Summary PPP HC9-12
HC9 Campaigning and Framing
- Campaigning and framing: introduction
If and how do political communication and campaigns influence political participation
Electoral politics
- Political campaigns: It consists of an organized communication effort, involving the role of one or more
agencies (be they parties, candidates, government institutions or special interest organizations) seeking to
influence the outcome of processes of political decision-making by shaping public opinion
The art of inducing all sorts of people who think differently to vote alike is practiced in every political
campaign
By selection of what you say and how you say it
- The actors involved: political actors-> initiate political communication
WHO: Individual or institutional subjects; in electoral campaign= candidates running for office and their
staff, their opponents and allies
WHERE: in specific political and institutional contexts
WHAT: seek to create and maintain consensus, fight for power management, compete for leadership; in
electoral campaigns: getting elected!
HOW: going public, media management (consultants, spin doctors, storytelling & narratives, TV & press
relationships...): campaigning!
- The actors involved: the media-> interpret information etc.-> what aspects to emphasis-> power to influence
citizens
WHO: old and new media: press (quality newspapers, tabloids…), TV, Internet & Web 2.0 (social
networks)
WHAT: transmission belt (“neutral” transmission of messages from politicians to citizens); active
selection, thematization, interpretation of issues; newsmaking
- The actors involved: the citizens-> called to express political preference-> target of media-> recipients and
sources-> social media etc.
WHO: The citizen-voter, the electorate, public opinion, audience…
WHAT: necessary for both political actors and media: «recipient» of political communication and
campaigns; actively give feedback to political actors and media! (decides ‘who lives and who dies’ in the
realm of politics and political communication!): influence and are influenced by political actors and
media!
HOW: based on individual level attitudes, SES, political orientation, political socialization,
identification… react critically to the stimuli; can change their mind about issues, candidates….
- Context important (institutional setting, political culture, social and economic conditions (relations politics
and citizens etc.) and random events) and actors interdependent
- Post-modern campaigns (90s-todays): features
Multiple sources/channels, multimedia (from press to social media)
Professionalization (party campaign managers, external media, advertising and survey experts, specialized
campaign and political consultants…)
Mediatization and spectacularization of campaigns and content/style of political communication
Permanent campaigns
Issue-based electorate & electoral volatility (secularization, less attached)(vs. strong stable partisanship)
Market logic («marketization»): narrowly-casted, targeted micro-messages!
1
,- Example of marketization of political communication: microtargeting applied to electoral campaigns
Every time you shop share information with retailers-> so they can act on it
Target knows before it shows Forbes: data mine into womb of women so they know when they know if
your pregnant
Cambridge analytical changed the world the guardian: through Facebook able to manipulate campaigns
and address specific messages to electorate
- Do political communication and campaigns matter? And how?
- Iyengar and Simon
- The magic bullet/ hypodermic needle model of campaign effects
1. Direct, immediate and powerful effects of mass media on its audiences
2. Passive audience-> cannot resist power
3. No individual differences
- The «minimal effect» of campaigns paradigm: the sociological approach (Columbia university)->
representative longitudinal studies
Individuals’ political preferences and behaviour depend on political socialization (Social determinism)->
partisan
Interpersonal communication can short-circuit media influence (Social influence)
Voters select and retain only information coherent to their political orientation & preferences (Selection
mechanisms)
Campaigns do not matter much (Minimal effect paradigm)
- The «minimal effect» of campaigns paradigm: the social-psychological approach (Survey Research Center of
Michigan University)
Party identification as the key to understand support and voting for a party-> overlook interpersonal
communication and mass media, disregard campaign effects
Campaigns do not matter much (Minimal effect paradigm)
- The problems of studying political communication and campaign effects
Campaigns do matter and can be pivotal. In the current regime, the consequences of campaigns are far
from minimal academic wisdom is compromised by conceptual and methodological inadequacies
- Methodological problem: measuring exposure
The problem of relying on self-reported exposure to campaigns stimuli in surveys:
Inaccurate memory and recall problems (i.e. survey respondents report an underestimated or over-
estimated exposure)
«socially desirable» answers: showing civic virtue
Self-reported exposure to campaign stimuli is (partly) endogeneous to political attitudes! (e.g. interest
in politics; partisanship etc.= systematic differences-> tune into politics)
The problem of measuring exposure over time («permanent campaigns» imposible to recall all political
advertising)
Solution 1: longitudinal surveys-> overtime
Solution 2: aggregate-level longitudinal studies-> avarage of political atributes in public opinion
The problem of measuring exposure to different sources of communication, over time…-> different
exposure in different places: volume and tone in advertising
Solution 1: «rolling cross section» (combining panel and time series approach)-> expensive->
interviewed continiously, and grouped-> find effects of campaings
Solution 2: experiments-> which type of communication-> wording, skin color, tone etc.-> often with
collgues undergraduates
Solution 3: content analysis-> complement experiments to make them more realistic-> analyse
characterisics-> can be overtime: insides with outsides of experiments
- Conceptual problems of the effects: beyond persuasion
Problem: Main focus on «persuasion» (i.e. capacity to influence voters making them change their mind)
confirms «minimal effects» (role of partisanship & prior political attitudes more important)
Solution: broader conceptual definition of «effects»!
