UNIVERSITATEA BABE-BOLYAI CLUJ-NAPOCA FACULTATEA DE LITERE SECIA LIMBI MODERNE APLICATE

LUCRARE DE LICEN

Coordonator tiinific
Conf. univ. dr. Adriana Neagu

Absolvent
Dumitriu Delia

-2009-

UNIVERSITATEA BABE-BOLYAI CLUJ-NAPOCA FACULTATEA DE LITERE SECIA LIMBI MODERNE APLICATE

THE ROLE OF ADVERTISING IN PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS (An insight view over political communication)

Coordonator tiinific
Conf. univ. dr. Adriana Cecilia Neagu

Absolvent
Dumitriu Delia

-20093

TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I POLITICAL PUBLICITY A WAY OF MANIPULATING PEOPLE 6 7 11 11

1.1. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING THE POLITICAL COMMUNICATION.......................................................11 1.2. POLITICS IN THE PUBLICITY ERA.....................................................................................................................13 1.2.1. POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS............................................................................................................................13 1.2.2. THE PUBLIC.................................................................................................................................................15 1.3. THE IMPACT OF MASS MEDIA OVER THE POLITICAL PARTIES .........................................................................18 1.3.1. THE MAIN FUNCTIONS OF MASS MEDIA IN THE POLITICAL SYSTEM....................................................................19 1.3.1.1. Surveillance........................................................................................................................................20 1.3.1.2. Interpretation......................................................................................................................................20 1.3.1.3. Socialization.......................................................................................................................................21 1.3.1.4. Manipulation.......................................................................................................................................21 1.4. COMMUNICATION DURING THE ELECTORAL CAMPAIGNS....................................................................................22 1.4.1. STRATEGIES.................................................................................................................................................22 1.4.2. ELEMENTS OF THE POLITICAL COMMUNICATION................................................................................................24 1.4.3. THE STAGES OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION...................................................................................................28 1.4.4. THE PURPOSE AND THE ROLE OF THE POLITICAL PARTIES ..................................................................................31 1.5. THEMES OF POLITICAL PUBLICITY .................................................................................................................32 CHAPTER II MEDIA THE SCENE OF THE POLITICIANS - METHODS OF POLITICAL MARKETING 34 34 34

2.1. THE POWER OF TELEVISION AND RADIO..........................................................................................................34 2.2. THE WRITTEN PRESS AND STREET PUBLICITY..................................................................................................35 2.3. THE INTERNET...............................................................................................................................................36 2.4. THE DEPOLITICIZATION..................................................................................................................................40 CHAPTER III APPROACHES TO SEMIOTICS (SAUSSURE AND PIERCE) CHAPTER IV CASE STUDY: ELECTORAL VIEWS IN ROMANIA AND IN THE USA 42 42 46 46

4.1. BRIEF SURVEY OF THE TWO POLITICAL REGIMES.............................................................................................46

4.1.1. ROMANIA....................................................................................................................................................46 4.1.2. THE UNITED STATES.....................................................................................................................................48 4.2. POLITICAL MARKETING..................................................................................................................................50 4.2.1. POLITICAL LIFE BEFORE THE ELECTORAL CAMPAIGN IN 2004 (TRAIAN BSESCU).................................................50 4.2.2. POLITICAL LIFE BEFORE THE ELECTORAL CAMPAIGN IN 2008 (BARACK OBAMA).................................................51 4.2.3. BUILDING THE IMAGE OF THE CANDIDATE, THE PROGRAM AND FORMULATING THE MESSAGES................................52 4.2.3.1. The Image of Traian Bsescu .............................................................................................................52 4.2.3.1.1. Political Opponents to Presidency....................................................................................................52 4.2.3.1.2. Electoral Platform of D.A. Alliance.................................................................................................54 4.2.3.1.3. Promoting Strategies........................................................................................................................54 4.2.3.2. The Image of Barack Obama..............................................................................................................56 4.2.3.2.1. Political Opponents for Presidency..................................................................................................56 4.2.3.2.2. Democratic National Platform.........................................................................................................57 4.2.3.2.3. Promoting Strategies .......................................................................................................................58 4.2.3.2.4. Media Campaign..............................................................................................................................59 4.2.3.2.5. Negative Publicity............................................................................................................................61 4.3. SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS APPLIED ON POLITICAL PUBLICITY....................................................................................62 4.3.1. BARACK OBAMA..........................................................................................................................................62 4.3.2. TRAIAN BSESCU.........................................................................................................................................65 CONCLUSION WORKS CITED BIBLIOGRAPHY DICTIONARIES REZUMAT RESUMEN 67 69 71 74 75 84

List of Figures

FIGURE 1. THE ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION FIGURE 2. WORLD INTERNET USAGE AND POPULATION STATISTICS FIGURE 3. WORLD INTERNET USERS BY WORLD REGIONS FIGURE 4. ONLINE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN FIGURE 5. THE TRAFFIC OF BARACK OBAMA FROM UNITED KINGDOM IN2008 FIGURE6. BANNERS FROM BARACKS OBAMA PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN FIGURE 7. OABAMAS LOGO VS. THE LOGO OF PEPSI FIGURE 8: BANNER FROM THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF TRAIAN BSESCU

17 37 37 55 60 62 64 65

Introduction
Any endeavor to inquire into the political communication insight must clarify important problems such as the elements and purpose of political communication, its advertising and propaganda strategies, the antagonisms created among the groups of politicians and the process of inducing ideas to the citizens in order to persuade them to adopt certain ideologies. The aim of the present paper is to provide responses to questions of Romanian people regarding the major differences of the way of thinking, and behaving as compared to the American people. Also, I am interested to highlight that the role of mass media in the political process which does not refer only to promoting the image of a candidate, but also to manipulating our preferences and opinions. This is done through a variety of methods such as the use of words in their connotative meaning, the use of images which contain symbols and signs meant to unconsciously suggest us ideas and the intensive promoting at radio, TV, Internet, written press, on the street, in the means of transport etc. My choice of writing about political communication comes firstly from my interest concerning the area of advertising and secondly, from the desire to find out more about politics. I never had a particular interest in this domain until I had the right to vote, and, in that moment I found myself in the situation of not having any knowledge about the candidates, the political parties and their ideologies. Realizing the importance of being well-informed of my countrys political system and historical background I became aware of the fact that it is a good opportunity to start reading more about this issue. Consequently, when I had to choose the theme of my thesis I considered that an approach to this subject would be a challenge and a possibility to find out more. The primarily focus of this study is to evaluate the process of political communication in terms of language, political strategies, electorate, political actors and the role of mass media and 7

