Chapter from Pippa Norris “A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in PostIndustrial
Societies.”(NY: Cambridge University Press, Fall 2000)
1
Chapter 8
The Rise of the Post-Modern Campaign?
To understand the implications of these developments, and the
longer term changes in campaigning outlined in the previous chapter, we
can turn to detailed case studies of American and British elections in
the mid-1940s, just prior to the rise of television and opinion polls,
compared with campaigns in the 1990s. The techniques of modern
campaigning have probably been transformed most radically in America so
a case study of US presidential elections highlights the extent of the
changes and the outlines of the ‘post -modern’ campaign that is emerging.
Comparisons can be drawn with Britain, a country sharing strong cultural
bonds with America, with important similarities in party and electoral
systems, and therefore perhaps one of the countries most strongly
influenced by trans-Atlantic trends. The first section compares the
party organization, news environment and electorate in the 1948 US and
1945 British elections as exemplars of pre -modern campaigning. The next
goes on to compare the situation in the 1996 American presidential
elections and the equivalent 1997 British general election, and then
considers the implications of these changes.
The Pre-Modern American Campaign
The 1948 American presidential campaign re presented the last
hurrah for the old system. Truman and Dewey’s campaign organization
still relied heavily upon traditional, face -to-face retail politics for
getting out the message, with whistle -stop railway tours across the
country, meetings with party notables and ticker-tape parades in major
cities, and keynote speeches before packed crowds 1
. Politics was very
much a public spectacle, not a private event experienced in living
rooms, although in the early twenties the incursion of radio already
started to transform the process. In the United States the first mass based
party organizations developed in the Jacksonian era in the early
19th
Century to mobilize support in states and cities like New York,
Chicago and Boston2
. In urban strongholds the Democra tic machine
continued to organize events and turned out supporters at local and
state level. The Presidential candidates relied on only a handful of
close advisors: Truman's train had an entourage of only about twenty
campaign staff, including speech -writers, secretaries and security
details, accompanied by a small group of about forty reporters. Dewey's
campaign organization was similar in size, with about one hundred
reporters accompanying his whistle -stop trains.
Newspapers, radio and movie newsreels p rovided the main sources
of mediated news. America had about 1,800 daily newspapers, reaching
about a third of the population every day, not including thousands of
weekly papers and popular magazines. Early American newspapers were
highly partisan, with editors seeing their job as serving as the
mouthpiece for different political leaders and factions. The mid -19th
Century saw the emergence of more commercially -oriented mass circulation
tabloid newspapers, with greater political independent since their
principle source of revenue was sales rather than government subsidies,
but it was not until the 1920s, following Pulitzer, that journalism
started to evolve towards the ‘objective’ model emphasizing standards
Chapter from Pippa Norris “A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in PostIndustrial
Societies.”(NY: Cambridge University Press, Fall 2000)
2
such as fairness, impartiality and the attempt to avoid direct partisan
leanings3
. By 1948 the partisan press had been in decline for many
decades, but in their editorial support newspapers were clearly stacked
to favour the GOP camp: 771 papers (65 percent of all papers) endorsed
Dewey, compared with only 182 papers (15 percent), which supported
Truman4
. The Republican edge in terms of circulation figures was even
greater, and this imbalance persisted in every election until the
1960s.
Yet newspaper partisanship received a counter -balance from the
other media. The 1934 Communication Act regulating the airwaves ensured
that equal opportunities for access to the airwaves were provided to all
bona fide candidates for public office, forbade the censorship of
political broadcasts on the radio, and regulated ra dio and television
stations through the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Roosevelt's fireside chats on radio, and later Truman's, reached a
national audience, with over 90 percent of households owning a radio
set. Radio carried candidate speeches to a wide audience, as well as
broadcasting paid ads and special political programs throughout the
election. During the campaign two short 10 -minute films of Truman and
Dewey played in movie theatres throughout the country, at a time when
about 65 million people went to the movies every week.
Television was only emerging into the political spotlight: in 1948
the party conventions were covered on TV for the first time, reaching
audiences in New York and Washington DC, and this campaign also saw the
first paid television appearances by presidential candidates. But the
audience was limited: in 1950 only 9 percent of American households
possessed a black-and-white television set flickering in the corner of
the living room although the consumer boom of the fift ies rapidly
transformed this situation. For the few who watched TV, without cable,
the three major networks monopolized the airwaves, each network
broadcast providing only 15 minutes of news in the early evening. The
balance between the print press and e lectronic media was already
starting to shift as early as 1952: when people were asked by the NES
about their main source of election information 39 percent reported
following the campaign 'regularly' in newspapers, one third listened to
'a good many' radio speeches or discussions, but already one third
watched 'a good many' programs about the campaign on television 5
.
As mentioned earlier, Paul Lasarsfeld and colleagues in the early
1940s carried out the first systematic studies of media use and voting
behavior in American campaigns6
. Lasarsfeld emphasized that the main
function of the campaign was to reinforce those supporters who already
had partisan leanings; the ‘attentive public’ who tuned into campaign
speeches on the radio, followed the campaign in n ewspapers, and
discussed politics with friends, were already the most committed
partisans. The campaign provided information about Truman and Dewey that
helped to crystallize voting decisions for Democrats and Republicans. In
contrast the inattentive public, drawn from the less well educated and
lower socioeconomic groups, were less exposed to the news media and less
likely to vote.
