Political Communications

Like public relations, political communications finds it hard to define itself and its remits. A simple way to understand this field is to understand what political communicators do. Political communicators use various paid and free media to communicate messages of their political parties to their audiences, who are the citizens. While this explanation is fairly simple, it remains highly debated and in some sense controversial.

Breaking down the above explanation, three important words can be spotted - media, messages and citizens. Media - the evolution of media has carried with it the evolution of its usage at different periods. Political leaders and preachers, historically,  stood on boxes at market places to reach out to their audiences in a rather personal fashion. While that mode of communication did disappear for a few decades, it's back and so is the 'interpersonal' and 'conversational' medium of communication between politicians and citizens. Citizens more and more want to directly communicate with their leaders and leaders on the other hand have their own agenda behind conversational communication. 

Media bias

The print media, in Britain at least, has been relatively open about their political stance, which again is not fixed. Reporters and reportage on politics is biased, highly opinionated and influential. The people reading the newspapers know it, and the political communicators have a great opportunity to pitch stories with papers that would use it without refining it too much. 'Objectivity' in journalism sounds good in theory rather than in practice. McNair affirms that, "Media biases are of key importance. In democratic political systems media function both as transmitters of political communication which originates outside the media organisation itself, and as senders of political messages constructed by journalists." Another important factor while considering media is the ownership. At the end of the day it all boils down to whose powers outweighs who, defining the agenda-setters and gate keepers of journalistic information.

To get back their personal touch with citizens, politicians worldwide have begun to use the digital space which is argued to be 'two-way' and 'conversational' medium of communication. The Obama campaign is one of the best examples of successful political communications and online election campaign. He was able to touch base with millions of Americans and continues to do so. It ticked all the boxes of the role of a PR professional or communicator. Not only did Obama win the elections, but also proved  to skeptics that strategic usage of the online media can deliver. 

Obama campaign poster

The Obama campaign used all forms of media - advertising, merchandising, online and offline party broadcasts, posters and above all earned media through news coverage. The political messages were simple, clear and extremely effective. The election campaign messages connected with the audience and showed 'un-mashed' resonance. Not only did his campaign churn out 'effective messages', it crafted an image for Obama. This almost 'celebritization' of made him an idol of many Americans and significantly raised trust in him and his policies.

Political communicators today need to not only focus on media management, but need to dive into more creative ways to produce messages and content that remain in the minds of the audiences intact and opens new methods of conversations with their political leaders both on online and offline medias.