One of the lectures I gave at the LSE Executive

1. LSE Executive Education
LSE Enterprise
Dr. Carolina Matos
Media and Communications

2. Set readings
 Meyer, T. (2002) Media Democracy: How the media colonise
politics, Cambridge: Polity, see chapter 3 ‘The process of
colonization’
 Schmitt-Beck, Rudiger and Farrell, David M. (2002) “Studying
political campaigns and their effects” in Do Political
Campaigns Matter? Campaign Effects in Elections and
Referendums, London: Routledge, p. 1-22
 Scammell, M. (1995) Designer Politics Basingstoke:
Macmillan, see esp. introduction, p.1-24
 Lees-Marshment, Jennifer (2001) “Political parties and
political marketing: what is it all about?” in Political Marketing
and British Political Parties – The Party’s Just Begun,
Manchester: Manchester University Press, p. 1-49

3. Core debates
How the media colonise politics (Meyer, 2002)
British politics and political marketing
Changes in the political system – i.e. decline of civic
engagement and voter partisanship
Political marketing and some definitions: what is it?
(i.e. Scammell, 2000; Lees-Marshment,2001)
The incorporation of political marketing to politics:
- Political marketing versus propaganda
- Political advertising (McNair, 1995)
- Shift from citizen to consumer (“citizen consumer”)

4. Who has more power: the media or politicians?

5. How the media colonise politics
Thomas Meyer argues that politicians have lost some of their
authority and now seek to influence adapting to the logic of the
media
The media are perceived as more powerful - they are not the
ones who are controlled by political elites; rather, they are
controlling them
“…the depoliticized media rules that govern preliminary stage-
management in the political theater will in any case necessarily
stage the behavior of political actors who are trying to gain
access to them. This effect does not pertain primarily to the
recipients of media fare, but to the political system itself,
although it will eventually….influence the way the public
understand politics as well”. (Meyer, 52)

6. Politicians submitting to the rules of the media
 Chief perceptions of politics will be what the media choose to
portray on their stage
 To these elites, submission is the way they legitimise their
power
 Mediated mass democracy has had its price –
 “From the point when the idea of democracy as popular
sovereignty began to attract widespread support, it was inevitable
that politics would have to engage the mass media… Thus, in its
efforts to cater to the tastes of the mass public, and due to the
pressures to stage manage media events, politics itself becomes
“politainment or a variant of popular culture” (Meyer, 53).

7. Risks to democracy and obstacles for real
participation
 Real political process - behind the stage - becomes
invisible to wider public
 Paradox of mass democracies – the dialectic of
mediacracy -
democratic principles thus guarantee that
“information is made available in participation in
decision-making as extensive as possible, but …this
same process of colonization makes it difficult for the
vast majority….to monitor and influence political
events in an informed way”, culminating in ordinary
citizens feeling more detached politics (Meyer, 56)

8. Public spaces and the public sphere - a Habermasian
perspective
“Colonization in this sense thus means the …unconditional surrender
of politics…to the logic of the media system. Only in exceptional
cases….does the political system insist that the media should portray
politics in a way suitable to the public interest.” (58)
 Main influence here is Habermas and his theory of communicative
action, of the colonization of one societal domain by another
 According to Habermas, this happens when the first succeeds in
imposing its own rules on the latter
 Worries concern the decline of rational argument in the process of
consensus-building, and the role played by money and power
 Success in managing access to the “media stage” lies in the
theatricalization of its own performance (72)

9. UK “stage” politics: from Margaret Thatcher to the re-
branding of the Conservatives

10. Designer Politics (Scammell, 1995; 2000)
 What can be said of political marketing in Britain?
 1) Marketing is entrenched in the political process
 2) Does not offer magic solutions for winning elections
 3) use of political marketing needs to be closely monitored
 Initial reluctance of the Left in adopting political marketing:
 “Labour’s lesson of the 1992 general election was related to the
limitations of marketing and the difficulties of changing the
party’s images. For a while, it seemed as though marketing was
in retreat. Labour’s team of advertising and media advisers, the
Shadow Communications Agency (SCA), caught much of the
backlash for defeat…”(xiv)

11. Political marketing as a new form of political
engagement
Does not agree with “pessimism” of literature on political
marketing
Points to growth in interest of political marketing in the
academia; less hostility
Debate today is the ways in which it can stimulate more
civic engagement and attract wider groups to the political
sphere
Changes in political system and rise of educational levels
have made voters less predictable
Attacks on political marketing seem to imply that a
“golden age” of rational political debate existed once

12. Limits and merits of political marketing
Political marketing has its limits in its capacity of
persuasion
Scammell points out how voters can be influenced by
various factors, mainly socio-economic ones: “…marketing
may bring real democratic benefits by improving two way
communications between voters and politicians
theoretically….allowing both parties and voters to be
better informed and make more rational choices” (xv).
The mass media are seen as having brought the masses
fully into the political process (McNair, 1995)

13. Margaret Thatcher and marketing techniques in UK/US
politics
 Margaret Thatcher and Reagan (“the New Right”) brought
marketing into political sphere
 Hiring of Saatchi and Saatchi in 1978 by Conservative Party was
big news and seen as responsible for their victory in 1979
 “Thatcher’s faith in advertising extended most controversially
beyond the purely party domain into the realm of government
publicity…Thatcherism put advertising on the map” (Scammell,
2)
 Labour Party slowly began to adopt similar practices
(I.e. Peter Mandelson as key figure behind the “velvet
revolution”)

14. Political marketing and some definitions: what
is it?
 According to Scammell, political marketing covers a multitude
of activities, including advertising, public relations and any
political activity concerned with image and persuasion
 Problems: a simple political speech might not be considered
political marketing, whereas a rally complete with mood music,
balloons and flags.. would be (Scammell, 5-6)
 Lees-Marshment (2001) criticises Scammell and makes a case
for the term comprehensive political marketing (CPM)
 The Chartered Institute of Marketing…defines marketing as: “
those activities performed by individuals…whether profit or
non-profit, that enable, facilitate and encourage exchange to
take place…(Scammell, 7).

