COMMUNICATING POLITICS – RREZART LAHI
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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
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: [email protected], 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.
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 campaign…………………………………24
Format of Political Advertising…………………………………28
Model of democracy influence in political advertising…………30
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. Introduction……………………………………………………………….....73
2. Defining “Political Marketing ....................................................................76
3. 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 click…………………………………………………84
3.6 Funding…………………………………………………………………..86
3.7 Invading or being invaded…………………………………………….....87
3.8 Anybody seen ethics?...............................................................................88
4. Discussion……………………………………………………………………………89
5. References……………………………………………………………………………91
Obama vs. Mc Cain ; Where does their campaign advertising differ?.....................95
1. Introduction ...........................................................................................................95
2. Method…………………………...……………………………………………..100
2.1 Material.....................................................................................................100
2.2 Procedure ..................................................................................................100
2.3 Analysis ....................................................................................................100
3. Results ..................................................................................................................100
3.1 Tone ..........................................................................................................101
3.2 Content ......................................................................................................101
3.3 Background and editing.............................................................................104
3.4 Camera angle..............................................................................................104
3.5 Use of American flags................................................................................106
4. Conclusion and Discussion..................................................................................119
5. 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
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
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
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 advertising’s
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
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 Huntington’s (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 (1828-
1926), 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
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 controlled-
state 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
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 Römmele,
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).
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 law-
abidingness. 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).
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
PRODUCTSPOLITICAL
COMMUNICATON
MARKETINGP OLITIC A L
M A R K E TIN G
AdvertisingMarket
surveys
Political
Advertising(Former
Propaganda)
Public
OpinionPolls
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,
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 post-
authoritarian 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.
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
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 verité” 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
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 OF DEMOCRACY
Political marketing
Political
Advertising
Fig 2. Model of Democracy Influence on Political Advertising (MDIPA)
Political culture Media Citizens
Political communication system
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 influences political
communication. Moreover, the interaction of political
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 image-
oriented 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?
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
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 1970’s.
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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37 | P a g e
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
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
Krippendorff’s 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 spot’s 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
the life of the candidate. The second format, “cinema verité”
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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41 | P a g e
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 candidate’s
image and to bring positive feeling toward the sponsor.
Table 1.
Negative and Advertisement in New and Old Democracies
Type of spot New Dem Old
Dem
(N=60) (N=60)
Negative 20% 28 %
Positive 70% 59 %
Mixed 10% 13 %
Total percentage 100% 100 %
On the other side, old democracies were slightly more
negative in the political spots attacking in 28 % of the spots.
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 image-
oriented 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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43 | P a g e
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 Old Dem
(N=60) (N=60)
Image 37% 44 %
Issue 48% 48 %
Both 15% 8 %
Total percentage 100% 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
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 Old Dem
(N= 90) (N= 79)
Social issues * 38 Spots 24
Economical issues 19 29
Political issues 15 18
Other 18 8
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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45 | P a g e
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 Old Dem
(N=98) (N=62)
Corruption * 8 Spots 1
Abuse of power 7 6
Salaries 4 5
Health 6 1
Education * 14 6
Taxes 4 8
Employment* 17 8
Foreign affairs 3 4
Environment 8 11
Infrastructure *** 20 2
Emigration 0 2
Visa * 5 0
Traditional Values * 2 8
* p < .05, *** p < .001
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 (X
2 =
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.
Focus of Image
Focus on New Dem Old Dem
(N= 65) (N=24)
Past achievements * 19 4
Experience 6 1
Abilities 4 2
Character 8 5
Future promises * 28 12
* p < .05
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, post-
authoritarian 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
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 post-
authoritarian 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).
Candidate’s 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
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 Old Dem
(N=24) (N=43)
Opponent candidate* 13 Spots 10
Opponent party ** 2 13
Opponent issue* 9 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 Old Dem
(N=33) (N=34)
Opponents characteristics** 9 Spots 3
Opponents issue 10 18
Opponents affiliation 3 1
Opponents performance 11 12
** p < .01
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
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 Old Dem
(N=60) (N=60)
Documentary 5 % 0%
Cinema verite 15% 22%
Feature film 7% 17%
Still images 3% 8%
Graphics 12% 30%
Men on the street 13% 3%
Leader speaking 38% 13%
Other 7 % 7%
Total percentage 100% 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
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
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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59 | P a g e
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
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
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 (Lees-
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 spin-
doctor’s 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 government’s 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
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
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 identity-
What 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
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
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
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
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?
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, 341–346.
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, 1087–1108.
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, 692–713.
Leighton, A. (2006). Spin: from tactic to tabloid. Journal of
Public Affairs, 6: pp.31–45.
Levitt, T. (1960). Marketing myopia. Harvard Business Review,
45–56.
Lock, A., & Harris, P. (1996). Political marketing – Vive la
Différence. 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, 13–25.
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, 325–338.
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 is…and is
not. Journal of Democracy, 2;3, 75-88.
Schattschneider, E.E. (1975). Semisoverig people – A realist’s
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.
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 1960’s.
This age was characterized by the introduction of television and
the decrease in party loyalty. Finally, the third age, from the
beginning of the 1990’s 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 people’s
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
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 Obama’s and McCain’s 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?
- 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 video’s coming from
John McCain and twelve from Barack Obama. Since there is no
database of these video’s, the first twenty-four video’s 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.
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 video’s 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
video’s. The content has been divided into different categories
of topics, which are: ‘economics’, ‘science’, ‘education’, ‘multi-
culturality’, ‘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 video’s 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
(video’s) which has lead to the following items: ‘speaking at
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
candidate’s 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
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
Krippendorff’s alpha. The data that came out of the analysis
have been analyzed and compared for the two candidates.
Besides, Pearson’s 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
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)
0
0,1
0,2
0,3
0,4
0,5
0,6
0,7
0,8
0,9
1
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 pre-
election 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
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.
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
00.10.20.30.40.50.60.70.80.9
1
McCain
Obama
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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
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.
Diagram 3: Background and editing of the commercials (1 = yes, 0 = no)
00.10.20.30.40.50.60.70.80.9
1
McCain
Obama
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1.6 Interaction
In the 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 so-
called ‘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 elderly
people (17%) therefore appealing to wider society than McCain
(see also Diagram 4 below).
Diagram 4: Interaction of the candidates with others. (1 = yes, 2 = no)
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
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
Interactionwith
camera
Interactionwith
crowd
Interactionwith men
in suits
Interactionwith
workers
Interactionwith
children
Interactiowith older
people
McCain
Obama
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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.
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 ).
00.10.20.30.40.50.60.70.80.9
1
McCain
Obama
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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).
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.
Diagram 6: Camera positioning in the commercials (1 = yes, 0 = no)
0
0,1
0,2
0,3
0,4
0,5
0,6
0,7
0,8
0,9
1
Shots from below Eye-level shots Shots from Above
McCain
Obama
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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.
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
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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Harrop, M (1990). Political marketing, Oxford
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Kotler, P. and Levy, S.J. (1969), "Broadening the
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McIlwain, C.D. & Caliendo, S.M. (2009). Black
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