20130412164339753295_book_an-introduction-to-political-communication
20130412164339753295_book_an-introduction-to-political-communication
20130412164339753295_book_an-introduction-to-political-communication
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6<br />
PARTY POLITICAL<br />
COMMUNICATION I<br />
Advertising<br />
This chapter presents:<br />
• An outline of how advertisements work<br />
• A brief his<strong>to</strong>ry of the development of <strong>political</strong> advertising from<br />
print <strong>to</strong> the internet<br />
• An account of the various approaches adopted in both the US <strong>an</strong>d<br />
Britain since the Second World War, up <strong>to</strong> <strong>an</strong>d including the 2010<br />
general election.<br />
Robert Den<strong>to</strong>n argues that in America, th<strong>an</strong>ks <strong>to</strong> the growth in the role of<br />
television in <strong>political</strong> campaigning, the pre-eminent form of <strong>political</strong> ora<strong>to</strong>ry<br />
has become the advertisement. The <strong>political</strong> ad, he wrote more th<strong>an</strong> two<br />
decades ago, is ‘now the major me<strong>an</strong>s by which c<strong>an</strong>didates for the presidency<br />
communicate their messages <strong>to</strong> voters’ (1988, p. 5). Nimmo <strong>an</strong>d<br />
Felsberg suggested that ‘paid <strong>political</strong> advertising via television now constitutes<br />
the mainstream of modern elec<strong>to</strong>ral politics’ (1986, p. 248). In<br />
Britain <strong>an</strong>d other comparable countries <strong>to</strong>o, although regula<strong>to</strong>ry <strong>an</strong>d stylistic<br />
conventions differ from those of the US, <strong>political</strong> advertising is central <strong>to</strong><br />
<strong>political</strong> <strong>communication</strong>. Today, of course, television has been joined by the<br />
internet as a platform for advertising of all kinds, including <strong>political</strong>.<br />
THE POWER OF ADVERTISING<br />
Advertising’s power – if power it has (by no me<strong>an</strong>s <strong>an</strong> uncontentious<br />
assertion, as Chapter 3 suggested) – is exercised on two levels. First, the<br />
<strong>political</strong> advertisement disseminates information about the c<strong>an</strong>didate’s or<br />
party’s programme <strong>to</strong> a degree of detail which journalists c<strong>an</strong> rarely match.<br />
As Chapter 4 argued, news has developed generic conventions <strong>an</strong>d narrative<br />
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