secondly, to make a comparative analysis of the American and Romanian political systems and historical evolution by evaluating the electoral campaigns of Traian Bsescu and Barack Obama. Nevertheless, I was also interested in exploring more the visual impact of the political posters, banners and fliers, in this sense, I referred to the science of semiotics according to which, communication generates significances by telling us things we already know in a language that nobody will ever understand (Semiotics, online article). For applying this theory, my case study consists of a semiotic analysis of two banners from the electoral campaigns of Traian Bsescu and Barack Obama, trying to discover the political discourse behind the images, taking into account that a text in the area of semiotics does not refer to words, but to the encoded messages which use signs. The chapters included in this research are centered on topics related to political communication, and the first three contain theoretical aspects concerning the political process through which the electorate receives the information that will draw his attention. The case study analyzes the insight aspects regarding the strategies of realizing an electoral campaign. Te first chapter is structured in five parts comprising general considerations about political communication, the role of political actors in the process of communication, the impact of mass media over politics, the communication during the electoral campaigns and the themes of political publicity. I considered necessary to provide a definition for the term political communication as the process which includes an interaction between many elements. For a better understanding of the concept I would cite Meadow Robert G. who says that political communication refers to the change of symbols and messages between the actors and the public institutions, the public and the mass media, and these symbols are consequences of the political system. This requires the presence of the political actors, and, in this category can be included the political parties, the department of public relations, the trade unions, the consumers groups, the public organizations, the pressure groups and the terrorist organizations. All of them have the purpose of transmitting messages, nevertheless their methods are different. Therefore, on the one hand the political parties, which represent a group of people with the same political ideologies, intend to attract the electorate on their side by publicly expressing their ideologies and the changes they propose for improving the life standards using the traditional means of communication (Internet, TV, radio, written press etc.). On the other hand, the terrorist groups resort to the tactic of terror (violence, bomb attacks, assassinate) to transmit their messages and to accomplish their objectives. The common point of these political actors is represented by the public, their common target. The information citizens receive from the political parties has a persuasive character whereas the message transmitted by the terrorists is supposed to frighten them, letting the impression that everything is under their control. 8

Further on, my investigation thoroughly focuses on the mass media as a principal factor in the communicational process between the politicians and the electorate. For this reason, I presented the main functions of mass media in the opinion of the political analyst, Harold Laswell. According to him, there are three main functions of the press: the surveillance over the world having the purpose of presenting events, the interpretation of the events and the socialization function which refers to the fact that, for understanding the political process form their country, the individuals must socialize in their cultural environment. Moreover, it is essential to add to these the forth function of the media which is the deliberate manipulation of the public. It is easy to manipulate through media, as the fear of feeling isolated in a society determines the individual to agree with the general opinion, to accept the communicational rules imposed by the society. The most notable ways of manipulation are represented by: the reduction of the time for presenting a message, event or political action, the editorial restrictions, the personal and ideological perspective and the fact that, usually, the journalists give the message another meaning by taking it out from the context. The reason for which I detailed this function of the press is to show the public which are the principal methods of manipulation in order to make them be rational and avoid being influenced. The electoral campaign represents a political event realized for promoting the image of a candidate and they have the tendency to become standardized as the language implemented and the strategies used transform the politician in a product. Hence, the electoral campaign can be considered a communicational process constituted from a number of elements such as the sender, the message, the channel, the code, the receiver, the context, the feed-back, the noise and the repertoire. The stages of this process imply the establishment of the target public, the creation of a positive image of the political actor and the promotion of the politician. I highlighted these aspects as they are of major importance for my case study where I analyzed the two political campaigns having as a starting point all the elements enumerated above. In the second chapter, I considered essential to make a survey about the methods of political marketing which represent the central theme of investigation of my paper. My thinking about this chapter proceeds along two paths. The one represents the way in which the means of communication (TV, Internet, radio, written press and street publicity) participate in the process of promoting the candidate and the other emphasizes the fact that these media elements provoked the depoliticization of the politics which loses its essence and becomes more and more dependent on the press. The third chapter deals with the theoretical part regarding the science of semiotics which I applied on my case study, trying to identify in two electoral banners the language behind the visual image and the symbolist message transmitted through the language. Finally, in my case study, I am 9

interested in demonstrating that even though the both presidents, Traian Bsescu and Barack Obama had interesting and original electoral campaigns which attracted a large number of voters, the difference between the two countries are major regarding the money allocated for the campaigns, the clarity and the coherence of the messages transmitted to the electorate, the quality of the debates, the political platform, and the most important, the achievements as a president. Needless to say that, in Romania the money for the electoral campaigns comes from each candidates budget whereas in America, Barack Obama organized on the Internet a donation website, BarackObama.com, and he totaled hundreds of millions of dollars for realizing the electoral campaign. My approach to this topic undertakes to examine all the points mentioned above with the final purpose of providing an original view over the entire political communicational process with all its positive and negative aspects.

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CHAPTER I Political Publicity A Way of Manipulating People

1.1. General Considerations Concerning the Political Communication
In order to analyze the impact of the mass media on the political communication, I would start by defining this concept, which, in the view of Meadow Robert G. signifies the change of symbols and messages between the actors and the public institutions, the public and the mass media, and these symbols and messages are consequences of the political system. (Meadow Robert, online article) Therefore, the politics represents a very important field of the communication. The politicians communicate with the public throughout signs, symbols or any other means that spread the message: the polling, the street messages, the banners, the advertisements, the political assassinate etc. In general, the politicians use the communication in order to act over the electorate and also over particular situations. Political communication implies three important dimensions: the pragmatic dimension, the symbolic dimension and the structural dimension. With reference to the pragmatic dimension, it can be said that it regards the study of the real situations of communication. Concerning the theory of the signs which studies the relation between the signs and the persons who use them, pragmatism refers to the relation which connects the transmitter with the receiver and which establishes the communication (Watzlawick, Helmick-Beavin, 1972, cited in Seceleanu Andra, 2008:76). Therefore, the political communication can be perceived according to specific factors such as: the domination, the information, the persuasion, the seduction or the negotiation. Nevertheless, the communication can be conceived as a representation of the politics, when the last is defined as the 11

field of the tension between the collaboration and the conflict. For instance, we can speak about collaboration when the communication is based on an agreement between two persons when taking a decision, but when the process of communication has as a final purpose the domination it can be taken into consideration the aspect of manipulation. In other words, the communication becomes political when entries in the field of the tension between the collaboration and the conflict. When speaking about words, and their symbolic dimension it can be said that they refer to symbols, and a phrase might be seen as map that can decode the messages we receive while reading or speaking. The language plays an important part in establishing social relations, as its main function is to find an agreement in a discourse or a dialogue; therefore it has a conciliatory role. However, a discourse has the power to create conflicts or it might include strategies of manipulation and domination. Firstly, the symbols as signs represent important weapons in the hands of the politicians as they offer them opportunities to belabor the opponents and secondly they are considered to be perceptions of the social reality, and the ordinary people perceive them as representations of the world. To continue with, I would say that the concept of reality is different in the opinion of each person. For instance, one can say about the politics that is something real, that makes part from our lives, whereas one can see it as an abstract concept, but in order to establish a connection between things the human being uses the language, the symbols, the myths etc. Furthermore, the political communication uses signs such as the words which are selected and combined in order to make logical sentences and messages. The fact that the discourses of the politicians are full of symbolic words is important when referring to the publics perception. As the symbols have a great power of evocation and identification, the impact on the audience is bigger and for this reason, the politicians benefit from the possibility of creating a tension on it, stimulating in this way peoples attention, their involvement and the way of associating ideas. The semiotics, which refers to the study of the way in which people communicate through signs and symbols, is strongly related to the symbolic dimension. In was introduced in the area of the image (photos, posters) and of the animation (television, cinema) having the purpose of demonstrating their symbolic efficacy. This way, throughout the video culture, the political text testifies the fact that it can take many forms in music, picture or literature. To make a general idea concerning the symbolic dimension, it can be said that beyond the particular culture, the political message can be spread throughout multiple methods: songs, banners, graffiti, tags, gadgets, slogans, cartoons etc. When speaking about the structural dimension of the political communication, the reference can be made concerning the means through which it advances: channels, networks and media. Regarding this aspect, a distinction should be made 12

between the institutions such as the parliament or the administration, the organizations (political parties), the media (the written press and the audio-video media) and the social groups. (Reference: Andra Seceleanu, 2008:76-88)