15. Political marketing versus propaganda and the
democratic process
Critiques of its impact on the quality of the democratic process:
 Political marketing can be understood as the commercialisation of politics
and the extension of the relations of consumption to the political sphere
(McNair, 1995)
 “The rational citizen of classic liberal theory has become “a consumer of
politics and policies….the competing political parties present electors with
different policy options in broadly the same way as firms offer rival
products to the consumers’ (Greenaway, 1992, 51 in McNair, 1995; 41).
 Propaganda versus political marketing:
 “It is a common misconception that marketing equals advertising or
propaganda or image or brand-building, even though all these will almost
certainly form part of the ‘marketing mix’” (Scammell, 8).
 Nazism did not borrow marketing techniques from the business
community

16. Changes in the political system and politics as popular culture:
rise of leadership, political consultants and advertising
* Criticisms is that marketing contributed to the decline of ideological
commitments of parties within a Habermasian understanding of the
fall of “rational political debate”
* Critiques of the decline of the quality of leaders ; shift towards their
personality and character (“just like us”)
* The expansion of public relations and advertising thus culminated in,
according to Nicholas Garnham, ‘the direct control of private or state
interests of the flow of public information in the interest, not of
rational discourse, but of manipulation’ (1986 in McNair, 1995, 41).
• Rise of political consultants, who become just as important as the
leaders that they serve (Scammell, 1995)
• Video: Tony Blair signs The Clash (http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=-dOszwPVCNo&feature=related)

17. After all, do political campaigns matters? (David Farrell and
Rudiger Schmitt-Beck, 2002)
Political campaigns are a core feature of the political
process in contemporary democracies (the era of
“permanent campaigns”, as Bennett reminds us)
Most studies have focused on campaign effects in national
contexts (US and UK mainly), but there has been a rise in
comparative political campaigning practices
Authors talk about 4 types of political campaigns: 1)
elections; 2) referendums; 3) single-issue campaigns or
interest-based and 4) image campaigns
Permanent campaigns and “professionalization”

18. Political campaigns and their effects and types (Farrell and
Schmitt-Beck, 2002, 13)
Micro - Intentional: Unintentional:
Knowledge gain Knowledge gain
Perception change Perceptional change
Mobilization De-motivation
Persuasion Support/alienation
Activation
Reinforcement
Conversion
Macro - Success at elections Decline of elite
Agenda setting responsiveness
Framing of public debate (De)legitimization
Public knowledge (De) mobilization
Elite transformation
Party transformation

19. Political parties and political marketing: what is
it all about?
Lees-Marshment (2001) argues that political science and
communication scholars have not fully defined political
marketing
Political marketing is a new era of research, integrating
political science and management
Shift in political scenario from politicians debating what
they want to discussing how to implement what voters
want
Concerns: what are the consequences of this new state of
things for democracy? Can politicians now really serve the
public?

20. Politics and the post-modern: branding and
consumerism
 Is political marketing effective? Is political advertising
effective?
 If it is not, why are parties, and other interest groups,
permanently campaigning?
 I.e. New Labour party political broadcast (“The Choice”
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcOzWH0XEI in
www.labour.org.uk

21. Conclusions
 1) Political systems have changed in advanced capitalist societies due
to globalisation, geographical mobility and increase labour migration
– decline of family and community, of party-based politics, etc
 2) Rise in educational levels of the public, increase in sophistication
and criticism and decline of class interests (middle and working class
has become blurred)
 3) Voters less faithful, less disposed to vote ideologically and more
pragmatically
 4) Shift of concern from parties away from political debate to present
voters with what they want (i.e. Party delivery of product)
 5) Submission of politicians to the media’s logic?, or a vicious circle of
cooperation and conflict (i.e. the political media complex model)
between the media and politicians?

22. Questions for further research
 1) What has the impact been of political marketing on the political process?
 2) Is political marketing really effective? In what ways is it different from
“propaganda ”?
 3) Do you think political conviction has died (Lees Marshment, 2001)? Do we
still not choose parties and candidates according to our own view of the world
and personal beliefs? Or is partisanship and ideology restricted now to the
more politically engaged? ;
 4) Can political marketing contribute to the rise of political cynicism, or is it a
new way of engaging the disengaged?
 5) In what way is political marketing a consequence of the “post-modern”
reality that we live in?
 6) Can political marketing not also be seen as a more “entertaining way” of
doing and engaging with politics?

23. Seminar activities – to start today and to
present for Wednesday
1. Choose from the list a politician.
2. Discuss their political image and how he/her was portrayed in a
recent political campaign.
3. How would your company (or party) market the candidate
and/or political party better in the future? What would your
communication strategy be?
4. Design a political campaign for the next election using the
texts that you have read to help you.
David Cameron; Nicholas Sarkozy; Nelson Mandela ; Luis
Inacio Lula da Silva; Gordon Brown; Angela Merkel; Hillary
Clinton; Vladimir Putin and Ken Livingstone