Examples:
Learning (acquisition of information and political knowledge)-> to be known is to be liked,
information that confirms that ideas and avoid information that rejects ideas-> educates citizens
through variety of information
Agenda control (strategic selection of issues and relative salience by political actors and media)->
perceived salience influences way we influence way we evaluate candidates
- Overcoming the conceptual problem: the Resonance model
2
, Interactions between campaign characteristics and voters/audience characteristics: is there a fit (=
resonance) between them?
Partisanship and other political attitudes
Stereotypes, coherence and credibility, issue ownership etc.
Resonate with prior attitudes
- Overcoming the conceptual problem: the Strategic Model
Strategic interactions between political actors and between political actors and the media (E.g. negative
campaigning)
Influence and shape the context in which political communication and campaigns take place (thus
influence the voters, e.g. effect of negative campaigning on voter turnout)-> influence tone of
campaign and voter turnout
- Do campaigns matter? To answer, we need to look at…
Interactions between actors
Context
The role of multiple channels/source of information; new media!
Cumulative effects of exposure to many channels
Methodological challenges
Many different factors: psychological, socialization, economic, etc. -> individual level interacts with
political actors and media-> silly to reduce to mere exposure-> participation not being reduced to
single factor
- We should then ask:
Do campaign matter…? For whom? When? In which circumstances…?
- Scheufele and Tewksbury
- Agenda setting:
The press and the media do not simply «reflect» reality: they filter and shape it
(constructivist approach)
Media coverage about (political) issues influence the audience’s perceptions of
issues’ salience.
Interactive construction of reality-> media and press can raise awareness-> emphasis on an issue and
importance of decisions that can be made
Agenda setting theory, McCombs & Shaw (1972) experiment (cross-sectional survey): there is a strong
correlation between mass media emphasis on certain issues and the importance attributed to these issues
by the audience
The mass media “may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but is stunningly
successful in telling its readers what to think about” (Cohen, 1963, p. 13)
- Priming:
Political actors and the media, by making some issues more salient than others, can influence: the
standards by which governments, presidents, policies and candidates for public office are judged->
extension agenda setting
Difference agenda setting: priming is on impact of issue coverage on the weight people assessing to the
issue when making a political decision versus agenda setting is about impact on what coverage has on
issues
- Framing
Framing (…) is based (…) on the assumption that subtle changes in the wording of the description of a
situation might affect how audience members interpret this situation. (…) framing influences how
audiences think about issues, (…) by invoking interpretative schemas that influence the interpretation of
incoming information-> thinking about them, evaluate them and understand them
It is not what you say, but how you say it!