1.2. Politics in the Publicity Era

It is difficult to give a definition to the political communication, as it may be defined in several ways. Denton and Woodward propose a definition trying to emphasize the fact that it refers to a public discussion about the allocation of public resources (money), official authority (who decides), and official sanctions (what is to be rewarded)". (1990, p. 14). They also characterize this type of communication from the point of view of the intentions of the transmitter whose main purpose is to influence the political area: the ultimate factor which makes the communication to be political is not represented by the source of the message, but by its content and its purpose. To continue with, the purposeful communication concerning the politics includes all the means of communication used by the politicians and by the political actors with the purpose of reaching a certain objective, the communication which is addressed to the politicians by non-political persons such as the electorate or the journalists from the written press, the communication which makes reference to their activities and which is presented in the news and in the written press. (Brian McNair, 2007: 127)

1.2.1. Political Organizations

When speaking about politicians we may refer to them as actors who play a role on the scene of politics. They aim at influencing the process of taking the decisions, and have the possibility of realizing this only if they obtain the political power in the Govern and or in constituent assemblies. However, if they represent the opposition, their main purpose regards the obstruction and the replacement of those who have the power. The political parties represent a group of people who gather together in an organizational and ideological structure and who have the same purposes and share the same ideas. These purposes and their values will contribute to the ideology of the party they represent. A concrete example is represented by the British Conservative Party which has as a basic principle the individual 13

liberties, whereas its opponent, the Labour Party sustains the capitalism and the social equality. Another example in this sense are the democrats from the USA which are associated with the liberalism in social policy, meanwhile the republicans want to reduce state involvement in all the aspects of the socio-economic life and support a conservative and center-right platform. If in the past the parties used only the written press for persuading the electorate to vote them, nowadays, an entire industry developed, appeared the political marketing and the politicians must resort to all the means of the mass communication in order to be promoted. This new form of communication, the political publicity uses the mass-media in order to make a difference between the political products (the parties and the candidates) and to give them significance for the electorate in the same way that on a full market, the producer of detergent tries to distinguish his product from the others even though they have similar effects. Another category of political communication is represented by the department of public relations which is in charge with the image of a certain party, and its purpose is to maintain for a long period of time a positive image and to try to attenuate the negative publicity. Among the activities of this department, there are included the proactive devices such as the press conferences and the party conferences (which want to attract positive reactions from behalf of the journalists), and the reactive political techniques which are used by the politicians who want to limit the negative image created by the press. For instance, they use as a strategy the lobby, which must be an ethical activity, and using this method they convince the journalists to retouch the articles in order to create a positive image. This new means of political communication represent the area of a new professional class (consultants, image managers, spin-doctors of the political sphere) which appeared during the 20th century, and which is useful and advantageous for the politicians. It is important to know that even though the political parties have a major contribution in the political process, they are not the only political actors. These political actors may be divided into three categories: the trade-unions, the consumers groups and the professional associations which can be defined as public organizations. This type of organization is not connected by a political ideology, but by some common characteristics of their members situation such as work problems (the case of the trade-unions) or the lack of power of the citizens in the face of large corporations (the case of the consumer groups). The individuals from these organizations do not associate only for helping each other, but also for trying to give public notoriety to a certain problem with the help of the elected politicians. Moreover, these type of organizations benefit from an institutional status and from public legitimacy which help them to have access to policy-makers and media, receipt of charitable donations and official funding. 14

Another category of political actors is represented by the pressure groups which are centered on one single problem and can be distinguished from the public organizations through the fact that are less institutionalized and are preoccupied by problems such as the environment, the cruel treatment of the animals which are raised for their meat or the testing of certain medicines or cosmetic products. Taking into consideration the members of the pressure groups and the members of the existent parties, it can be said that the first come from diverse social classes. For example, while the Labour Party and the Conservative Party from Great Britain (or the Democratic and the Republican parties from the USA) are associated with the work and the businesses, an organization such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has members from all the British social classes. Following the same pattern, the ecological movement was supported by individuals with different ages, religions and who come from various social classes. It is an example of a pressure group which tried to be in the general tendency of the political process by creating the green parties in Europe. As a political party, it did not managed to enter in the British Parliament, but the ecological movement had a major impact over the political agenda, obliging the Conservative Party and the Labour Party to elaborate at least one ecological directive. The politics of the pressure groups supposes communication and the utilization of the publicity and public relations techniques available nowadays. Nevertheless, because of their character these groups are deprived of the financial resources and they must find less expensive means of transmitting their political messages such as the public demonstrations and protests which are meant to attract the attention of the journalists. The terrorist organizations represent the groups which recur to the tactic of terror bomb attempts in urban spaces, assassinate, kidnappings, hijackings in order to accomplish their objectives. The most known organizations which are associated with the terrorism are the Irish Republican Army in North Ireland, Hamas and Hezbollah in the Middle East, ETA in Tara Bascilor from Spain and al-Qaida which is responsible for the destruction of the tower from World Trade Center. The terrorist organizations use violence as a way of persuasion and their purposes go beyond the constitutional process which they consider to be illegitimate. Consequently, it can be said that even the terrorist acts can be seen as a means of political communication which has as a purpose to transmit a message to a certain electorate. (Brian McNair, 2007:19-28)

1.2.2. The Public

15

The main purpose of the communication is to convince and the target of the persuasion is the public, which represents the second key element of the process of the political communication. In relation to this, it should be noticed the fact that the public can be in the same time large or limited. In order to illustrate this, I will take the example given by Brian McNair in his book Introducere n comunicarea politic, which refers to the bomb attack undertaken by IRA (Provisional Irish Republican Army) in 1995 in a commercial center from Manchester. This type of communication has to levels of significance and has two target publics. On the one hand, it addresses to the population of Great Britain to whom they tell that should see the conflict from North Ireland as something relevant and, on the other hand, they warn the govern that IRA has the power to accomplish such acts of terrorism and that there must be established some changes in politics (these changes produced in 1997 when was elected the Labourist Govern). Nevertheless, regardless of the size and the type of the public, the political communication wants to produce a certain effect on the receivers of the message. Starting with the presidential elections from the USA and continuing with the individual lobby, the transmitter hopes that the message has a positive impact over the political behavior of the recipient. (Brian McNair, 2007: 27-28)

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Figure 1. The Elements of Political Communication Source: Bria McNair, 2007:22

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Reportage Editorials Commentary Analysis

Political organizations: public organizations pressure groups terrorist organizations governments

political parties

Appeals Programmes Advertising Public relations

Media

Opinion polls Letters

Reportage Editorials Commentary Analysis

Citizens

1.3. The Impact of Mass Media over the Political Parties

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It is known that the main function of the mass-media is to give information concerning societys problems including the political ones, to inform correctly and on time the citizens who will have the power to influence the decisions taken regarding the society they live in. Generally, the democratic standards impose in a society the activities of the mass-media through the surveillance of the daily events which may influence the life of the citizens, through the identification of the principal sociopolitical problems and by creating a free market, where the spokesmen, the opinion leaders, can express their ideas, and this represents an advantage for the minorities because sometimes it is difficult for them to have access to the means of communication. (Andra Seceleanu, 2008: 81).

