Academic literature on the topic 'Political communications'

This study of the Nigerian Political Communications examines the patterns of mass media ownership and their impact on the coverage of selected national issues - the census controversy, ethnic problems and the general elections of 1979 and 1983. The contents of 21 newspapers of variegated ownership pattern involving governments, partisan and private interests are analysed and "live" illustrations of stories are given. This is to demonstrate empirically the thesis argument that the criterion of ownership is the key factor which determines how the Nigerian mass media are used for moulding the citizens' perception of political reality. The thesis seeks to answer questions such as: (a) what role have the Nigerian mass media played in promoting and/or compounding the problems of national integration in the Nigerian society since independence. (b) what role should the Nigerian mass media play to promote national integration and political stability. (c) what changes are necessary and desirable with the present situation to allow the mass media perform such integrative and stabilizing functions. Located within a comparative political communication approach to the study of mass media and politics in developing countries, this thesis seeks to contribute to knowledge in the areas of the theory, methodology and practice of political communications in Africa - with Nigeria as a case study. The question of media ownership has remained central to the Nigerian political communications with the attendant intrigues, ethnic violence, character assassination, political vilification, personal vendetta, coups and counter coups, general violent political disagreement and perennial problems of political instability culminating in fragmentation and disintegration that threaten the continued existence of Nigeria. The thesis also highlights a host of other factors which work in collaboration with media ownership to influence the Nigerian political communications - ethnicity, economic position, religion, legal limitations, circulation, transportation, audience reach, freedom of the press or lack of it, linguistic barriers and literacy. The thesis argues, in conclusion, that as Nigeria approaches a third attempt at democratic rule in socio-economic conditions which are less propitious than on past occasions, there is a need for the Nigerian mass media to operate in a way which contributes to national integration. It questions the existing pattern which is elitist and urban in orientation, ignores the rural majority and divides the Nigerian people rather than unites them. To achieve integration through political communications, the thesis suggests the need to restructure the media ownership pattern and to establish a Nigerian Media Advisory Council with some regulatory powers and authority to impose punitive sanctions on media practitioners and institutions for any professional misconduct.

In the 20th century, political communications have evolved at a tremendous pace. In its present version, as can be encountered everywhere in the Western world, this type of communication increasingly makes use of marketing-related techniques. These techniques, coupled with the naturally affective characteristics of modern media have influenced political campaigning into featuring more and more emotional messages. This tendency has decisively affected the quality of the information that political actors (politicians, parties, etc.) contribute to the public sphere, thus impeding on citizens' capacity to construct rational opinion on a variety of political matters.<br>This thesis sets out to explore two examples from Quebec's history to show how this increasing use of emotional messages in political communications has found its way into the province's social environment.

Political schema research (Kinder, Peters, Abelson, & Fiske, 1980; Miller, Wattenberg, & Malanchuk, 1986) has centered on the schemas voters use to select presidents. Unfortunately, political researchers have all but neglected the state and local level. Consequently, this thesis focuses on the schemas voters use to select governors to determine if these schemas differ from schemas used to select presidents. This thesis also tests the relationship between political sophistication and the use of certain schemas to select a governor. Surveys were administered to 563 adults waiting for jury duty. Results indicate the schemas voters use to select governors differ from those used to select presidents. Political sophistication is positively related to usage of issues and performance schemas. Further research should explore political schemas at state and local levels.

Existing theories of party organisation, and political communication and marketing, address the issue of party evolution and electoral behaviour from opposing and largely one-dimensional angles. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a more integrated perspective to party campaigning that goes beyond the traditional approaches of party behaviour and present the relationship between intra-party organisation and campaign evolution in a new light. The party evolution approach is an alternative conceptual framework of party campaigning, which integrates the classic approaches of party organisation with the modern accounts of political communication and marketing while taking into consideration the institutional and ideological constraints of political parties. The main aim is to bridge the worlds of marketing and politics by offering a distinct perspective that integrates elements of a party’s innate political identity and readdressing the notion of party communications professionalisation within the wider context of party evolution process. To this end, the employment of consumer marketing techniques and approaches in party campaigning is not considered a means to the end of electoral success but an integrated element of the party’s evolving identity. The intention is that the Party Evolution Framework be used as a tool for comparative analysis. The holistic and integrated scope of the framework is likely to qualify its application to a cross-section of democracies, regardless of their party and electoral systems, campaign regulations, and historical, socio-economic and political landscape. To this end, the present thesis illustrates the use of the party evolution framework in two largely contrasting contexts; British and Greek politics.

The thesis is a study of political communications in a general election campaign in Iceland in 1987. The theoretical background is the so-called agenda-setting approach to communication. A multimethodological approach was used: first, a content analysis was applied to printed pamphlets published by the political parties, election broadcasts on TV, daily newspapers, television news and current affairs programmes over a period of eight weeks; second, a three wave panel survey of a sample of 1500 voters, twice before the election and once immediately after it; third, a survey of news-reporters' attitudes towards media and their job, organized and run by students at the University of Iceland; and fourth, a qualitative study of practices and atmosphere inside the State's TV newsroom some days before the election. The thesis is divided into four main parts, which are further divided into sub-sections. The first part deals with theoretical considerations, offers an outline of Icelandic history and social reality and discusses the methodologies employed. Part two is based on the panel survey, a survey of news-reporters and a qualitative study inside the state's TV newsroom. Part two considers the uses of media in the campaign and attitudes towards them. It reports on news values and practices as found in the survey of news-reporters and the qualitative survey inside the TV newsroom. Part three is based on content analysis and the survey. It discusses the "three agendas": the party agenda, the media agenda and the voter agenda. Part four is an assessment of the research. An effort is made to relate the three agendas, in order to measure statistically their impact on one another. A final chapter discusses the conclusions that can be drawn from the various parts of the thesis about the agenda setting process.

<p> The Internet, as a digital record of human discourse, provides an opportunity to directly analyze political communicative behavior. The rapid emergence of social online networks augurs a transformation in the quality and quantity of information people have to evaluate their political system. Digital formats instantiate new categories of actors and new capacities to intervene in political discourse. Existing theories of political communication fail to account for the time lag, speed, anonymity and nature of replication inherent in digital formats. To fully investigate the digital record, scholars need a new framework that apprehends the complex density of a multidirectional political discourse that defies traditional time controls. </p><p> Using information and linguistic theory we develop and apply a functional, information flow model that illuminates the conceptual relationships and capacities of people to shape their information environment. Actors are defined in terms of their communicative role in idea exchange and the logic of communication is alloyed with political considerations to examine the scopes of action and immersion scenarios that affect communicants. </p><p> Our modular and scalable theory offers a way to measure signal fidelity, node activation, and message branching. We define signaling and amplification schemes and effects and explore the benefits and disadvantages of amplification devices for speakers and recipients. We show how individual actors are linked by the micro information streams they receive and transmit. We are therefore able to model exposure conditions of a multiple input, noisy spectrum for citizens and provide a counterpoint to the simple, controlled environment of agenda-setting experiments.</p><p> Finally, due to its foundation in information theory, our framework provides a natural platform by which to organize and develop a research program that uses computational linguistics and data mining techniques.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, School of Journalism, 2006.<br>"Title from dissertation home page (viewed July 16, 2007)." Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-10, Section: A, page: 3639. Adviser: David H. Weaver.