Most commentators predicted that President Truman would be
defeated. International problems of the post -war reconstruction led to
Chapter from Pippa Norris “A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in PostIndustrial
Societies.”(NY: Cambridge University Press, Fall 2000)
3
divisions among the Allies and the start of the Cold War. At home there
were difficulties of demobilization. The conversion of the American
economy to peacetime needs produced high taxes, labor strikes, and
rising prices. Race was to cause more even deep-rooted divisions: Truman
was sympathetic to black demands for civil rights to vote, and when the
Democratic convention strongly endorsed this policy the party split
three-ways, with Governor Strom Thurmond heading the States' Rights
'Dixiecrats' opposed to reform, while on the left former Vice President
Henry Wallace led a new Progressive party of pacifists, reformers and
New Dealers. When the Republicans, in the first convention covered on
television, nominated Governor Dewey again almost everybody ex pected him
to win. Fifty of the nation's top political writers picked Dewey as the
winner. After the election, in the first nation -wide survey that
eventually became the NES, two-thirds of the public expressed surprise
at the outcome.
The conventional wisdom about the result was reinforced by the few
available opinion polls. The first systematic opinion polls based on
samples of the population were developed in the mid -thirties. But Truman
disregarded the polls and relied instead on his close advisors and the
crowds that greeted him at every campaign stop. Dewey was the first
Presidential candidate to employ a pollster on his staff but this
probably proved a source of unreliable advice; in 1948 the available
surveys by George Gallup, Archibald Crossley and Elmo Roper confidently
predicted a comfortable victory for Governor Thomas E. Dewey. Just
before the election Life carried a big picture of Dewey with the caption
"The next President of the United States" while the Chicago Tribune's
premature headline was ‘Dewey defeats Truman'. Elmo Roper even
discontinued polling on 9th September 1948, when he predicted 52.2
percent for Dewey to 37.1 percent for Truman; since he regarded the
result as so inevitable that 'no amount of electioneering' could alter
the outcome. In the end the pollsters, press commentators, and
editorial writers experienced a rout: Truman won about 50 percent of the
popular vote, carried 28 states producing 303 electoral college votes,
and the Democrats recaptured control of both houses of C ongress.
The Pre-Modern British Campaign
If we compare the 1948 American campaign with its equivalent in
Britain, the similarities are striking. The British general election in
1945 exemplified the premodern campaign with its decentralized, ad -hoc
and uncoordinated organization, volunteer labour -force, and
constituency focus7
. The end of the wartime coalition government on 21st
May 1945, and the dissolution of Parliament two days later, brought the
first general election for a decade. The process of British campaigning
gradually evolved in the mid-nineteenth century, following the Second
Reform Act in 1867, which encouraged the development of mass party
organizations registering and mobilizing the newly enfranchised
electorate. In local constituencies most contact was on a face-to-face
basis between candidates and voters, with campaign rallies, hustings,
canvassing and party meetings, as well as coverage through local
newspapers. Despite the introduction of wireless broadcasting in the
1920s, this pattern continued in recognizable form in Britain until at
least the late fifties.
Chapter from Pippa Norris “A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in PostIndustrial
Societies.”(NY: Cambridge University Press, Fall 2000)
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The grassroots organization of the local prospective
parliamentary candidates assisted by voluntary helpers within each
constituency remained the bedrock of the Labour, Conservative and
Liberal campaigns. This reflected patterns of constituency party
organization that developed in the mid -Victorian era. The British
electorate was small in number prior to the First World War: there were
about 900 votes per constituency in 1835, 3,500 in 1868, and 5,200 in
1900. With electorates of this size, candidates and their agents could
manage local campaigns on a personal basis, contacting many
supporters directly. The main work of Conservative Associations lay in
maintaining the registration of supporters, and battling in the courts
with the registration claims of opponents. The Corrupt Practices Act of
1883 put an end to the bribery and treating which had characterized
election management. The 1918 Reform Act transformed the electorate,
with the extension of the franchise to women voters over thirty, as
well as the removal of complex property qualifications. The further
expansion of the franchise to all women in 1928 saw a dramatic increase
in numbers. By 1945 there were almost 40,000 voter s per seat.
Mobilizing support on this scale required an effective party
organization within each constituency.
The Conservative party organization had been allowed to fall into
disrepair during the Second World War, it had been 'moth -balled’
because partisan activity was seen as unpatriotic, and there was
minimal coordination between its different branches. At grassroots
level each of the 640 constituency associations functioned as an
independent unit, with its own funds, officers, candidates and
publicity staff. Above this loose structure were the Central Council
and the Executive Committee of the National Union, which tried to
coordinate the local party associations, mainly through persuasion.
Central Office also produced a variety of pamphlets, handbil ls,
posters, and material for speeches. Yet as Lord Wooten summarized the
prevailing wisdom of the time, all politics was local: ”Let there be no
mistake about it; elections are won in the constituencies and not in
the central or area offices. Elections a re won on doorsteps of the
land, not at great public meetings.” Local parties were gradually
transformed from small, informal groups of voters engaged as
registration societies to mass membership organizations with regular
meetings and a more bureaucratic structure of officers. Party
membership reached its peak in the postwar era, reaching around 2.8
million in 1953 in the Conservative party and around one million in the
Labour party, representing about one in ten voters given a total
electorate of 33.7 million. Membership was mobilized during the
campaign to leaflet the constituency, canvass voters, plan the local
campaign, and activate supporters on Election Day. Candidates were
often adopted just before the election, and they came home from the war
to throw themselves enthusiastically into a hectic round of five or six
public meetings a night, in village halls, with tours in speaker vans
and leafleting during the day.