1.3.1. The Main Functions of Mass Media in the Political System

In the past, when the first news papers appeared, the press was controlled and financed by the political and religious authorities of those times. Therefore, the information was read exclusively by the high class (the aristocrats, the bankers, the aristocracy, and the clergy). The democracy liberated the press from the pressure of the authorities and the mass communication made that the importance of the media grew quickly. Regarding this aspect, it can be said that from this point appeared the specific functions of the press in the political system: presenting the information to the public; interpreting the news and the facts; influencing the opinion of the electorate; establishing the priorities of the political actions; ensuring the relation of the politicians with the electorate. the surveillance over the world having the purpose of presenting the events; the interpretation of the events; the socialization of the individuals in their cultural environment.

Moreover, the political analyst, Harold Lasswell mentions three basic functions of the mass-media:

Nevertheless, it is important to add the forth function which is the deliberate manipulation of the political processes. It is important to know that the way in which these functions work affects the life of the individuals, the social groups, the social organizations and also the local and the international politics. 19

1.3.1.1. Surveillance

The surveillance has two major purposes: the media should concentrate on certain institutions, events or political personalities and on the penalization of those aspects which are contrary to the general standards. The main function of the press is to satisfy the needs of a certain person and his/her questions concerning certain social aspects. Regarding its functions, the publicity made by the media became an important source of political motivation. This way, the politicians who want to have part of publicity or those who want to avoid it, try to structure the events thinking to the effects that a certain type of publicity might have. For instance, a negative publicity might produce disastrous effects over the image of a politician and the effort of clearing away these consequences is double. Besides that the media attracts the attention of the public over the problems of political interest, it also offers indications regarding the importance of certain problems. On the one hand, the most important themes are presented by offering more details, on the first page of the newspapers using huge and colored characters or on special TV shows. On the other hand, the problems which are less important to the public are presented on the last pages and have short presentations at the TV and at the radio. On the whole, through the simple fact that they present a person or an institution, mass-media can offer them a statute, as through it, the values and the standards which have a social and political status quo are being reaffirmed. Nevertheless, in the same way that mass-media brings some problems in the attention of the public, it can condemn certain people or events by ignoring them according to some journalistic criteria. The citizens use the mass communication in order to keep the contact with the world, as the media represents their eyes and ears. 1.3.1.2. Interpretation

From the beginning, the mass-media assumed the role of interpreting the social and political life by keeping the attention of the public on the elements that are relevant. The way that the press interprets the events may change the opinions over the political activities, directing their impact on the life of the individuals. There are situations when the press made deliberately modifications by changing the language in order to give a false impression over a certain event. By suggesting the relations between the events and their effects, the media can form the opinions without saying to its 20

public what to believe or not, and as Bernard Cohen was saying: The press cannot tell people what to think, but succeeds extremely well to tell them to what to think. 1.3.1.3. Socialization

The socialization supposes the assimilation by the individual of the principal values in order to integrate in the cultural and social life of the society. Presently, the press plays an important part in the social life of the youngsters as their knowledge concerning the world is assimilated throughout the mass-media (TV, radio, newspapers, magazines etc.). Moreover, it can be said that they accept the information received, they have models among the TV stars and form their own opinions regarding this changing world. Nevertheless, it is believed that the media has a negative part and a positive one. Regarding the negative part, mass-media has the power to induce a false perception over the most relevant events from a community. A concrete example in this sense could be the fact that the press shows a lot of interest for death, abominable murder, and the criminals, the terrorists and the societys dregs are constant apparitions at the TV, on the first page of the newspapers so that we started to consider them something normal. What I want to emphasize is the fact that we are responsible for all these and not the press because we show a lot of interest for the sensational, for the unbelievable and the majority of us look at this type of TV shows, news and not at the cultural ones. In contrast, taking into account the positive part of the socialization through mass-media, it can be observed that it makes the citizens to take part to the political actions. Thus, the socialization through mass-media creates stereotypes! The tendency to imitate and simplify things influences the behavior and the way of perceiving the reality and we should be careful concerning the fact that the politicians are the most interested in stereotyping the reaction of the media consumers. It is also important to know that for a politician is essential to be known by a large number of people and the press represents the path through the electorate. No one won a battle with the mass-media and this thing makes the social legitimacy, which the politicians need, one of the most powerful weapons of the media against the political system.

1.3.1.4. Manipulation

21

The specialists consider the fact that the fear of feeling isolated in a society makes the individual to agree with the general opinion, to accept the communicational rules imposed by the society and they emphasize the fact that the social individuals are addicted to the mass-media. Therefore, when the public opinion expresses a high degree of conformism, it becomes a factor which can control others options. Following this path, mass-media becomes a product accepted by the general values of the society and, regarding this aspect, it accomplishes the role of manipulating and persuading. This can be considered the main reason for which the citizens feel obliged to follow the ideas and the political direction imposed by the press. The most notable ways of manipulation are represented by: the reduction of the time for presenting a message , event or political action; the editorial restrictions (the interdiction list); the personal and ideological perspective; giving the message another meaning by taking it out from the context.

(Reference: Andra Seceleanu, 2008: 98-106)

1.4. Communication during the Electoral Campaigns

1.4.1. Strategies
Roland Cayrol considers that the process of political communication is the result of the work between television, the inquiries and the publicity. It is certain that together with all this, an important part in the transmission of the political messages through the people plays the written press and the radio. The political publicity forms, promotes and directs through certain groups of people the image of a political party or of a candidate. Its main purpose is to influence the public opinion in order to promote a political actor. In its turn, the political publicity manipulates. Taking into account the fact that the politicians are the promoters of a particular political ideology it can be said that the verbalization of the elements belongs to an ideological language. A particular aspect of the political communication is represented by the creation of a standardized system. This tendency has the role of transforming the politician in a product who has as a purpose the obtaining of votes at the end of the electoral campaign. There are three strategies

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which are the components of this standardization process: the projection strategy, the verbal strategy and the non-verbal strategy. The projection strategy. Throughout this strategy it is realized a project that includes the principal offers of the political actor, which regard the social area and the areas of economy and politics. The base of this project is represented by the inquiries which contain the opinions and the wishes of the electorate. Therefore, in the project should be included all the elements of the inquiries and it should give a solution to the major wishes of the population. It is important to know that these solutions should benefit from a practical part because contrary, the promises which were in vain could have the effect of a boomerang and return against the politician. The strategy of informing the public opinion. This strategy involves all the actions through which the final project must be presented to the citizens and has two parts: the mediatization and the promotional actions. The publicity of the political actor must be carefully used because his image must obtain positive or negative values according to certain factors. One of these factors is connected with the means of communication chosen for transmitting the message, with the time chosen and last but not least, with the availability of the public for receiving the message. Regarding all these elements, the politician should take into consideration only those aspects of the mass-media which, in connection with other actions will contribute in creating a positive image of the politicians and a closer relation between him/her and the electorate. The verbal and non-verbal strategy. This strategy contains the mimics, the gestures the clothes and all the discourses which are meant to sustain the politicians image. The non-verbal communication which is used when creating the image of the political actor brings more conviction to the people when hearing a political discourse. The gestures of a politician are the same with the gestures of any individual of the society, therefore, this technique makes any citizen of a community identify with a political person. Using different techniques and strategies of communication, the political actor creates a product image which presents to the potential electorate. The purpose of this image is to convince more people of the veracity of the promises and to transform them in sympathizers and in possible voters. As a conclusion, it should be reminded the benefic effect of the transparency through which not only the mass-media but also the public have access to all the actions and the projects of the political actors and that the political communication is presented to us as a system ruled by norms and specific values which complete this process. (Clin Rus, 2005: 9398).