Equivalency framing:
The Asian disease problem-> same amount of people lives saved versus lives lost however how the
solutions were framed different decisions were made -> use of numbers in a frame
The key considerations emphasized in speech act, in reported news, etc. :«a central organizing idea or
story line that provides meaning to an unfolding strip of events…The framing suggests what the
controversy is about, the essence of an issue-> highlighting different issues
Example: hate group rally described within a free-speech frame (emphasis on freedom and civil
liberty as fundamental values) or within a public safety frame (emphasis on importance to protect
minorities affected and contrast violence)
- Differences between the 3 models: News processing-> Refers to how the recipients process information
3
HC9 Campaigning and Framing
- Campaigning and framing: introduction
If and how do political communication and campaigns influence political participation
Electoral politics
- Political campaigns: It consists of an organized communication effort, involving the role of one or more
agencies (be they parties, candidates, government institutions or special interest organizations) seeking to
influence the outcome of processes of political decision-making by shaping public opinion
The art of inducing all sorts of people who think differently to vote alike is practiced in every political
campaign
By selection of what you say and how you say it
- The actors involved: political actors-> initiate political communication
WHO: Individual or institutional subjects; in electoral campaign= candidates running for office and their
staff, their opponents and allies
WHERE: in specific political and institutional contexts
WHAT: seek to create and maintain consensus, fight for power management, compete for leadership; in
electoral campaigns: getting elected!
HOW: going public, media management (consultants, spin doctors, storytelling & narratives, TV & press
relationships...): campaigning!
- The actors involved: the media-> interpret information etc.-> what aspects to emphasis-> power to influence
citizens
WHO: old and new media: press (quality newspapers, tabloids…), TV, Internet & Web 2.0 (social
networks)
WHAT: transmission belt (“neutral” transmission of messages from politicians to citizens); active
selection, thematization, interpretation of issues; newsmaking
- The actors involved: the citizens-> called to express political preference-> target of media-> recipients and
sources-> social media etc.
WHO: The citizen-voter, the electorate, public opinion, audience…
WHAT: necessary for both political actors and media: «recipient» of political communication and
campaigns; actively give feedback to political actors and media! (decides ‘who lives and who dies’ in the
realm of politics and political communication!): influence and are influenced by political actors and
media!
HOW: based on individual level attitudes, SES, political orientation, political socialization,
identification… react critically to the stimuli; can change their mind about issues, candidates….
- Context important (institutional setting, political culture, social and economic conditions (relations politics
and citizens etc.) and random events) and actors interdependent
- Post-modern campaigns (90s-todays): features
Multiple sources/channels, multimedia (from press to social media)
Professionalization (party campaign managers, external media, advertising and survey experts, specialized
campaign and political consultants…)
Mediatization and spectacularization of campaigns and content/style of political communication
Permanent campaigns
Issue-based electorate & electoral volatility (secularization, less attached)(vs. strong stable partisanship)
Market logic («marketization»): narrowly-casted, targeted micro-messages!
1
,- Example of marketization of political communication: microtargeting applied to electoral campaigns
Every time you shop share information with retailers-> so they can act on it
Target knows before it shows Forbes: data mine into womb of women so they know when they know if
your pregnant
Cambridge analytical changed the world the guardian: through Facebook able to manipulate campaigns
and address specific messages to electorate
- Do political communication and campaigns matter? And how?
- Iyengar and Simon
- The magic bullet/ hypodermic needle model of campaign effects
1. Direct, immediate and powerful effects of mass media on its audiences
2. Passive audience-> cannot resist power
3. No individual differences
- The «minimal effect» of campaigns paradigm: the sociological approach (Columbia university)->
representative longitudinal studies
Individuals’ political preferences and behaviour depend on political socialization (Social determinism)->
partisan
Interpersonal communication can short-circuit media influence (Social influence)
Voters select and retain only information coherent to their political orientation & preferences (Selection
mechanisms)
Campaigns do not matter much (Minimal effect paradigm)
- The «minimal effect» of campaigns paradigm: the social-psychological approach (Survey Research Center of
Michigan University)
Party identification as the key to understand support and voting for a party-> overlook interpersonal
communication and mass media, disregard campaign effects
Campaigns do not matter much (Minimal effect paradigm)
- The problems of studying political communication and campaign effects
Campaigns do matter and can be pivotal. In the current regime, the consequences of campaigns are far
from minimal academic wisdom is compromised by conceptual and methodological inadequacies
- Methodological problem: measuring exposure
The problem of relying on self-reported exposure to campaigns stimuli in surveys:
Inaccurate memory and recall problems (i.e. survey respondents report an underestimated or over-
estimated exposure)
«socially desirable» answers: showing civic virtue
Self-reported exposure to campaign stimuli is (partly) endogeneous to political attitudes! (e.g. interest
in politics; partisanship etc.= systematic differences-> tune into politics)
The problem of measuring exposure over time («permanent campaigns» imposible to recall all political
advertising)
Solution 1: longitudinal surveys-> overtime
Solution 2: aggregate-level longitudinal studies-> avarage of political atributes in public opinion
The problem of measuring exposure to different sources of communication, over time…-> different
exposure in different places: volume and tone in advertising
Solution 1: «rolling cross section» (combining panel and time series approach)-> expensive->
interviewed continiously, and grouped-> find effects of campaings
Solution 2: experiments-> which type of communication-> wording, skin color, tone etc.-> often with
collgues undergraduates
Solution 3: content analysis-> complement experiments to make them more realistic-> analyse
characterisics-> can be overtime: insides with outsides of experiments
- Conceptual problems of the effects: beyond persuasion
Problem: Main focus on «persuasion» (i.e. capacity to influence voters making them change their mind)
confirms «minimal effects» (role of partisanship & prior political attitudes more important)
Solution: broader conceptual definition of «effects»!