In 1945 the national campaign and the role of central party
headquarters remained low-key for both major parties. Prior to the
development of the tools of market research, the party leadership
developed their party platform and campaign messages in the light of
conference debates, political 'hunches', and informal feedback from
Chapter from Pippa Norris “A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in PostIndustrial
Societies.”(NY: Cambridge University Press, Fall 2000)
5
the constituencies, but without any input derived from the
paraphernalia of survey research, focus groups, and political
consultants. The Market Research Society was first organized in 1947,
but it was not until 1962/3 that the major British political parties
seriously considered these techniques. The few polls published by
Gallup during the months leading up to the campaign pointed to a Labour
victory, but they were largely ignored. Based on the leadership of
Winston Churchill, at the zenith of his long career, the Cons ervatives
remained confident of victory. Under Churchill's leadership Germany had
surrendered and Japan was about to fall. The party leaders toured the
country, addressing public meetings. Battle covered around seven or
eight meetings a day around the coun try, driven by his wife, and
accompanied by a single publicity officer who dealt with the press. The
Labour leader made about seventy speeches in total, mostly extemporary
with minimal notes. Winston Churchill went on a four -day whistle-stop
tour around the country, in a special train, addressing six to eleven
cities every day. Meetings within the constituency were the heart of
the local campaign. Activity was reported to have declined with the use
of radio broadcasts; nevertheless one study reported that i n one city
alone (Glasgow) over 600 school halls had been booked for public
meetings during the 1950 campaign.
Media coverage of the campaign was limited compared with today.
Although the BBC had restarted regular broadcasting in 1947, television
played no role during, or after, the campaign. The first programmes
about party politics appeared on television in 1951, but television
news did not cover the campaign until 1959. Nevertheless the first
revolution in the electronic media had already created a mass audience
and the beginnings of a national campaign. The introduction of radio
broadcasting in 1924 permanently altered the way elections were fought.
Leadership speeches, which previously reached an audience of only a few
thousand, were now heard night a fter night by millions. In the 1945
campaign BBC radio scheduled one (20 -30 minute) free party political
radio broadcast after the main evening news each weekday evening. By
prior agreement, ten broadcasts were allocated to the Conservatives and
Labour, four to the Liberals, one each to the Communists and the Common
Wealth party. Labour broadcasts were more coordinated and thematic than
the Conservatives. The opening broadcasts by the party leaders set the
tone for the subsequent campaign. According to BB C audience research,
the listenership was substantial: just under half the adult population
heard each broadcast, with numbers rising towards polling day.
Moreover, just as later television set the agenda for newspapers, so
the radio broadcasts were report ed at length in the printed press.
Newspaper readers had the weekday choice of the national tabloid
Daily Mirror and Daily Sketch, or one of the seven broadsheet national
morning newspapers, or one of the many daily regional or local papers.
The print media were highly partisan, especially the popular press.
Conservative-leaning national newspapers (the Daily Express, the Daily
Mail, the Daily Sketch and the Daily Telegraph) had the highest
circulation, selling about 6.8 million copies. But the Conservativ e
edge in the national press was not great. The Labour -supporting Daily
Herald and Daily Mirror enjoyed a combined circulation of 6.6 million,
while the Liberals received the support of the News Chronicle and the
Manchester Guardian, with a total circulation of 1.6 million. The
Chapter from Pippa Norris “A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in PostIndustrial
Societies.”(NY: Cambridge University Press, Fall 2000)
6
Times remained fairly independent, traditionally Conservative although
anti-Churchill in this election. Much of the coverage consisted of
‘straight’ factual reporting, either the detail of constituency
contests or of leadership speeches, with more partisan messages in the
editorials.
The only newspaper with a systematic opinion poll was the News
Chronicle, which published the British Institute of Public Opinion,
later known as Social Surveys (Gallup Poll) Ltd. These polls showed a
twenty-point Labour lead over the Conservatives in February and April
1945. The Gallup survey taken closest to polling day, with fieldwork
between 24 and 27th June in 195 constituencies, showed a smaller gap
between the parties, with 47 per cent voting Lab our, 41 per cent voting
Conservative, and 10 per cent Liberal. Nevertheless most journalistic
commentators expected a close result or a Conservative victory, as did
contemporary observers, based largely on Churchill’s personal
popularity and international stature.
Prior to the first national election surveys little systematic
information is available about the attitudes and values of the British
electorate but the data available at constituency level, as well as
from the earliest Gallup polls, suggests tha t class was the preeminent
cleavage in British politics, the foundation of the two -party system.
The period between the Second Reform Act and the First World War was
characterised by a principle cleavage along the religious divide
between supporters of the established church and non-conformists,
reinforced and overlaid by divisions over Irish Home Rule versus
Unionism, and a regional cleavage between core and periphery . Studies
suggest that the critical shift moving the party system from the
politics of religion to the politics of class occurred after the First
World War8
. The earliest systematic analysis of voting behavior based on
the series of British election studies (BES), by Butler and Stokes,
stressed that in the mid-1960s the electorate was anchored for long
periods of time, perhaps for their lifetime, to the Labour or
Conservative parties through sectoral cleavages and party loyalties,
produced by socialization within the family, school, workplace and
local community, reinforced by the messages of th e partisan press9
.
There was a three-week hiatus between the end of polling day and
the announcement of the results, occasioned by the need to collect and
count the votes of three million troops abroad. When declared, the
results of the 1945 general elect ion proved remarkable in nearly all
regards - the largest two-party swing in votes since 1918, the
substantial Labour landslide, the size of the Conservative defeat. On 5
July 1945, Labour received 48.3 percent of the vote, the best result
they have ever received, before or since. The number of Labour MPs
more than doubled overnight, from 154 to 393. Labour had held two
minority administrations in 1924 and 1929 but this was the first Labour
government with a comfortable overall majority (of 147 seats), wi th
prospects of a full term in office to implement plans for radical
economic and social change. Conservative seats were decimated, from
585 in 1935 to 213 in 1945. The first post -war election can be regarded
as a 'critical election', producing a long -term shift in the balance of
partisan forces, developing and consolidating a new policy agenda, and
establishing the basis for 'normal' two -party politics for successive
Chapter from Pippa Norris “A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in PostIndustrial
Societies.”(NY: Cambridge University Press, Fall 2000)
7
decades. The 1945 election was a watershed in British politics,
producing the birth of the Westminster two-party system.