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1.4.2. Elements of the Political Communication

The political communication is based on a series of actions, but it is constituted from a number of elements. There are many models of the political communication which are formed of different elements, components, norms and rues. The most eloquent example in this sense is the one which contains nine elements: the sender, the message, the channel, the code, the receiver, the context, the feed-back, the noise and the repertoire. The sender of the political communication is also known as the source of the message and has the capacity of initiating the process of communication. With reference to the political communication, the sender is the political actor, who, in order to accomplish his purposes, transmits to the electorate messages which contain his ideas and opinions. Moreover, the sender can be an individual or it can include more elements which form a political community which produces ideological programs. When this political community becomes a transmitter, it will have the role of expressing its opinions and ideologies using different methods and techniques. Taking into account the type of information transmitted, the sender will use not only the verbal and non-verbal communication, but also the paralinguistic communication (the tone, the pauses, the quick or the slow way of speaking). Concerning these aspects of the communication, the politicians can be classified into politicians who have a considerable oratorical capacity or a limited one, or in politicians who are more or less charismatic persons. Nevertheless, one of the most important problems they confront with is represented by their psychic potential. For instance, there are cases when they manage very well to transmit the message by combining the verbal and non-verbal elements, but there are cases when, in conditions of stress or a exhaustion, they want to say a thing and, unconsciously they start speaking about another subject. For this reason, it is believed that the self-control is important for the political actor, and he/she has to prove it in any situation, especially in the moments of conflict and of crisis so that through his contribution could solve the problems and inspire trust and stability to the electorate. The political sender has some characteristics which apply in the process of the political communication: he elaborates the message, adapts the message according to his own beliefs and finally, transmits it through a target population. On the one hand, the discourse of the politician must contain the elements and the values which sustain his/hers political ideology and, on the other hand, it must contradict the opinions of the political opponents. The political message can be seen as a piece of information transmitted by the political transmitter, and which emphasizes his political doctrine. It has two main characteristics: informing 24

and persuading. Firstly, regarding its informative part, it can be said that the message will contain short and clear patterns formulated according to a simple language which should be understood by a large number of people. Secondly, with reference to the persuasive message, there are many cases when it has a demagogic and populist character, having the purpose of creating confusion in the mind of the receivers. The next step after creating this confusion is represented by a change in the systems of values of the receivers, and these systems should reason with the interests of the political transmitter. The means of transmitting the political message refer to all the modalities of transmitting the political message. Through these means of communication it is assured the connection between the political transmitter and the receivers. The messages can take the shape of the interpersonal communication or of the mass communication. The last takes place when the information produced is transmitted by one source through the written press, the radio, the television etc., to large groups of people. In this case, an immediate feed-back is excluded. Concerning the interpersonal communication, it is believed that it has a limited public, the change of information is made in wellstructured groups, the feed-back is present and all the component elements of these groups are in direct contact one with another. Furthermore, the political communication can be divided into direct and indirect communication. The first is realized between the politicians and the receivers and uses verbal and non-verbal elements. In the case of the political communication, the code of the verbal communication is represented by the ideological language, which can be defined as the base of the thinking and which transmits meanings and significations with a socio-political value using signs and symbols, whereas the non-verbal communication uses specific elements such as the gestures, the mimics, the look etc. The indirect communication is realized through mass-media, which presently is the most important connector between the politicians and the electorate. It can also be added the fact that, in general, the opinion leaders who are the principal agents of the indirect political communication are well-informed and charismatic persons who have a great capacity of persuasion. The code refers to a logical enumeration of elements, realized using well-established patterns such as the description of the information, and it differs according with the mental structure of the users. Concerning the purposes of the politicians, it can be said that they use two types of codes: simples and complicated. If the main purpose is to convince the receivers, then the codes used in the structure of the political messages will be simple, clear, will make reference to the emotional and retributive part of the individual and will have well-defined target groups. In contrast, when the politicians do not intend to tell the truth or wish to hide a part of it, they resort to complicated codes 25

of the political messages, transforming the political discourses in vague verbalizations, using the wooden language. The political receiver is represented by a person or a group through which the messages are transmitted. These persons must have the ability of receiving the messages, of decoding, analyzing and understanding them and finally they must react giving a feed-back to the transmitter. In the process of transferring the information both the transmitter and the receiver will have the role of encoding and decoding the messages so that they will change alternatively the positions, the transmitter becoming a receiver and the receiver becoming a transmitter. In the case of the political communication there is a clear difference between the transmitters and the receivers as the last ones are more in number than the first. It is known that in the structure of the society a smaller group as the politicians leads a bigger group as the mass of people. In order to maintain the position of leaders, the politicians must have the power of persuading the mass. The main purpose of the politicians is to convince the majority of the electorate to vote them in order to obtain important results in the electoral campaigns. Moreover, it is important to know that even though the persuasion is important in the process of convincing the mass, when the politicians insist too much on a certain type of message, the information will supersaturate the target groups and will appear the effect of the boomerang. Its effect consists on the fact that the target groups will not listen anymore the political messages and will have an attitude of rejection and hostility regarding the politicians. If they persist with this mistake, the people will loose their interest and the leaders will loose the power. This is the reason for which any politician and political organization should balance the quantity of information they offer daily to the electorate and they should also let the opposition to express its point of view. The receivers are not equal, taking into consideration the fact that they belong different social categories regarding their social position, the level of intelligence etc. The politician should take into account this aspect and in the moment when he/she will address to these groups should combine the elements of publicity with information which must contain real promises. If they will not accomplish the promises made in the electoral campaigns, the target public will change its political preferences. The people who are not interested in the political life and who do not participate in the process of the political communication can also be called receivers of the political messages and can be influenced. The technique through which the politicians can transmit messages to this category of people is simple as they will transmit important messages for their families and indirectly those who are not interested in politics will be attracted in this political circle. To

