Zelenskyy's 2019 Presidential Campaign also featured heavy usage of social media. [12]
Today, Political communication continues to evolve quickly, as new technologies such as AI and big data analytics have begun reshaping how campaigns can target and persuade voters. However, this has led to large concerns regarding misinformation, echo chambers, and online polarization, therefore presenting pressing challenges for the future of political communication. [13]
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The study and practice of political communication focuses on the ways and means of expression of a political nature. Robert E. Denton and Gary C. Woodward, via their work in Political Communication in America, [14] characterize it as the ways and intentions of message senders to influence the political environment. This includes public discussion (e.g. political speeches, news media coverage, and ordinary citizens' talk) that considers who has authority to sanction the allocation of public resources, who has authority to make decisions, as well as social meaning like what makes someone American.
"...the crucial factor that makes communication 'political' is not the source of a message, but its content and purpose." [15]
David L. Swanson and Dan Nimmo define political communication as "the strategic use of communication to influence public knowledge, beliefs, and action on political matters." [16] They emphasize the strategic nature of political communication, highlighting the role of persuasion in political discourse. Brian McNair provides a similar definition when he writes that political communication is "purposeful communication about politics." For McNair, this means that this not only covers verbal or written statements, but also visual representations such as dress attire, make-up, hairstyle or logo design. In other words, it also includes all those aspects that develop a "political identity" or "image". According to Harald Borgebund, the author of Political Communication and the Realities of Democracy, "Political communication is essential in a democratic polity." [17]
Reflecting on the relationship between political communication and contemporary agenda-building, Vian Bakir defines Strategic Political Communication (SPC) as comprising 'political communication that is manipulative in intent, utilizes social scientific techniques and heuristic devices to understand human motivation, human behavior and the media environment in order to inform effectively what should be communicated – encompassing its detail and overall direction – and what should be withheld, with the aim of taking into account and influencing public opinion, and creating strategic alliances and an enabling environment for government policies – both at home and abroad'. [18]
To further expand on why political communication can be viewed as manipulative, Michael Gurevitch and Jay G. Blumber, contributors of Political Communication Systems and Democratic Values [19] stated that "the very structure of political communication involves a division between movers and shakers at the top and bystanders below." However, one way that contemporary media has tried to combat the imbalances of political communication is through the creation of public access television. According to a study done, Access Television and Grassroots Political Communication in the United States, by Dr. Laura Stein "public access has opened up a space for grassroots political communication on television" [20] this is because public access communication has allowed for an open space in a variety of fields of communication no matter the speakers ideological view points.
Strategic communication is defined as "the purposeful use of communication by an organization to fulfill its mission." [21] In this case, the given agents (political leaders) use campaigns as a form of communication in order to obtain support from citizens.
The Bush Administration's torture-for-intelligence policy, initiated soon after 9/11, was kept secret for several years, as remains the level of complicity of many other nation-states' governments. While this secret policy was gradually revealed from 2004 onwards, initiated by the Abu Ghraib torture photos, the Bush administration engaged in SPC to publicly reframe and protect its secret policy. SPC included silencing and persuasive discursive activity. [22]
The United Nations is another example of how important and the high impact strategical political communication has on the organization and on the world. With today's complex international landscape, diverse political views and agendas can easily promote unwanted tension within people, political parties, and in this case, world peace. The United Peace Operations (UNPOs) play a crucial role in maintaining peace with peacekeeping being one of the most effective tools available to the UN in order to assist host countries navigate the difficult path from conflict to peace. [24]
The Middle East
In the Middle East, there appears to be a disconnect between political officials and the citizens of the nation. The idea of clear political communication and how information spreads to the masses could be seen as flawed and are rippled by the effects of the Arab Spring. In the Middle East, “even those supported by a U.S. administration, are at best visionary and without any real practical use”. [27] As explained by Hussein Amin from the American University of Cairo, “because many people view censorship as a sign of social responsibility, civil society has a deep distrust of itself. While admitting that political communication in the mass media has diversified and developed some more liberal patterns in recent years”. [27] In general, “Mass media have long been linked to the historical development and emergence of national identities and the modern nation-state by creating bounded spaces of political communication and discourse". [28]
Many forms of spreading information like radio, social media, and television have become heavily popularized in the Middle East, while also being ridiculed. In cases of on-going war like Syria and Palestine, the majority of media formats are censored towards the Middle East in order to avoid further catastrophization of an event, possibly by the West. For example, in Syria, “the rebel Free Syrian Army'' was created as an opposition to Bashar al-Assad's dictatorship. [29] Citizens let the government know where they are lacking, the elected officials of the governments are required to reflect and adapt citizens' needs and rights.
