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POENARU Alexandru Cristian

Professor NAL Hlya
Fundamentals of communication
December 01, 2014
How Social Media Affects Politics
The term political communication has proved to be continually difficult to define with
any decisions since both components of the phrase are open to a variety of definitions, more or
less broad. Communication is and has always been a central component in political processes,
whether it is leaders communicating with the public, candidates competing for votes, combatants
struggling for international attention and sympathy, or citizens debating public issues.
Classic definition of political communication focuses on the source and motivation; political
communication flows out from the political sphere and must have a political aims. Nevertheless,
such definition would not be completely suitable for many of modern sates, particularly given
the role of media. Therefore modern texts focus on three of three actors, some of whom operate
beyond the boundaries of any single state, each of whom produce political communication.
These are: the political sphere itself (they communicate their actions to society in order to
gain legitimacy), secondly, non-state actors where we would include a range of organizations
with political motivations as well as corporate bodies and the voters ( each of these actors
communicate message into the political sphere, in hope of having an influence on public life),
finally media which communicate about politics, and influence both: the public as well as the
political scene.
Within the free and pluralistic societies each of these communicates independently and in
the same time cooperates with one another.
It is necessary to characterize the political communication also through the terms of
intension of its senders to influence the political environment. The intentionality of political
communication should be simply defined as: purposeful communication about politics. The
scope of such a definition includes:
Forms of communication undertaken by political dissidents for the purpose of achieving
specific objectives.
Communication that is addressed to these actors by non-politicians (citizens, journalists,
and so on).

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Communication about these actors and their actions, which are contained in the various
forms of media.
In this case we cannot explore only verbal or written statements, but also visual means of
signification (dress, haircut, make-up, outfit) that constitute a political image.
The scope of political communication:
The problem of political communications directs the attention towards the relationship
between three main elements of it by which political communication is initiated and achieved:
Political organizations (definition of it) they may seek to do this by attaining institutional,
to influence the decision-making process.
The audience.
The media.
Public citizens and voters:
How communication is made may vary and how audible the message is can be upon the
size of any group or level of support for a party, group or cause and the tactics used to get the
messages across. ( Lilleker)
In a pluralistic society, all groups will communicate among themselves and between one
another and will be both learning from and competing with one another. The greater the number
of voices competing, the more intense the competition, the better communication groups must be
in order to be heard. Thus, we hear about professionalization of political communication, that it
has become better in some way in order to be heard by more groups and individuals. The process
by which political communication is carried out has evolved, become more technically and
technologically sophisticated, and adopted techniques from the world of corporate advertising
and marketing in order to compete in the modern information-rich society.
Previously form of direct or non-mediated political communication involved public
meetings in church halls, cinemas and other places, political campaigns. Such meetings are now
few and mainly limited to countries where technology does not allow for the message to be
directed to homes.
Largely, political communication has become an activity aimed at a mass audience using
the mass media. Direct political communication has become less of a feature in recent elections.
As communication technology allowed mass communication, this phenomenon increasingly
changed. Mass media not only chose what to broadcast as news but also pick the way it portrays
groups in society. Political communication has then moved from being a direct, personal, face to
face activity to being conducted indirectly via the mass media of mass communication. Changes
in communication technology inevitably have a significant influence in all of these areas. The

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ability to predict the direction, forms, intensity of them is very limited. Consider the example of
the proliferation of the internet that is one of the most spectacular technological developments of
the last decades, the internet first represented the revolution for democracy. Citizens and groups
have greater access to political information than ever before which in turn raises the ability to
distribute information, views, images, and sounds around the world. Everyone with a computer
can become a mass medium.
The three ages in political communication were described in a 1999 article by Dennis
Kavanagh and Jay G. Bulmer, and later, a fourth age was added by the latter in an 2013 article.
These four ages are:
Age 1
The first two decades after World War II have been termed the golden age of
parties. ( Janda, Colman) In this period, the political system was regarded as the
prime source of initiatives and debate for social reform; the party system was
closely articulated to entrenched cleavages of social structure; and many voters
related to politics through more or less firm and long-lasting party identifications.
At this time of high modernism (as it has also been called), Consensus was
accompanied by a high level of confidence in political institutions, ( Hallin) and
much political communication was subordinate to relatively strong and stable
political institutions and beliefs.
Three features belonged to such a party-dominated communication system. First,
many political messages were substantive. Political leaders tended to talk about
the issues that mattered to them, especially the changes they wished to effect in
government and the principles and policies that distinguished them from their
opponents. Second, many such messages enjoyed fairly ready access to the mass
media of the period. Political communication flows ran more with than against the
partisan grain. Third, many voters responded accordinglyvia selectivity and
reinforcement.
But this system also pivoted on an intriguing paradox: Although it hosted
substantive debate about alternative political directions and policies, few citizens
appeared to separate the arguments concerned, tending to vote instead on groupbased loyalties. Of course, there was also a body of floating voters whose prior
political allegiances were not strong enough to conform to this reinforcement
model of electoral behavior. But because they tended to be less interested in
politics, they were also less likely to be reached by political messages. . ( Blumler,
Kavanagh)