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conclude, it is important to know that through their discourses the politicians manipulate more or less the receivers transforming them in possible voters or sympathizers. The context of the political communication is represented by the field of values, rules and laws where in a certain period of time takes place the process of communication. The political field will refer to the political life of a society as a whole with all the component elements, personalities or events. The specialists in the political communication divide these values in two parts: A. the values of the electoral campaigns which can be local or general and the last refer to the presidential elections and the local ones refer to the elections of the mayor and the local cancellers and in this case the political communication takes the form of the electoral communication; B. the values between the elections, which in the majority of the democracies last four years. The presentation of the political life in stages is a determinant factor of the success or the failure of a whole system of political values such as the democratic system. The feed-back in a political community refers to the reactions of the receivers regarding a politician or a political party as a consequence of the political messages. It represents the reactions of affection or dislike regarding the political transmitters. It should also be emphasized the fact that there is a category of persons which are not interested in the political phenomenon. The source of noise is very important in the political communication and refers to the physical or psychical disturbing factors which action directly or indirectly and has the power to influence the political communication. The elements of noise are represented by: the intensity of the voice, the lack of coherence of the discourses, defects of speaking, a fast or slow rhythm of speaking etc. The sources of noise can be visible or hidden. In the first category can be included the booing during the electoral meetings, the disturbing elements from a TV or radio show such as the laughers and the applauses. An important factor, which is considered to be a hidden source, is represented by the discourse of the opponents through which they try to destroy the entire scaffold of a discourse and they try to impose their own opinions. Taking into account the fact that the political communication should take place in good conditions, it is important for the politicians to know all the disturbing factors in order to eliminate or control them so that the effects should be minimal. The repertory is the last of the elements of the political communication and represents all the knowledge from a certain area of the transmitter and of the receiver. Therefore, the political communication implies the existence of two types of repertories: the repertoire of the politicians and of the electorate. It is important for the politician to know how to speculate the differences between the transmission of the message and the perception of it, in order to be understood, accepted and 27

even sympathized. The difference between the transmitter (the politician) and the receivers (the mass of people) is given by two parameters: the quality and the quantity, therefore the political communication is better when the two repertoires join together and when the transmitters and the receivers speak the same language. (Clin Rus, 2005:101-113)

1.4.3. The Stages of Political Communication

The main purpose of each political actor is to have success and to obtain as many votes as possible. In order to accomplish all his purposes, he must take care of his image, of his actions, of the political, economical, social and cultural context and last but not least he should be a good organizer of his political program. All these elements should be well organized and the image of the politician should pass through some stages so that he would gain more and more sympathizers. The first stage of the process of political communication refers to the establishment of the target public to which addresses the politician and to the analysis of the main characteristics of it. In this stage will be identified the individuals with a higher degree of receptivity regarding the political programs. To continue with, it is supposed that it is impossible that an entire society agrees in totality or disagrees with the ideologies of one political party. In general, the target public of a politician will be chosen so that the persons who agree with his political ideology should have the same opinions, related problems and desires and should agree with the ideology promoted by the party. As it was mentioned before, the people form groups taking into account certain interests, but they also follow some characteristics such as the age, the sex, the social position, the professional statute. The electoral campaigns of the politicians and their discourses are based on the characteristics and on the expectations of the target public having the purpose of making their programs to be accepted easier. The next stage refers to the creation of the image of the political actor, an image which should be promoted and implemented in the mind of the electorate. Even though the image of a politician should reflect the desire of the mass, it is difficult for a political PR to create a popular and perfect image for the mind of the electorate. The image of a politician who wants to become popular among the citizens of a society should be clear, should not contain contradictions, it should be easily recognized and should contain original elements of the physical and psychological profile of the candidate so that he should have an advantage towards his opponents. It should be also emphasized the fact that, presently, in many of the cases, the image of the politicians is more important than the 28

political ideology they promote. Moreover, his entire profile should emphasize his major qualities such as the power of work, the correctness, the perseverance, his professional achievements and last but not least his aptitude in combining the conservatism (appreciated more by the older people) with the modernism of the developed societies (which is more appreciated by the youngsters). Another quality of a politician and which is the most important in the eyes of any member of the society is the honesty as no matter how many qualities has a politician, once he does some mistakes and is seen as a corrupt person, his image will have to suffer for long periods of time. This situation appears especially in the societies in transition because of the lack of an economy and a well-shaped system of values, where the standard of living is lower and the citizens are obliged to make sacrifices. Usually, all this happens in a society where the people believe that the welfare of the politician comes from the higher taxes they must pay. To all these qualities, the politicians must add the fact that he has good relations with his family as it represents a symbol for the society. Therefore, he should participate together with his family at certain cultural or scientific manifestations where he can be seen by a lot of people. A good example in this sense is the new president of the United States of America, Barack Obama. He was often seen together with his family at certain events and lately the new dog he bought for the family became very famous, concerning the fact that since then the sales of this breed (Portuguese water dog) increased a lot. The politician should also have the ability of listening the wishes of the people as this quality will make him popular and it is emphasized especially in the electoral campaigns when during certain manifestations, the politician must speak openly with the mass of people. Moreover, they must have the patience of listening the wishes of the people, must shake hands with them, regardless of their social position and what is more important is the fact that they should respect the promises they make. The political actor should also have a close and opened relation with the mass-media. He has to promote and to sustain the climate of friendship and a total transparency with the press. In this respect, the press conferences are the most indicated and the politician should often realize them as this way, he will leave the impression of a person who has nothing to hide. During a press conference, the political actor must avoid as much as possible the mistakes as his image should reflect him as a serious and self-assured person with clear political ideologies. Nevertheless, the citizens must understand the fact that the politician is not a singular entity and that he can not solve all their problems on his own. For this reason, his profile should present him as a person integrated in a team, appreciated by his colleagues, capable to respect them and he should also demonstrate the fact that he benefits from the support of his political party.

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In an electoral campaign, especially in the countries which confront with an economic deficiency, the political actor can create a positive image by his preoccupation for the middle class and by taking measures for helping the elder people, the persons with disabilities and the orphans. The impact is bigger if these actions are followed by emotional discourses which address to these categories of people, and it represents a great opportunity for impressing the electorate. It is one of his attributions to respect the history, the traditions and the national culture. This profile realizes if he participates to commemorations or to different events which have a historic and religious character. Nevertheless, his simple presence is not enough as his duty is to sustain a discourse with reference to the values of the nation which should also amplify his patriotism. This attitude will leave the people under the impression that their leader is a good patriot, an intelligent person with appreciates the values and who loves his country. Related to this subject, it is important for the politician to demonstrate the fact that he is a good Christian. It is well-known that the religious institution maintains the balance between different societies and that it has a great power of influencing the people. A politicians faith must be authentic and must leave the impression that is something usual because contrary he will receive a negative feed-back. These were the most important elements regarding the image of the political actor. It is better to know that if the exterior elements (a pleasant appearance, the clothes) are combined with the interior elements (the values of the politician), then the result will be a positive image of the politician which must be promoted to the mass of people. The third stage of the process of political communication refers to the promotion of the politician and of his electoral program which must resonate with the peoples wishes. There are two possibilities through which the politician is promoted to the citizens: through actions which have a big impact and through a presentation of the politician in several stages on a longer period of time. The first possibility refers to the methods which have a big impact such as the assault of the citizens with a lot of information which is meant to be implemented in their mind with the help of the mass-media. By combining the informational quantity with the quality of the image will result a positive profile of the politician which will be presented to the electorate. At a certain point, the politicians make an error by stopping this process of giving a lot of information and all the positive effects of the campaign disappear in the following period. It is better to know that the assault with information must persist but in smaller quantities. The second possibility regards the presentation of the politician in several stages on a longer period of time and usually, the politicians who resort to this method want to occupy higher positions. Throughout this method, the image of the politician succeeds to fix into the mind of the 30

people and finally if he manages to create a positive image in their minds, then the politician will benefit from the sympathy of the electorate. The forth stage of the political communication takes into consideration the techniques used by the politicians to differentiate from their opponents. They are interested if their popularity increases in the inquiries and the actions they realize in the electoral campaigns contribute to this. The most important activities are: the meetings with the people from different social classes, constant apparitions at the TV, at the radio, in the written press, they visit the workers from the most important industrial areas, participate to different religious ceremonials and events with a historic character, participate to the shows of important artists and participate to the electoral meetings. All these actions have the role of attracting the attention of the public opinion over the politicians, over their qualities and also have the role of exciting the public opinion by appealing to their emotional part especially when they show interest for the problems of the people and when they help them. These activities increase the degree of sensitiveness of the electorate and will result a closer relation between the people and the politicians. On the whole, it can be said that the presentation of a politician in stages has many advantages and a system of rules, which, if respected and applied bring a positive reaction from behalf of the electorate over the candidates and over the political parties they represent. (Clin Rus, 2005: 114-127)