Latin America's political communication over the last decades has evolved through the mediatization of politics, which refers to the process by which the political environment has moved to the media. Within the region, one of the most common ways for media to reach the region is through the entertainment industry, especially telenovelas, which are one of the most popular genre of television shows that usually address political topics in their stories. Latin America as a region shares the increase in mediatization of politics due to its common history and, in some cases, cultural similarities. Each nation within the region poses its own challenges when it comes to how successful the use of media is in achieving its political goals. [30] Political communication studies in Latin America continue to experience a lack of theory, concept, and methodology of investigation. [31]
Political communication in Africa in recent years has been mostly appreciated through the interactions with in social media. However, more than the increased of social media it is also possible to see the rise of fake news, social media shutdowns, and censorship of criticism from political activist. [32]
Political communication has long used political persuasion. Political figures have long understood the role of the media in gaining the acceptance of voters. [33] For example, political communication delivered through social media tends to be accompanied with social interaction and public opinion. [34] Logos, ethos, and pathos are three areas of political public speaking that have also been outlined as important and regularly occurring within such communication. [35]
Main article: Propaganda Model
A core theoretical model in political communication during the modern era is 'the propaganda model'. [36] In 1988 Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky theorised that the interests of elites within a globalized context was warping the journalistic integrity of the mass media and its attempts to communicate news. They suggest that the political consent of the electorate would also be damaged by this type of political communication in the mass media:
"The more elusive or imaginary the foe, the better for manufacturing consent. The picture of the world that's presented to the public has only the remotest relation to reality." [37]
In terms of political communication, the propaganda model is generally used in the context of the globalized american corporate media and how it organically acts in the interests of corporate elites, in an anti-democratic way. Therefore Herman and Chomsky argue that the interests of the corporate elite (trying to profit maximise) are not often interested in the democratic rights of citizens and therefore create a new form of propaganda (via the mass media of privately owned news corporations), which has damaging effects on different democratic governments for example The United States Government. [38]
The field of political communication is focused on 4 main areas[ citation needed ]:
According to James Chesebro, there are five critical approaches to contemporary Political communications: [39]
Social media has become an increasingly important tool for political communication. For certain demographics it is one of the main platforms from which individuals acquire their news, and allows them to interact with it via commenting and sharing. [40] Social media has dramatically changed the way in which modern political campaigns are run. [41] [42] With more digital native citizens coming into the voting population, social media has become an important medium where politicians can establish themselves and engage with voters. [43] In an increasingly digitized world, new research has shown that social media is becoming increasingly important in electoral politics. [44]
Social media experience relies heavily on the user themselves due to the platforms' algorithms which tailor consumer experience for each user. This results in each person seeing more like-minded news due to the increase in digital social behavior. [45] Additionally, social media has changed politics because it has given politicians a direct medium to give their constituents information and the people to speak directly to the politicians. This informal nature can lead to informational mistakes because it is not being subjected to the same "fact-checking processes as institutional journalism." [46]
Social media creates greater opportunity for political persuasion due to the high number of citizens that regularly engage and build followings on social media. The more that a person engages on social media, the more influential they believe themselves to be, resulting in more people considering themselves to be politically persuasive. [47]
In Australia 86% of Australians access the Internet, and with a 17,048,864 voting age population, [48] around 14,662,023 voting population has access to Internet, and 65% of them use social media, with 9,530,314 Australian voters using social media. The 2013 Yellow™ Social Media Report also found that among internet users, 65% of Australians use social media, up from 62% in 2014. [49]
With almost half of the Australian voting population active on social media, political parties are adapting quickly to influence and connect with their voters. [50] Studies have found that journalists in Australia widely use social media in a professional context and that it has become a viable method of communication between the mainstream media and wider audiences. [51]
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented. Propaganda can be found in a wide variety of different contexts.
Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization to the public in order to influence their perception. Public relations and publicity differ in that PR is controlled internally, whereas publicity is not controlled and contributed by external parties. Public relations may include an organization or individual gaining exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment. The exposure is mostly media-based, and this differentiates it from advertising as a form of marketing communications. Public relations aims to create or obtain coverage for clients for free, also known as earned media, rather than paying for marketing or advertising also known as paid media. But in the early 21st century, advertising is also a part of broader PR activities.
Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. Disinformation is an orchestrated adversarial activity in which actors employ strategic deceptions and media manipulation tactics to advance political, military, or commercial goals. Disinformation is implemented through attacks that "weaponize multiple rhetorical strategies and forms of knowing—including not only falsehoods but also truths, half-truths, and value judgements—to exploit and amplify culture wars and other identity-driven controversies."
A rumor, or rumour, is "a tall tale of explanations of events circulating from person to person and pertaining to an object, event, or issue in public concern."
The hypodermic needle model is claimed to have been a model of communication in which media consumers were "uniformly controlled by their biologically based 'instincts' and that they react more or less uniformly to whatever 'stimuli' came along".
In international relations, public diplomacy broadly speaking, is any of the various government-sponsored efforts aimed at communicating directly with foreign publics to establish a dialogue designed to inform and influence with the aim of building support for the state's strategic objectives. These also include propaganda. As the international order has changed over the twentieth century, so has the practice of public diplomacy. Its practitioners use a variety of instruments and methods ranging from personal contact and media interviews to the Internet and educational exchanges.
