Political Communication and Public Opinion: From the First Mass Campaigns to the Digital Age

From the beginning of the 19th century, politicians started using mass communication channels to inform the public about their political agendas. Starting from the first political advertisements in print media, through radio, television, outdoor marketing, and finally digital marketing, with the emergence of each new medium, political advertising evolved both in terms of how media were used and the sophistication of politicians’ approaches to the public. The first campaign that utilized television as a medium to attract voters was the campaign leading up to the election between Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman, with Eisenhower’s “I like Ike” advertisement remaining a milestone in political communication to this day. Subsequent campaigns deepened the relationship between media and political candidates, and the power of shaping public opinion through mass communication channels was most evident during the 1960 campaign between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. In that campaign, an experiment showed that the perception of both candidates was largely influenced by the media through which voters followed the debate; those who watched it on television were impressed by Kennedy’s youth and charm, giving him an advantage, while those who listened on the radio relied more on Nixon due to what was highlighted as better argumentation.

Politicians and their PR teams recognized the importance of applying commercial branding principles to political figures to effectively connect with the public, accompanied by promises of understanding and satisfying their needs and desires. With the development of communication practices that accompany technological and media advancements, techniques for branding political figures have also evolved. These techniques range from the obvious, such as Ronald Reagan addressing the public while standing in front of the American flag during the 1980 election campaign, thereby aligning himself with American values of individualism, equality, meritocracy, and the “true” American spirit, to figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic candidate for the 14th district in New York, USA, who successfully uses her social media channels to communicate directly with her supporters while performing everyday tasks at home, such as cleaning the kitchen or assembling Ikea furniture, branding herself as the “ordinary girl” who lives just like everyone else.

Media have always played a significant role in political communication and branding politicians in various ways. Since the emergence of communication studies as a scientific discipline, various schools of thought have emerged regarding the relationship between media and society. These range from theories about mass society and the behaviorist model in which media messages are sent linearly and believed to have a direct impact on individuals’ behavior, to the idea that primary factors of socialization play the most significant role in constructing reality, with media having a secondary, negligible role in shaping individuals’ behavior and attitudes. The postmodernist model considers media effects through the lens of the ideological nature of media production, which involves a constant interplay of power relations and the production of meaning presented to the public. Media effects, in any case, in the context of political communication, can be seen as a long-term and ubiquitous effort to shape and present reality. They function ideologically, not at the level of directly changing viewers’ behavior in real-time but by promoting certain representations of local and global politics at the expense of others. The question of media objectivity and their construction of social reality is a global phenomenon studied by many media analysts, and in post-transitional countries like Montenegro, it is one of the burning issues that makes thorough research of public opinion even more necessary to identify key factors shaping citizens’ attitudes.

Alongside declining trust in the media, the importance of the “voice of the people” has grown, which is increasingly easy to hear through social media and various independent blogs and comments. Since the advent of Web 2.0, where all individuals have the opportunity to create content and actively participate in shaping public opinion by commenting on the political scene and candidates, often providing information about them that cannot be found in traditional media, the internet and electronic media in general have become important tools in political communication, both from the perspective of voters and the candidates themselves. Political parties have recognized the potential of the digital space for implementing their communication strategies, adapted to analyze the behavior of voters in the virtual space, based on what they read, like, share, and comment on. A campaign that will be remembered for its revolutionary use of the internet, social media, and direct electronic communication with the electorate is Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign for President of the United States. During this campaign, not only was the power of the internet and social media harnessed to propose innovative communication strategies that established a more stable and reliable relationship between candidates and voters, but the internet and data research were established as powerful tools for gathering more detailed information about voters and better understanding their needs and attitudes.

In this regard, some of the most significant, memorable, and successful political campaigns conducted in the past decade are the result of in-depth research on public opinion, habits, needs, opinions, and attitudes of individuals. This research enabled political candidates to adequately meet the needs of their voters, identify the positions of various marginalized social groups, and respond to the demands of citizens that are sometimes harder to hear in the public discourse. Research into the effects of a particular political communication strategy on the electorate not only allows for more effective responses to the wishes and demands of citizens and better understanding of their needs and attitudes but also the testing and experimentation of innovative approaches to communicating with the electorate, from the choice of media to be used during the campaign to key messages, promotional material, and more. In short, public opinion research is the foundation of every high-quality and successful marketing campaign in all democratic societies that aim for political stability and citizen satisfaction. It contributes to achieving the essence of every political or any other campaign: a more direct connection between the public and the candidates, more transparent and efficient communication, all with the aim of achieving harmony between political options and citizens’ needs.

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