1.4.4. The Purpose and the Role of the Political Parties

The main purpose of political communication is to realize a connection between the politicians and the citizens. Therefore, the politicians use the political communication for presenting their political programs which contain solutions for the different problems of the society, trying through this method to attract to their party a large number of people. The content of the messages having a political character, will try to persuade the mass of people that the ideas and the solutions they offer are truthful and practicable. The political communication divides in two major parts according to the ideology and the image: the political communication which uses the dialog as a method and the political communication which uses the marketing as a method. The method which uses the dialog, sustains the ideology of the politician who analyzes the social and economical problems and proposes a set of values and ideas, trying in this way to find solutions for these problems. For this method of communication, the politician uses the informational, the symbolical and the operational functions of the ideological language. The first 31

function gives the messages an informational character which is doubled by an ideologicalparticipative language which has the function of explaining to the people the ideas which contain rough information and it also gives the messages the power of persuasion. Furthermore, for a greater clarity of the messages, it is used the operational language, which has the role of converting the abstract elements from a message into political actions perceived by the public. The method of the marketing has as a purpose the attraction of the electorate by using the power of the persuasion and it is used especially during the electoral campaigns. This method centers on the image of the political actor. The language which is used does not insist on the presentation of the political offer, amplifies the image of the politicians and in the same time brings disadvantages to their opponents. The image of a politician can be described as the result of a long process and can be defined as being the product of the electoral publicity. Through this image it is intended to attract publics attention and interest and finally to convince and attract the citizens to vote a certain candidate. In this method, it is used more the emotional part of the ideological language appealing to the sensitivity of the public and it manages to attract its attention on the politician by using the phenomenon of personalizing the politics. Finally, it can be said that using the method of the marketing, it is not intended to emphasize the elements from the political program, but to form an opinion regarding the positive image of the candidate and to promote a negative image of the opponents. (Clin Rus, 2005: 130-134)

1.5. Themes of Political Publicity

Political publicity refers to the action of calling the electorate to vote a candidate or to sustain a political party. Therefore, the politicians resort to different methods for convincing the citizens that they deserve their vote. There are three methods (the publicity of action, the representation, the persuasion and seduction) which are often used in the electoral campaigns and for this reason can be considered the most important themes of the political publicity. The publicity of action represents all the activities of a political party which have as a purpose the calling of the electorate to vote, and using the electoral publicity it convinces them to adhere to a certain association or party or to their purposes and ideologies. It must be noted the fact that the political publicity is conceived as an impulse to action of the people and shows using the public space the representations of the political and social practices. The representation is another way of making political publicity and emphasizes the connection between the political parties, the politicians and the citizens. Its final purpose is to show 32

in a public space the ideologies and the ideas of one political party. In this case, it can be spoken of a publicity of ideas rather than a publicity of the political actors; therefore it does not represent a personalized publicity of a politician, but it refers to the presentation of the ideas and of the commitments. The persuasion and the seduction are the two rhetorical effects of the publicity which are more and more emphasized by the politics. On the one hand, the traditional political communication is based on the rhetoric of the persuasion and presents arguments which should be assumed by the electorate who shows in this way its attachment to the political discourse. On the other hand, it should be emphasized the fact that the publicity resorts more and more to the technique of the seduction, which, in contrast with the persuasion, takes into account the person to whom it addresses. The large number of the methods through which the image of a politician may be promoted made that the possibilities of the seduction enlarge in the sense that the discourses of the politicians have no real political consistency. For instance, this could be the case of a politician who in his electoral discourse presents abstract concepts such as liberty, responsibility, dignity, authority without explaining their involvement in precise political situations. (Clin Sinescu, 2007:138-139)

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CHAPTER II MEDIA The Scene of the Politicians - Methods of Political Marketing -

2.1. The Power of Television and Radio

It would be an interesting investigation, trying to find out which is the element that decides who will win in an electoral campaign: the candidates or the media? Presently, the messages from politicians make the electorate to trust more the information received throughout the press than the political parties. Nevertheless, the TV presenters and the press in general are not impartial regarding the politics. They are partisans of certain parties and if a politician is not liked by the TV presenters he has minimal chances to win. Therefore, it is in the interest of the politicians to have friends among the TV presenters who register the highest ratings as nowadays the battle is not given in front of the electorate but in front of the cameras. There is a dependence on the media, as the politicians must communicate directly with the electorate in order to obtain votes by answering to the questions of the public as they know that if the electorate does not receive much information concerning their activity and their purposes, it will lose its interest. They conceive the electoral campaigns in order to attract televisions interest, in other words, the politicians are guided by the needs of the press: the slogans must be catchy and the promises they make should catch the voters eye. The political interests and the mass-media are strongly connected, and in this context the chain is represented by the money. For instance, the politicians from Romania spent enormous quantities of money in their electoral campaign, especially for the spots from the national televisions and also for their apparitions in the political shows. In order to participate in this type of shows a candidate must pay between 10000 and 20000 euro, and 100.000 euro for a spot of 30 seconds broadcasted in prime time. To make a short comparison with America, I would add the fact that the costs for a political spot rise up to 350000 dollars. Through the medium of television, the candidate gets closer to the electorate, and if he/she appears constantly at the TV has more chances to win as the impact upon the viewers is bigger. Nowadays, the politicians must have not only intellectual qualities but also a pleasant appearance. Even though this may be an awkward situation, we tend to 34

choose our leaders taking into account the way they look as we are influenced by the concept of beauty which is promoted excessively. And now follows the question: Do we choose our leaders according to their values and attitudes concerning the problems from the society or according to their charisma? To continue with, it is important for them to know how to take advantage of the technical part of the television: the cameras, the lights, the prompter. Even though this is not a determinant element to be taken into consideration when choosing our leaders, it might be helpful for them regarding their political success. To illustrate this point of view, I would give the example of the presidents Carter and Ronald Reagan. The last was an actor, therefore, the cameras did not intimidate him, he knew how to read a script, while it was obvious that Carter was feeling uncomfortable in front of the TV and this was bad for his image. The radio represents another method of making publicity and its advantage is represented by the fact that it is cheaper. Moreover, the radio is preferred to the television, especially when the local elections take place. In addition, the message has a precise impact on a varied audience as the majority of the radios are specialized on a certain theme: classic, rock, informative etc. Nevertheless, the radio commercials must be catchy and have many sound effects in order to attract the attention as they do not have the image as a support. (Joe McGinnies, 1968)