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Age 2
A new era dawned in the 1960s when limited-channel nationwide television
became the dominant medium of political communication, while the grip of party
loyalty on voters was loosening. Four transformations resulted.
One was a reduction in the frequency of selective patterns of exposure to party
propaganda, since a medium of even-handed news, several-sided discussion, and
free slots for most parties (paid commercials in the United States) afforded less
scope for viewers consistently to tune in to their own side of the argument.
Selectivity was also undermined by a decline in newspapers, clubs, and other
organizations attached to the parties, especially in continental Europe.
Second, a medium constitutionally mandated to such nonpartisan norms as
fairness, impartiality, neutrality, and measured choice was now the central
platform for political communication. This may have put staunch partisans on the
defensive and legitimated the less certain attitudes of those who felt that a
conditional and wary commitment was the outlook most appropriate to a model
citizen.
Third, television enlarged the audience for political communication by penetrating
a sector of the electorate that was previously more difficult to reach and less
heavily exposed to message flows. For most viewers probably, and for the least
interested ones undoubtedly, long-term influences on political outlook, such as
party identification and early socialization, started to give way to more short-term
ones, such as current news events, governments immediate successes and
failures, and their opponents lines of attack.
Fourth, a crucial channel of such short-term influences was thought to be
television news. Its values and formats therefore had an increasingly far-reaching
impact on the scheduling of political events (coordinated with news bulletin
timings), the language of politics (through the crafting of soundbites and
cultivation of more intimate styles of address), and the personalization of its
presentation (with a sharper focus on top leaders).
To cope with the demands of a new medium, its larger audience, and a more
mobile electorate, the parties had to work harder and learn new tricks. They
accordingly adopted an array of tactics to get into the news, shape the media
agenda, and project a preplanned line in press conferences, briefings,
interviews, and broadcast discussions. From this development, the core features of
the professional model of modern campaigning emerged. This evolved into a
highly positivistic, scientistic, unsentimental approach to communication and
persuasion based more on the established actualities of opinion climates than on

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civic visions. Campaign themes had to be pretested, and politicians were

discouraged from speaking their minds directly to the public; instead, experts
often were called on to predict acceptability in advance.
Like its predecessor, this second-age political communication system also pivoted
on a paradox: At a time when many citizens had become more open-minded and
flexible and were prepared to entertain different approaches to the problems of the
day, they were served an emptier and less nourishing communications diet.
( Blumler, Kavanagh)

Age 3
This phase is marked by the increase of the main means of communication, media
abundance, presence, reach, and quickness. Television in particular, once a
concentrated communications outlet of only a few channels for politicians to
court, has become or is becoming an extensively elaborated journalistic medium,
hosting news flashes and inserts, formed bulletins, a wide range of public affairs
formats, and 24-hour news services. Communication abundance not only
embraces the multiplication of television channels and radio stationsmade
possible by cable and satellite technology and the ongoing digitization of all
signals. It also reflects the proliferation of communication equipment in peoples
homesmultiple television and radio sets, video recorders, compact disc players,
video games, and camcorders. Beyond mass media, political news, information,
and ideas can be circulated via the computer.
New patterns and adaptations ensue for all involved in the political
communication process (some of which are dealt with more fully later). In
essence, it changes how people receive politics in ways that have been little
studied so far. To politicians, the third-age media system must extend like a hydraheaded beast, the many mouths of which continually want to be fed. When
something happens, they are expected to tell the media what they are going to do
about it well before they can be fully informed themselves. For journalists, the
news cycle has accelerated, since more outlets combined with increased
competition across them piles pressure on all involved to keep the story moving
and to find fresh angles on it. Journalists feeding frenzies become yet more
frantic. Time for political and journalistic reflection and judgment is squeezed.
This age is more complex than its predecessors, molded more by conflicting cross
currents than by a dominant tendency. ( Blumler, Kavanagh)
Age 4

