Week 20 Flashcards
Party Campaigning
What is political party campaigning?
- A planned set of actions that political parties undertake over an extended period of time to convey a message to voters with a goal of winning elections
Which people are considered voters in political party campaigning?
- Your supporters
- People who will never vote for you
- Undecided voters
What are the qualities of campaigning in the UK?
- Leader focused
- Valence emphasis
- Rise of political marketing and professionalisation
- Vital importance of TV and digital media
- Revival of (centralised) local campaigns
What does valence mean in political campaigning in the UK mean?
How competent political parties are perceived at achieving what they want
What does professionalisation mean in political campaigning?
Getting professionals or experts to run your campaign
What are the different time periods in UK political campaigning?
- Pre-modern
- Modern
- Post-modern
What are the distinctions between the different time periods of political campaigning?
- Alignment and pre-TV
- Weak alignment and mass-TV
- Dealignment and fragmented, digital media
Pre-modern time period, context of alignment and pre-TV
- Parties:
- Planned:
- Messages:
- Voters:
- Actions (level/focus):
Time:
- Parties: local parties
- Planned: loose, decentralised
- Messages: “propaganda”, fixed voter/policy
- Voters: core voters
- Actions (level/focus): local - mobilisation, reliant on activists
Time: short - weeks before election
Modern time period, context of weak alignment and mass TV
- Parties:
- Planned:
- Messages:
- Voters:
- Actions (level/focus):
Time:
- Parties: headquarters
- Planned: tight, centrally organised
- Messages: “sales”, persuade uncommitted voters
- Voters: swing voters
- Actions (level/focus): national campaigns - better policy, campaign professionals
Time: long (year before election)
What does “sales” messaging mean in political campaigning?
Marketing political parties as a product
Post-modern time period, context of dealignment and fragmented digital media
- Parties:
- Planned:
- Messages:
- Voters:
- Actions (level/focus):
Time:
- Parties: campaign professionals
- Planned: tight, centrally organised
- Messages: “marketing”, targeted malleable policy
- Voters: swing voters
- Actions (level/focus): multilevel (local and national) - policy image, candidate (product), campaign professionals
Time: permanent (lasts for years, not weeks)
What is malleable policy?
Focus on more palatable and less controversial ideas such as valence issues
Political marketing
- Consumers:
- Product:
- Tools:
- Consumers: voters
- Product: policies, candidates and leaders, image
- Tools: polling, focus groups, news management, etc.
Why is political marketing similar to product marketing today?
- Attempt to create long-term brand
- Associate parties/leaders with images that endure
- Valuable short-cut for poorly informed voters - valence attributes, slogans and logos
- Political marketing is important in media-dominated era with a dealigned electorate
Do political marketers ever consider party ideology and history when making adverts?
- Political marketing is more important than ideology
What do marketing professionals consider when marketing policies?
- Eye-catching policies, e.g., tax cuts. tough on crime and migration
What do marketing professionals consider when marketing candidates and leaders?
- Political: moderate or extreme? Strong or weak?
- Personal: age, class, (lack of) hair, accent, wit
- What leaders are like vs what they do
- Permanent campaigning: things politicians have done years ago may still effect the outcome of an election in week-long campaign
What do marketing professionals consider when marketing image?
- Extreme or moderate
- United vs divided
- Represents all or only some groups
- Caring or uncaring
How do political marketers use news events as a tool?
- Give media outlets incentives to report on parties
- Managing short term daily news will develop long term images
- This filters through to voters
What are some examples of tactics marketers use for news events?
- Interviews and briefings (on or off record)
- Policy announcements
- Manifesto launches
- Press conferences
- News releases
- Speeches
Why do parties use spin doctors and news management?
- Parties are under constant media scrutiny
- They need media specialists to fight damaging media stories and promote helpful stories
–> they can influence the reporting of stories
Who do spin doctors tend to be?
Often ex-journalists
When did the use of spin doctors rise?
Under New Labour
What are the benefits of using party leaders TV debates as a tool?
- Good for small parties - increase publicity
- Voters can see leaders directly responding/challenging
- Can boost the credibility of strong performers
- Can accentuate focus on leaders
- Can detract attention from the rest of the election campaign
When was the first UK televised leader debates?
2010
How is polling and focus groups a useful tool for political marketing?
Get information to adjust product along with voters’ expressed preferences
What is conventional opinion polling (qualitative)?
- Large sample of voters (e.g., 500 - 1000 respondents)
- Closed questions (survey)
- Questions about party image strengths, weaknesses, popular policies etc.
What are the benefits of conventional opinion polling (qualitative) in political marketing?
- Precise answers
- Big sample size
- Easy to process data
What are the negatives of using conventional opinion polling in political marketing?
- Costs a lot of money and time
- Unable to give nuanced answers that might be helpful
- Cannot ask follow-up questions
What is a focus group?
- Small sample pf voters (e.g., 10-20)
- Tests depth/ intensity
- Open questions, discussion
What are the benefits of focus groups in political marketing?
- Cheaper and takes less time than conventional opinion polling
- More nuanced answers
- Can ask follow-up questions
What are the negatives of focus groups in political marketing?
- Small sample size
- Confirmation bias
- People may lie about their beliefs due to peer pressure
What are the opportunities that parties/politicians have when using the internet and social media for political campaigning?
- Direct communication with local parties, members and voters
- Can circumvent mainstream media
- Can target appeals to certain groups
What are the possible limits that parties have when using the internet and social media for political campaigning?
- How wide of a reach does the internet/social media really have?
- Marketing to your followers who probably already support you
- Hard to maintain unity within the party
What are the risks that parties have when using the internet and social media for political campaigning?
- Fake news
- Information bubbles
- Echo chambers
Why do parties have a new interest in local campaigns?
Could be helpful in selected marginal seats
What are the advantages of local campaigns?
- Face to face contact
- Concentrate resources (funds, activists)
- Two way interaction with voters
- What exactly are the advantages of this?
What are the disadvantages of local campaigns?
- Time-consuming
- Each activists only reaches a few voters
- Challenged by declining memberships, esp in some countries
How is the style of local campaigns changing?
More centrally coordinated
- National coordination, professionalisation
- Targeting key seats - money and activists
- Telephone banks - calling voters
- Appeals to targeted groups