The Evolution of the Post-Modern American Campaign
The extent of the revolution in political communications is
striking if we contrast the typical postwar campaigns in America and
Britain with the situation that has develo ped by the mid-1990s. One of
the major consequences of developments in the late sixties and early
seventies was the 'nationalization' of the American presidential
campaign, with network news programs broadcasting candidate speeches,
party conventions, and election events across the country, unifying
America in a common experience10
. During this period, coverage on CBS,
NBC and ABC, and the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street
Journal, provided the focus for the presidential campaign, with
anchors, broadcast journalist and reporters for the major papers as
figures of unchallenged authority. There was a well -established
hierarchy among and within news organizations, and a clear sense of
professional identity and standards among journalists. Yet the 'golden
days' of network news was not to last, producing anxieties about the
proliferation of media outlets and messages. The networks in 1970 had
no rivals: only 10 percent of American homes had cable. By 1980,
penetration by this service had only reach ed 20 percent of households.
But by the late 1990s almost three -quarters had cable or satellite (72
percent) and VCRs (77 percent). As mentioned earlier, not surprisingly,
given these developments, network audience share plummeted from 93
percent in 1977 to less than half today11
. We have seen how the
readership for American newspapers has experienced a steady hemorrhage
for decades, which shows no signs of being staunched.
As discussed in the last two chapters, competition for viewers has
become far more intense, with the fragmentation of the television market
into narrower and narrower segments. Partial deregulation of the
television industry, the growth of cable television systems, satellite
services, the rise of new networks, videotape recorders, and
communication via the Internet has splintered the competition for news
in the marketplace. The development of digital and broadband technology
multiplying television channels, and new sources of Internet
information, seem likely to accelerate these developme nts. The growth of
'narrow-casting' means that more and more news sources are reaching
increasingly specialized audiences. While a small group of political
aficionados can find ever more detailed information about government,
public policy and campaigns through these sources, simultaneously
surfing the web and watching CNN and C -SPAN during the election, many
others may find it easier to tune out of political information by
watching MTV, HBO and Monday Night Football. The multiplicity of news
outlets, stories and channels has undermined the sense that the network
news today can ever sign off with the classic Walter Cronkite phrase,
"That's the way it is." The familiar authorities have gone, replaced by
multiple realities.
As a result of these development s political leaders face greater
difficulties in connecting with voters in a news system characterized
Chapter from Pippa Norris “A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in PostIndustrial
Societies.”(NY: Cambridge University Press, Fall 2000)
8
by increased fragmentation. Candidates have to run up the down
escalator simply to stay in place. In order to do this, America has
experienced the evolution of the permanent campaign. The techniques for
monitoring the pulse of the public, including focus groups, daily
tracking polls, and 'electronic town meetings’, have gradually moved
beyond the campaign to become an integral part of governing. Starting
with John Kennedy, but developed particularly under Richard Nixon, the
White House's sensitivity to public opinion became an enduring
institutional feature of the modern presidency. Opinion polling, once
fairly ad hoc, became centralized within the White H ouse and organized
around routine procedures for monitoring public support 12
. More recent
developments have seen changes in the techniques commonly used to
measure public opinion, and greater sensitivity to the results in
framing and communicating public po licy options. These developments
happened first within the presidency, but have subsequently expanded
throughout all levels of government so that the techniques for winning
elections have become increasingly central to the techniques for
governing, and the policy debate in Washington has become part of the
permanent campaign.
The professionalization of political consultant and the growth of
the political marketing industry in the United States is a phenomenon
that has been widely documented 13
. Many aspects are not particularly
novel to American politics, after all Joe McGinniss wrote his classic
book, The Selling of the President14
, three decades ago. The use of
market research on an extensive scale started with campaigns in the
early 1960s. By the mid-1970s pollsters were already dividing the
electorate into segmented groups and regions for targeted messages. The
1980 campaign saw the emergence of several marketing tools that became
widely adopted, including hard-hitting negative advertising, direct
mail, the rising availability of funds from PACs, and sophisticated
strategic campaign planning. The 1992 campaign was marked mostly by two
main innovations. Focus groups and rolling tracking polls were used
extensively to monitor public reactions to the campaign o n a day-by-day
basis, keeping a finger on the pulse of public opinion. And the forums
for political debate widened beyond the old media, like Meet the Press,
to live talk shows on television and radio, like Larry King Live. With
the mass audience deserting the network evening news, candidates
searched elsewhere for voters. Today political consulting has grown to
such an extent that the major networking organization, the American
Association of Political Consultants, established in 1969, now claims
800 active members and a billion dollar industry. Whether the industry
can now legitimately be called a profession, in the strictest meaning
of the term, can be questioned. Campaign consultants more commonly base
their skills on experience, craft and ‘folk wisdom’ rather than on a
body of well-developed scientific knowledge and expertise that can be
easily exported to other contexts, and the industry lacks training
qualifications and an enforceable code of ethics 15
. Nevertheless the
sheer size of the US industry in political consultancy makes it a model
for many other countries.
