Communicating Politics =- Rrezart Lahi

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


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).


39 | P a g e

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


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


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 %


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


(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


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


47 | P a g e

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


(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


49 | P a g e

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.


51 | P a g e

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


53 | P a g e

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%



55 | P a g e

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


57 | P a g e

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


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.


61 | P a g e

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Political Communication in New Democracies (pp.

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Shin, D. C., & Wells, J (2005). Is democracy the only game in

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Swanson, D. L., & Mancini, P. (1996). Politics, Media and

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Consequences. Westport, CT: Praeger.

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Political Communication; Theories, Cases and

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Eastern Europe. Comparative Politics, 31 (4), 379-

401.

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


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


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


119 | P a g e

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.

3. Bibliography

Blumler, J.G. & Kavangh, D. (1999). The Third Age of

Political Communication: Influences and Features. Political

Communication, 16, 209-230.

Devine, T. (2008). Paid Media – In an era of

revolutionary change, Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3,

pp.27-47.

Harrop, M (1990). Political marketing, Oxford

University Press, pp.277-291.

Kotler, P. and Levy, S.J. (1969), "Broadening the

Concept of Marketing", Journal of Marketing, 33, pp.10-15.

McIlwain, C.D. & Caliendo, S.M. (2009). Black

Messages, White Messages: The Differential Use of

Racial Appeals by Black and White Candidates. Journal of

Black Studies, 39(5), 732-745.


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Simpson, D. (2008). Campaigns and democracy - Into a

new era; Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 12, pp.194-206.

Seelye, K. Q. (2008, December 3). A $2.6 billion ad bill.

New York Times. from

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html.

Waldman, P. & Devitt, J. (1998). Newspaper

Photographs and the 1996 Presidential Election: The

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

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html

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Communicating Politics =- Rrezart Lahi