Examples:
Learning (acquisition of information and political knowledge)-> to be known is to be liked,
information that confirms that ideas and avoid information that rejects ideas-> educates citizens
through variety of information
Agenda control (strategic selection of issues and relative salience by political actors and media)->
perceived salience influences way we influence way we evaluate candidates
- Overcoming the conceptual problem: the Resonance model
2
, Interactions between campaign characteristics and voters/audience characteristics: is there a fit (=
resonance) between them?
Partisanship and other political attitudes
Stereotypes, coherence and credibility, issue ownership etc.
Resonate with prior attitudes
- Overcoming the conceptual problem: the Strategic Model
Strategic interactions between political actors and between political actors and the media (E.g. negative
campaigning)
Influence and shape the context in which political communication and campaigns take place (thus
influence the voters, e.g. effect of negative campaigning on voter turnout)-> influence tone of
campaign and voter turnout
- Do campaigns matter? To answer, we need to look at…
Interactions between actors
Context
The role of multiple channels/source of information; new media!
Cumulative effects of exposure to many channels
Methodological challenges
Many different factors: psychological, socialization, economic, etc. -> individual level interacts with
political actors and media-> silly to reduce to mere exposure-> participation not being reduced to
single factor
- We should then ask:
Do campaign matter…? For whom? When? In which circumstances…?
- Scheufele and Tewksbury
- Agenda setting:
The press and the media do not simply «reflect» reality: they filter and shape it
(constructivist approach)
Media coverage about (political) issues influence the audience’s perceptions of
issues’ salience.
Interactive construction of reality-> media and press can raise awareness-> emphasis on an issue and
importance of decisions that can be made
Agenda setting theory, McCombs & Shaw (1972) experiment (cross-sectional survey): there is a strong
correlation between mass media emphasis on certain issues and the importance attributed to these issues
by the audience
The mass media “may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but is stunningly
successful in telling its readers what to think about” (Cohen, 1963, p. 13)
- Priming:
Political actors and the media, by making some issues more salient than others, can influence: the
standards by which governments, presidents, policies and candidates for public office are judged->
extension agenda setting
Difference agenda setting: priming is on impact of issue coverage on the weight people assessing to the
issue when making a political decision versus agenda setting is about impact on what coverage has on
issues
- Framing
Framing (…) is based (…) on the assumption that subtle changes in the wording of the description of a
situation might affect how audience members interpret this situation. (…) framing influences how
audiences think about issues, (…) by invoking interpretative schemas that influence the interpretation of
incoming information-> thinking about them, evaluate them and understand them
It is not what you say, but how you say it!
Equivalency framing:
The Asian disease problem-> same amount of people lives saved versus lives lost however how the
solutions were framed different decisions were made -> use of numbers in a frame
The key considerations emphasized in speech act, in reported news, etc. :«a central organizing idea or
story line that provides meaning to an unfolding strip of events…The framing suggests what the
controversy is about, the essence of an issue-> highlighting different issues
Example: hate group rally described within a free-speech frame (emphasis on freedom and civil
liberty as fundamental values) or within a public safety frame (emphasis on importance to protect
minorities affected and contrast violence)
- Differences between the 3 models: News processing-> Refers to how the recipients process information
3