In terms of campaigning the 1996 presidential election was marked
less by innovation than by consolidation, since the Clinton and Dole
campaigns drew on all of these techniques 16
. After the excitement
generated by Clinton’s first victory in 1992, and the turmoil
Chapter from Pippa Norris “A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in PostIndustrial
Societies.”(NY: Cambridge University Press, Fall 2000)
9
associated with the Gingrich revolution in 1994, the 1996 election
proved a more low-key affair. By far the most important developments
in campaign communications concerned the growin g political use of the
internet. As Hill and Hughes remarked: “In 1994, if a political party
or interest group had even a rudimentary Web site, it was a pioneer in
the Information Age. ..In 1996, if a candidate for president had a Web
site, he would likely give out the address for it during televised
appearances…By 1997, if a party or interest group still did not have a
Web site, it was run by a bunch of idiots.” 17
By 1996 the major parties
had fairly sophisticated web sites, as did the presidential candid ates,
along with the sites for traditional news media like CNN, ABCNews and
the New York Times, but in this race the Web was still a novelty rather
than integral to the campaign strategy. Use of the internet by
political organizations proliferated so that by the time of the 1998
elections almost all gubernatorial candidates, almost three -quarters of
all Democrat and Republican Senate candidates, and just over half the
candidates for the House of Representatives had sites, equally divided
between the major parties18
.
Moreover the size of the internet user community has been growing
exponentially and becoming mainstream. The Pew survey in May 1998
estimated that the percentage of Americans regularly getting news from
the Internet (where ‘regularly’ is defined as at least once a week)
more than tripled in the past two years, rising from 11 to 36 million
users, or 20 percent of all Americans19
. Similar figures are evident for
those who regularly go online to communicate with others via discussion
lists and chat groups, while slightly fewer go online for entertainment
news (14 percent) or financial information (10 percent). Within the
space of just a few years, the regular audience for online news has
become larger than many traditional media such as for mainstream news
magazines like Time and Newsweek (15 percent), listeners to talk radio
(13 percent), let alone viewers of minority outlets like PBS Newshour
or C-Span (4 percent). This pattern was particularly marked among the
younger generation; the Pew survey in M ay 1998 found that among 18-29
year old Americans more went online the previous day (38 percent) than
read a newspaper (28 percent) or magazine (35 percent). It is true
that the online users of news and political web sites proved most
likely to see the Internet as a supplementary rather than a new source
of information, since this group were already more likely to pay
attention to politics in the traditional news media 20
. Nevertheless the
rapid expansion of the Internet in the United States, and its
increasing convergence with the traditional media of radio, television
and newspapers, seems likely to add another layer of complexity to the
political communication process within the next decade.
The Evolution of the Post-Modern British Campaign?
British parties have also been transformed by the gradual evolution
of the permanent campaign where the techniques of spin -doctors, opinion
polls, and professional media management are increasingly applied to
routine everyday politics. Nevertheless although the profe ssionalization
of British party communications has increased in recent years, as has
fragmentation of the news media, neither have not yet reached the
Chapter from Pippa Norris “A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in PostIndustrial
Societies.”(NY: Cambridge University Press, Fall 2000)
10
levels evident in the United States. In Britain a few trusted experts in
polling and political marketing are influential during the campaign in
each party, such as Maurice Saatchi, Tim Bell and Gordon Reece at
Conservative Central Office, but this role continues to be as part -time
outside advisors, not integral to the process of government, nor even to
campaigning which is still essentially run by politicians. Unlike in the
United States, the political marketing industry has been limited, mainly
because the only major clients are the Labour and Conservative party
leaderships: the minor parties have modest reso urces, while parliamentary
candidates run retail campaigns based on shoe leather, grassroots
helpers, and tight budgets. But the effect of television during has been
to shift the primary focus of the campaign from unpaid volunteers and
local candidates towards the central party leadership flanked by paid,
although not necessarily full-time, professionals21
.
Labour's election machine in 1997 was commonly regarded as widely
effective22
. The high-tech developments in media management at Millbank
Tower were widely discussed in the press. Supposedly modeled on the war
room in the Clinton campaign, the Millbank organization had a tight inner
core, including Peter Mandelson, Gordon Brown, the press secretary
Alastair Campbell, the pollster Philip Gould, Blair's perso nal assistant
Anji Hunter, Lord Irvine of Lairg and Jonathan Powell. The interior
circle was surrounded by about 200 staffers connecting via fax, modem and
pagers to key shadow spokespersons and candidates in marginal
constituencies. Briefings were sent ou t nightly, sometimes twice a day.
The Labour party included a rebuttal unit ready for a rapid response to
anticipated attacks.
After 1992 Labour realized that elections are not usually won or
lost in the official campaign, and they subsequently designed t heir
strategy for the long haul. For two years before polling day a Labour
task force was designed to switch 5000 voters in each of 90 target
marginals. Those identified as potential Labour coverts in these seats
were contacted by teams of volunteers on th e doorstep, and by a
canvassing operation run from twenty telephone banks around the country,
coordinated from Millbank during the campaign. In January 1997 get out
the vote letters were sent to each type of target voter, and young people
received a video of Tony Blair. Information from the canvassing
operation, especially issues of concern raised by voters, was also fed
back to Philip Gould, to help shape Labour's presentations. All the major
parties maintained Web sites, providing information about activi ties and
policies, as well as how to join, although few of the features were truly
interactive23
.