Communication studies or communication science is an academic discipline that deals with processes of human communication and behavior, patterns of communication in interpersonal relationships, social interactions and communication in different cultures. Communication is commonly defined as giving, receiving or exchanging ideas, information, signals or messages through appropriate media, enabling individuals or groups to persuade, to seek information, to give information or to express emotions effectively. Communication studies is a social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge that encompasses a range of topics, from face-to-face conversation at a level of individual agency and interaction to social and cultural communication systems at a macro level.
A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making progress within a specific group. In democracies, political campaigns often refer to electoral campaigns, by which representatives are chosen or referendums are decided. In modern politics, the most high-profile political campaigns are focused on general elections and candidates for head of state or head of government, often a president or prime minister.
The sleeper effect is a psychological phenomenon that relates to persuasion. It is a delayed increase in the effect of a message that is accompanied by a discounting cue, typically being some negative connotation or lack of credibility in the message, while a positive message may evoke an immediate positive response which decays over time. The sleeper effect also refers to a delayed positive response that is maintained over time. The effect was first noticed among US Army soldiers exposed to army propaganda. It was hypothesized that over time the soldiers forgot that the message was propaganda. The effect has been widely studied but notoriously difficult to reproduce, leading to some doubt over its existence.
In media studies, mass communication, media psychology, communication theory, and sociology, media influence and themedia effect are topics relating to mass media and media culture's effects on individuals' or audiences' thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors. Through written, televised, or spoken channels, mass media reach large audiences. Mass media's role in shaping modern culture is a central issue for the study of culture.
Ethnic hatred, inter-ethnic hatred, racial hatred, or ethnic tension refers to notions and acts of prejudice and hostility towards an ethnic group to varying degrees.
Active Audience Theory argues that media audiences do not just receive information passively but are actively involved, often unconsciously, in making sense of the message within their personal and social contexts. Decoding of a media message may therefore be influenced by such things as family background, beliefs, values, culture, interests, education and experiences. Decoding of a message means how well a person is able to effectively receive and understand a message. Active Audience Theory is particularly associated with mass-media usage and is a branch of Stuart Hall's Encoding and Decoding Model.
In social psychology, the Yale attitude change approach is the study of the conditions under which people are most likely to change their attitudes in response to persuasive messages. This approach to persuasive communications was first studied by Carl Hovland and his colleagues at Yale University during World War II. The basic model of this approach can be described as "who said what to whom": the source of the communication, the nature of the communication and the nature of the audience. According to this approach, many factors affect each component of a persuasive communication. The credibility and attractiveness of the communicator (source), the quality and sincerity of the message, and the attention, intelligence and age of the audience can influence an audience's attitude change with a persuasive communication. Independent variables include the source, message, medium and audience, with the dependent variable the effect of the persuasion.
Since the end of the 20th century, propaganda has evolved significantly. In the 21st century, propaganda is largely disseminated through the news, internet and on social media platforms such as Twitter. Modern propaganda still utilises classic tactics such as name-calling and bandwagoning in order to sway the audience toward or against a particular belief. Pieces of "traditional" propaganda are typically created and distributed by larger entities or organisations, while modern propaganda can be created and spread by vast numbers of individuals simultaneously online. Modern propaganda can take many forms, ranging from memes to mainstream partisan news.
Dezinformatsia: Active Measures in Soviet Strategy is a non-fiction book about disinformation and information warfare used by the KGB during the Soviet Union period, as part of their active measures tactics. The book was co-authored by Richard H. Shultz, professor of international politics at Tufts University, and Roy Godson, professor emeritus of government at Georgetown University.
John Allen Hendricks is a professor whose research focuses on political communication, social media/new media technologies, and the broadcasting industry and is the author of more than ten books on the subjects. He has served as academic department chair since 2009.
Online youth radicalization is the action in which a young individual or a group of people come to adopt increasingly extreme political, social, or religious ideals and aspirations that reject, or undermine the status quo or undermine contemporary ideas and expressions of a state, which they may or may not reside in. Online youth radicalization can be both violent or non-violent.
Social media use in politics refers to the use of online social media platforms in political processes and activities. Political processes and activities include all activities that pertain to the governance of a country or area. This includes political organization, global politics, political corruption, political parties, and political values. The media's primary duty is to present us with information and alert us when events occur. This information may affect what we think and the actions we take. The media can also place pressure on the government to act by signaling a need for intervention or showing that citizens want change
Political linguistics is the study of the relations between language and politics. It argues that language gives origin to the state. The reason is that when humans perform linguistic communication, they use media. Media extend the distance of linguistic communication. Humans interact with one another on a large scale. They form a large community. This leads to the dissolution of the tribes and the formation of the state. Language plays a role in the growth of the state in every aspect. Language plays a role in the formation of the state, in the governance of the state and in the building of the spirit of the state. That is, language is used as a means to form a state and is enacted in various ways that help achieve political objectives. Language allows for people in a very large number to communicate with each other on a large scale to the effect that a state is formed. As language forms the basis of communication, politics is thus affected by language.
Vian Bakir is a professor of journalism at Bangor University in Wales in the United Kingdom who researches political communication, propaganda and national security.
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