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There are certain features of the third age, which have spilled over into the fourth
age, albeit `more so or somewhat differently perhaps.
One has been the avalanche of yet more communication abundance over which
people can receive communications now. In some ways this can disadvantage the
provision of relatively serious political communications. The intensified
competition for audience attention works against it, as does the availability in the
media of so many other more immediately appealing genres sport, music,
fashion, soap opera and other popular drama, reality shows, celebrity antics and
easy to take documentaries.
In this situation, political communicators may be under pressure to think more
about the presentational appeals of their messages than about what they want to
put across substantively.
Abundance may also be changing the make-up of the audience for politics,
allowing more people to choose what they want to consume and only that. On
the other hand, in todays news saturated ecology even politically indifferent
people might find it difficult to avoid some of the bombardment of politically
relevant material.
Politicians (and by extension, other opinion advocates) will tend to tailor their
message offerings to the perceived news values, newsroom routines and
journalism cultures prevalent in the mainstream media of their societies.
The vital point is the ever-expanding diffusion and utilization of Internet facilities
throughout society, among all institutions with political goals and with politically
relevant concerns and among many individual citizens. All this has evidently
produced a vibrant communicative sphere, which though not coordinated or
coherent overall, includes many new opportunities for expression and exchange
and also for learning what others are saying elsewhere. ( Blumler)
Identifying the Audience
Polling the public has become a key strategy.
Polling has become a key tool of political communication. Not only does it help
politicians quantify the beliefs, wishes and voting intentions of the public, it can also be used to
determine the identity and location of those segments of the public receptive to specific political
messages. With polling, effort and expense can be directed in a focused way to persuade groups
of voters who may be responsive to a policy or argument, rather than addressing a general
audience, many of whom may be resistant or indifferent to the message.
Addressing the Audience

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To be effective, political communication, having determined its audience, must address

the audience in terms it finds acceptable. It is easy to see the way in which even prominent
politicians change their vocabulary, body language and style of dress, depending on whether
their audience is a panel of businessmen, a group of journalists or a "town hall" meeting of
ordinary citizens. The objective is no longer to carry a unified message to a mass audience but to
find specific audiences for a series of focused messages.
Example:
When Joylyn Alonso circulated a web message about her grandfathers dying wish, little
did she expect to see his dream of seeing Senator Aquino in person, become a reality. Her
personally penned Open Letter to Noynoy, caught the attention of Senator Noynoy Aquinos
staff via their official Facebook page, in late January 2010. It was also published as a web-link
on Alonsos blog.
The exposure and recognition received by her letter enabled Aquino to make an
unannounced visit to the cancer-stricken elderly man at a local hospital, the following day.
Aquinos unprecedented visit to the 63 year-old Barangay official from Taguig City, came after a
visit by Alonsos sister Viel and avoided the glare of media fanfare. While the mainstream press
did not cover the incident in its usual frenzy, the widespread popularity of Facebook and the
Internet helped to publicise news of the visit, earning for Aquino, both commendation and
indignation from the online community.

Cell phones and social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are playing an
increasingly prominent role in how voters get political information and follow
election news.
The proportion of Americans who use their cell phones to track political news or
campaign coverage has doubled compared with the most recent midterm election:
28% of registered voters have used their cell phone in this way during the 2014
campaign, up from 13% in 2010. Further, the number of Americans who follow
candidates or other political figures on social media has also risen sharply: 16% of
registered voters now do this, up from 6% in 2010. ( Smith)
In conclusion, the model of the political communication process that dominated is over.
That model was essentially pyramidal on a politics to media to audience slope. According to it,
most audience members most of the time were simply receivers of institutionally originated
communications. ( Blumler) Involvement after that point was organized and conducted by elite
staff. But with the arrival of the internet, those individuals have become a communicating force
in their own right, ( Blumler) thus, the political class is focusing more and more on using it.