Opinion polling was carried out regularly from late 1993, and
Philip Gould and Deborah Mattinson conducted a programme of focus group
research to monitor reaction to Labour's policies. Strategy meetings were
conducted almost daily from late 1994, tackling Labour's weaknesses on
taxation, trade unions, and crime well before the official campaign came
close. The manifesto, New Labour: Because Britain Deserves Bett er was
designed to focus on specific pledges. The main theme of Labour's
advertising was "Britain Deserves Better", fairly bland and safe, if
unmemorable. To highlight the message, Tony Blair visited 60
constituencies, travelling about 10,000 miles by road , rail and air, and
providing controlled photo-opportunities rather than press conferences
Chapter from Pippa Norris “A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in PostIndustrial
Societies.”(NY: Cambridge University Press, Fall 2000)
11
for the media. The membership drive launched by Blair was also part of
this long-term strategy, increasing grassroots membership by almost
two-thirds, up from 261,000 in 1991 to a peak of 405,000 in January 1998.
In Britain the major parties used to be able to campaign assured
of a largely sympathetic coverage by newspapers with a traditional
Labour or Conservative leaning. Hence in an election Labour could
always campaign counting upon fairly favourable coverage in the popular
Daily Mirror while the Conservatives could be assured of positive
editorials in The Daily Mail. But in the 1997 campaign both major
parties experienced weakening of press -party linkages, not just among
the Conservative press. Content analysis of the front pages of six
major national newspapers during the April 1997 campaign found that
compared with 1992 more coverage fell into the ‘mixed’ category,
neither favourable nor unfavourable to any of the three major parties24
.
Therefore trends in Britain seem to have followed those in many other
European countries which used to have a strongly partisan press, like the
Netherlands, but where political coverage is now driven more strongly by
an autonomous 'media logic' in the fierce competition for readers rather
than by traditional allegiances or the politics of their proprietors.
"Modern media are more powerful, more independent, and more determined to
pursue their own interests through a professional cu lture of their own
making."25
Press-party dealignment has increased the complexity and
uncertainty of media management for parties, who can no longer rely on
getting their message out through a few sympathetic sources.
The electronic media have not yet fra gmented as much in Britain as
in the US. In the 1997 campaign the major flagship news programmes on
British television continued to be BBC1’s 6 O’clock and 9 O’clock News,
ITN’s News at Ten, Channel 4’s 7pm news, and BBC2’s 10.20 Newsnight,
along with weekly current affairs programmes like Panorama. Nevertheless
cable, satellite and the Internet have started to make inroads into this
process and the new digital and broadband channels that will be available
by the time of the next general election will exac erbate this process
further. The first satellite services became available in Britain from
Sky TV in February 1989, followed by BSB the following year. By 1992,
about 3 percent of homes had access to cable TV, while 10 percent had a
satellite dish. In contrast by 1997 almost a fifth of all households
could tune into over fifty channels on satellite and cable. In these
homes, more than a third of all viewing was on these channels. During the
campaign, between 10-15 percent of the audience usually watched cab le and
satellite programmes every evening. Occasionally when there was
wall-to-wall election on the terrestrial channels, like on Thursday 24th
April 1997, a week before the election, the proportion of cable and
satellite viewers jumped to almost a quarter of the audience. Moreover,
Sky News, CNN, News 24, Channel 5 , and BBC Radio's Five Live, have
altered the pace of news, to brief headlines on the hour every hour.
The Internet also promises to transform news habits. In 1997 the
availability of the BBC's Election '97, ITN Online, the online headlines
from the Press Association and Reuters, party home pages, as well as
electronic versions of The Times and The Telegraph, dramatically
accelerated the news cycle. BBC's Online, with easy access to RealAudio
broadcasts of its major political programmes and live parliamentary
coverage, promises the shape of things to come 26
. With 24-hour coverage,
Chapter from Pippa Norris “A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in PostIndustrial
Societies.”(NY: Cambridge University Press, Fall 2000)
12
the acceleration of the news cycle has dramatically increased the need
for parties to respond, or get knocked off their feet, by a suddenly
shifting agenda. By spring 1998 one fifth of all British citizens had
access to the Internet (see Table 5.7). Therefore the national news
media continue to prove far more important in Britain than America. The
major parties all try to get their message out via the major national
television news programmes and the national newspapers. Yet the
fragmentation of the electronic media does seem likely to increase in
Britain, as well as in the rest of Europe.
Moreover major changes have also b ecome evident among the
electorate. The most comprehensive study of the 1997 election, based on
the series of British Election Surveys, concluded that the 1997
election revealed a more instrumental electorate 27
. Voters proved to be
less closely tied to many of the traditional bedrocks of party support,
mainly because of political developments and the way that Labour moved
towards the center ground of British politics. The most consistent
evidence suggests a pattern of continuing secular dealignment in the
British electorate. In particular, in response to Labour's center
shift, class voting reached its lowest level since the BES series began
in the early 1960s. Regional cleavages also weakened, with the further
closure of the North-South divide. And strong partisan loyalties,
already eroded in a series of elections during the 1970s, fell further.
The 'old' politics of ideological divisions over the virtues of the
market v. public ownership declined in importance for Labour voting,
while the 'new' issues of Europe increasingly crosscut these patterns
of voting behaviour. The weakening of partisan identities and the
increased instrumentality of voting characteristic of late 20 th
Century
electorates makes all electoral groups more open to competitive
appeals. As a result the potential impact of political communications
to influence the electorate becomes greater although at the same time
if all the major parties professionalize their campaign communications
then, rather like a high-tech star wars, developments in on e party are
likely to be neutralized as other adopt similar strategies.
Conclusions: The Consequences of the Modernization Process
Based on this comparison we can conclude that, despite major
differences in their political systems, the campaigns in Brita in and
the United States share many common features. In the post -war era, if
Truman had campaigned in Britain, or Attlee in America, they would have
encountered a familiar environment. By the end of the twentieth century
certain common trends have affected both American and British
practices. Elections have become increasingly professionalized in both
countries, for example Tony Blair’s Labour party adopted many of the
techniques common in the Clinton campaign, like a campaign ‘war room’,
rapid response unit, and daily focus groups. There was also
considerable interchange of campaign advisors and politicians between
both camps, as pollsters like Philip Gould visited the Clinton team
while Stan Greenberg polled for Tony Blair 28
. The news media remains
more nationalized in Britain than in the US, but due to satellite,
Chapter from Pippa Norris “A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in PostIndustrial
Societies.”(NY: Cambridge University Press, Fall 2000)
13
digital and broadband stations the British electronic media are already
heading down the path towards greater fragmentation of outlets and
levels. And the electorate has clearly become more dealign ed from
traditional party and social loyalties in both countries.
This does not mean, however, that British campaigns have become
‘Americanized’, as some claim, in terms of the role of money or an
increase in negative political coverage. Considerable contr asts remain
because of legal regulations and structural constraints. During the
last forty years, the US has experienced the rise of the candidate centered
campaign29
, characteristically capital-intensive, heavily
television-driven, run by an industry of fu ll-time campaign
consultants. In contrast, although British general elections have
adopted some off-the-shelf American techniques, Britain still
exemplifies the party-centered campaign, along with most European
democracies. Politicians remain in the drivin g seat, assisted by their
advisors. The party leadership may have become more visible within the
campaign, due to the rise of television, but this does not mean that
parliamentary candidates have followed suit. America has experienced
the rise of the candidate-centered campaign but in Britain the contest
is essentially about party; for example, in the 1997 election half the
electorate could not name a single candidate correctly 30
. In both
countries the heart of the election campaign is the battle to dominate
the news headlines. But the structure and ethos of British television
means that election coverage is far more balanced and extensive than in
America. British newspapers, despite dealignment, remain more partisan
than those in the United States. Above all , capital-intensive
television advertising, the mother’s milk of American politics, remains
unknown in Britain. We can therefore conclude that modernization has
transformed the process of electioneering in both countries. The
defining features of post-modern campaigns in both countries are the
professionalization of campaign consultants, the fragmentation of the
news media, and the dealignment of the electorate. But differences in
structural conditions means that many of the features commonly regarded
as characteristic of American campaigns are absent in Britain.
What are the consequences of modernization process for the
linkages between parties and citizens in a democracy? Post -modern
campaigns can be seen to represent a new openness and tolerance for
alternative views, and multiple forms of understanding, as well as a
source of anxiety and disorientation as the familiar standards are swept
away. As a result of the fragmentation of the news media, politicians
seem to be struggling ever harder to retain con trol of their messages,
through the older channels, while the familiar ground is shifting under
their feet, producing a pervasive mood of angst. Some regarded the
fragmentation of the media as a positive development, increasing the
plurality of outlets and alternative avenues available for politicians
and voters to communicate with each other. Rather than being locked into
the ideological blinkers of one or two partisan newspapers, or being
limited to the evening news on one or two television channels, many
voters now have greater opportunities to access different channels,
styles and formats of news in the electronic media. Focus groups and
opinion polls can be seen as an effective way that parties can stay in
touch with public opinion, and one which is mor e representative of the
general electorate than reliance upon the opinions of local party
Chapter from Pippa Norris “A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in PostIndustrial
Societies.”(NY: Cambridge University Press, Fall 2000)
14
activists.
Alternatively, the evolution of modern and post -modern campaigns
can be seen as threatening the democratic process, widening the gap
between citizens and their representatives. If parties and candidates
adopt whatever message seems most likely to resonate with focus groups,
if pollsters, consultants and advertisers rather than politicians come
to determine the content of campaigns, and if ‘spin’ outweighs
‘substance’, then the serious business of government may be replaced by
the superficial manipulation of images. ”Packaging politics”, Bob
Franklin argues, “impoverishes political debate by oversimplifying and
trivializing political communications.” 31
. This process may thereby
exacerbate public cynicism about the electoral process and undermine the
democratic legitimacy of representative bodies. Some fear that the shift
in campaign techniques may have a direct impact on civic engagement; if
voters have become passive spectators of symbolic events staged in
television studios rather than active participants in local party
meetings and community campaigns 32
. As discussed earlier, the most common
concern in that post-modern campaigns turn off voters due the declin e of
face-to-face communications and the rise of practices such as negative
news highly adversarial to government, horse -race journalism, and
trivialization of campaign discourse. These criticisms are heard most
commonly concerning developments in the Unit ed States, but similar
concerns are increasingly expressed elsewhere. To evaluate these
alternative interpretations, the next section of the book goes on to
examine the consequences of political communications on citizens.
Chapter from Pippa Norris “A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in PostIndustrial
Societies.”(NY: Cambridge University Press, Fall 2000)
15
1
For historical accounts see Paul F. Boller. 1985. Presidential
Campaigns Oxford: Oxford University Press; Dav id McCulloch. 1992.
Truman. New York: Simon and Schuster; Kathleen Hall Jamieson. 1984.
Packaging the Presidency. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2
John Aldrich. 1995. Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of
Party Politics in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Chapter 4.
3
Darrell M. West. 2000. The Rise and Fall of the Media. New York: St.
Martin’s Press.
4
Harold W. Stanley and Richard G. Niemi. 1995. Vital Statistics on
American Politics. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
5
Harold W. Stanley and Richard G. Niemi. 1995. Vital Statistics on
American Politics. Washington, DC: CQ Press. p.66.
6
Paul F. Lasarsfeld, Bernard R. Berelson and H. Gaudet. 1948. The
People's Choice. New York: Columbia University Press; Bernard R.
Berelson, Paul F. Lasarsfeld and William N. McPhee. 1963. Voting.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963
7
For details see R.B. McCallum and Alison Readman. 1964. The British
General Election of 1945. London: Frank Cass. (1947) See also Pippa
Norris. 1997. Electoral Change Since 1945. Oxford: Blackwell.
8
Kenneth D. Wald. 1983. Crosses on the Ballot: Patterns of British
Voter Alignment Since 1885. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press.
9
David Butler and Donald Stokes. 1974. Political Change in Britain. 2nd
ed. London: Macmillan.
10
Michael Schudson. 1995. The Power of News. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard
University Press. pp.169-188.
11
See chapter 6 for details.
12
See Lawrence R. Jacobs and Robert Y. Shapiro ‘The Rise of
Presidential Polling.' Public Opinion Quarterly Summer 1995.
13
Larry Sabato. 1981. The Rise of Political Consultants. New York:
Basic Books; Dan Nimmo. 1990. Mediated Political Realities. New York:
Longman; Frank Luntz. 1988. Candidates, Consultants and Campaigns .
Oxford: Basil Blackwell; Judith S. Trent a nd Robert V. Friedenberg.
1991. Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practices. 2nd
ed. New York: Praeger; Bruce I. Newman. 1994. The Marketing of the
President: Political Marketing as Campaign Strategy . Thousand Oaks:
Sage.
Chapter from Pippa Norris “A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in PostIndustrial
Societies.”(NY: Cambridge University Press, Fall 2000)
16
14
Joe McGinness. 1969. The Selling of the President. New York: Trident.
15
See Margaret Scammell. 1997. ‘The Wisdom of the War Room: U.S.
Campaigning and Americanization.’ The Joan Shorenstein Center Research
Paper R-17. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.
16
For accounts of the 1996 election see Gerald M. Pomper (ed). 1997.
The Election of 1996. Chatham House, NJ: Chatham House; The Institute
of Politics. 1997. Campaign for President: The Managers Look at ’96.
Hollis, NH: Hollis Publishing; Paul R. Abramson, John Aldrich and D avid
Rohde. 1999. Change and Continuity in the 1996 and 1998 elections .
Washington, DC: CQ Press; Michael Nelson. 1997. The elections of 1996.
Washinton DC: CQ Press; Lynda Lee Kaid and Dianne G. Bystrom. 1999. The
Electronic Election: perspectives on the 1996 campaign communication.
Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
17
Kevin A. Hill and John E. Hughes. Cyberpolitics: Citizen Activism in
the Age of the Internet. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. P.133.
18
Elaine Kamarck. 1999. ‘Campaigning on the Internet in the Elections
of 1998.’ In democracy.com edited by Elaine Kamarck and Joseph S. Nye,
Jr. Hollis, HN: Hollis Publishers.
19
See Pippa Norris. ‘Who Surfs? New Technology, Old Voters and Virtual
Democracy in the 1996 and 1998 US Elections’. In democracy.com edited
by Elaine Kamarck and Joseph S. Nye, Jr. Hollis, HN: Hollis Publishers.
20
See Pippa Norris. ‘Who Surfs? New Technology, Old Voters and Virtual
Democracy in the 1996 and 1998 US Elections’. In democracy.com edited
by Elaine Kamarck and Joseph S. Nye, Jr. H ollis, HN: Hollis Publishers.
21
See Bob Franklin. 1994. Packaging Politics. London: Edwards Arnold;
Margaret Scammell. 1995. Designer Politics: How Elections are Won .
London: Macmillan; Dennis Kavanagh. 1995. Election Campaigning: The New
Marketing of Politics. Oxford: Blackwell.
22
For details of the 1997 British election see Pippa Norris and Neil
Gavin. Britain Votes 1997. Oxford: Oxford University Press; David
Butler and Kennis Kavanagh. 1997. The British General Election of 1997 .
London: Macmillan; Anthony King. 1997. New Labour Triumphs: Britain at
the Polls. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House; Ivor Crewe, Brian Gosschalk and
John Bartle. 1998. Political Communications: The General Election
Campaign of 1997. London: Frank Cass; Pippa Norris, John Curtice, David
Sanders, Margaret Scammell and Holli A. Semetko. 1999. On Message.
London: Sage; Geoffrey Evans and Pippa Norris (eds). 1999. Critical
Elections: British Parties and Voters in Long -term Perspective. London:
Sage.
23
Rachel K. Gibson and Stephen J. Ward. 199 8. ‘UK Political Parties and
the Internet.’ The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics.
3(3):14-38.
Chapter from Pippa Norris “A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in PostIndustrial
Societies.”(NY: Cambridge University Press, Fall 2000)
17
24
Pippa Norris, John Curtice, David Sanders, Margaret Scammell and
Holli A. Semetko. 1999. On Message. London: Sage. Tables 2.2 and 2.3.
25
David Swanson and Paolo Mancini. 1997. Politics, Media and Modern
Democracy. New York: Praeger. p15.
26
news.bbc.co.uk/
27
See Geoffrey Evans and Pippa Norris (eds). 1999. Critical Elections:
British Parties and Voters in Long -term Perspective. London: Sage.
28
Philip Gould. 1999. The Unfinished Revolution. London: Little Brown
and Company.
29
Martin P. Wattenberg. 1996. The Decline of American Political
Parties: 1952-1994. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
30
Pippa Norris, John Curtice, David Sanders, Margaret S cammell and
Holli A. Semetko. 1999. On Message. London: Sage.
31
See, for example, Bob Franklin. 1995. Packaging Politics. London:
Edwards Arnold.
32
Roderick Hart. 1994. Seducing America. New York: Oxford University
Press.