2.2. The Written Press and Street Publicity

One advantage of the written press in comparison with the other means of communication is the fact that is allows to a candidate to give more information and gives the electorate the possibility to read again the materials when he/she wishes not only when is broadcasted the TV program. The variety of newspapers and magazines articles attracts a miscellaneous category of people: those interested in sports, in economy, in entertainment, therefore the politicians should adapt their messages according to the particular section they want to appear. For example, if they want to be promoted in an economic newspaper, then the message should render information concerning politicians plans about new changes in the countrys economy. Regarding the street publicity, it can be said that her main purpose is to remind and not to persuade. Consequently, the banners do not contain too much information, their main characteristic being the simplicity. For instance, if a poster contains too much information, the persons from buses, cars etc., do not manage to read everything and this is the reason for which the accent is put on the image and also on simple and catchy words. To all this there can be added the balloons, the pens, the brochures, the trinkets which can play an important part in an electoral campaign. In other words, we should not underestimate this simple form of 35

advertising as they have the power to create a chain reaction as a person who sees the name of a candidate may start to put questions concerning a certain campaign or a certain politician and his plans may attract viewers attention. (Joe McGinnies, 1968)

2.3. The Internet

If in the 1990 the Internet was practically unknown for the majority of the public, after this period the number of the users increased rapidly in the industrialized countries. Despite the difficulties connected with the access to this new form of media, it can be said that a large number of people began to use the Internet and the number of those who do not have access to it reduce more and more. Analyzing some statistics from 1993 up to 2000, it can be observed the fact that the number of the users of the Internet grew from 90.000 to 304 millions, and in July 2000 were 137 millions of users in the USA, 83 millions in Europe and a total of 72 millions of guests all over the world. Around the same year, Pipa Norris (on Internet World) mentioned the fact that there were almost 1228 web sites which were detained by political parties; in Europe the number of the on line political parties grew up to 7075 meanwhile the number of the newspapers decreased reaching the number of 481. It should also be emphasized the fact that the power of the digital revolution can be shown by comparing it with the evolution of the other means of communication: in order to reach the number of 50 millions users, the radio developed in 38 years, the television in13 years, the PC in 16 years and the Internet in 4 years. Making an analysis of the year 2007 we draw up the astonishing conclusion that in the entire world there are 1 milliard and 114 millions of users (in Europe there are 315 millions of users, in USA 233 millions and in Asia 399 millions). In the following table there are presented relevant numbers and the rhythm in which the number of users increased in each region.

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Figure 2. World Internet Usage and Population Statistics Source: www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm World Internet Usage and Population Statistics Population Internet Internet Users Penetration Users Users (2008 Est.) Users Dec. Latest Data (% Growth % of 31,2000 Population) 2000-2008 Table 4,514,400 54,171,500 5.6 % 1,100.0 % 3.4 % 975,330,899 3,780,819,792 803,903,540 196,767,614 337,572,949
114,304,000 105,096,093 3,284,800 108,096,800 18,068,919 7,620,480 360,985,492 657,170,816 393,373,398 45,861,346 251,290,489 173,619,140 20,783,419 20,783,419 17.4 % 48.9 % 23.3 % 74.4 % 29.9 % 60.4 % 23.8 % 474.9 % 274.3 % 1,296.2 % 132.5 % 860.9 % 172.7 % 342.2 % 41.2 % 24.6 % 2.9 % 15.7 % 10.9 % 1.3 % 100.0 %

World Regions Africa Asia Europe Middle East North America

Latin America/ 581,249,892 Carribean 34,384,384 Oceania/Australia WORLD TOTAL

6,710,029,070

NOTES: (1) Internet Usage and World Population Statistics are for March 31, 2009. (2) CLICK on each world region name for detailed regional usage information. (3) Demographic (Population) numbers are based on data from the US CENSUS BUREAU. (4) Internet usage information comes from data published by Nielsen Online, by the International Telecommunications Union, by GfK, local Regulators and other reliable sources. (5) For definitions, disclaimer, and navigation help, please refer to the Site Surfing Guide. (6) Information in this site may be cited, giving the due credit to www.internetworldstats.com. Copyright 2001 - 2009, Miniwatts Marketing Group. All rights reserved worldwide.

Figure 3. World Internet Users by World Regions

World Internet Users by World Regions

1% 2% 3% 11% 42% 16% 25% Asia Europe North America Latin America Africa Middle East Oceania/Australia

Copyright 2009, Miniwatts Marketing Group

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In this context, the Internet became the new media for the political communication and its main advantage was the fact that it permitted to the political parties to control the messages and to send them directly to the electorate, without being necessary to submit it to the journalistic filter. To continue with, this new means of communication offers to the smaller parties the possibility of promoting their ideologies and permits an active communication between the parties and the citizens. Regarding the rhetorical view over the Internet, it is taken into consideration what is communicated and the way in which the Internet communicates. Therefore, the content of the site becomes the unity of analyze: it is analyzed the style, the shape, the image, the significant, the language, the themes. The Internet stimulates the political debates, and makes possible the organization of discussions on the forum or on the blogs. For this reason, the Internet can be considered a potential source of opening new possibilities of affirmation for the new organizations which are not represented in the political systems and which can bring into light aspects which were not broached by the press or by other political parties. The forum represents another way of organizing interesting debates. It is no exaggerated to say that it is a place of the liberty and of the authenticity, where each individual has the possibility of expressing in a free way, without taking into consideration the restrictions imposed by the institutional life or by the social image. Moreover, the Internet passes beyond the geographical, social, cultural or religious frontiers and connects individuals from different social classes, who, in other conditions would not have the possibility to communicate. In this context, the Internet becomes the place where new ideas appear and where the ideas expressed by some persons are understood by others. Other advantage of the political debates from the Internet could also be the participation at the dialogues from the forums which generates social connections, it can be considered a pedagogical indicator and the rules are made by all the participants and the proof is the good manner codes established by the users. The major function of the Internet in the political context is the fact that it generates a closer relation between the politicians and the citizens, regarding the aspect of a greater political transparency. This transparency represents in the same time the condition, the means and the purpose of the democracy. Concerning this part of the close relation which establishes between the politicians and the electorate, the Internet represents an element through which the political actors have the possibility of knowing citizens points of view and their wishes. (Clin Sinescu, 2007: 233242)

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The new media, as it is perceived the Internet is a means of communication more attractive especially for the youngsters who become more and more addicted to it. Another point is that it has the power to change attitudes and to influence the IQ level of the persons who use it and it is also preferred by the majority of the people to the traditional means of communication. Subsequently, the politicians observed this evolution and realized that they can use this social reality for their electoral campaigns. It is believed that the new media has the capacity to give an impulse to certain social categories, especially to the youngsters. Nevertheless, this enthusiasm of trying to change the attitude of the young people has its limits as it is very hard to transform the youngsters from couch potatoes in active voters! (Dorina Guu Tudor New Media). In the USA, the statistics ascertain the fact that the citizens give importance to the new media when speaking about politics and politicians. The number of the Americans who used the Internet in order to pick up political information grew significantly (24% in 2008 in comparison with 13% in 2004). Furthermore, the statistics made by Pew Internet Research Project show the fact that 42% from the youngsters between the ages of 18-29 use the Internet to get new information concerning the electoral campaign and this emphasizes the fact that a powerful weapon arises in the hands of the politicians. In the Asiatic countries the situation is even more spectacular. In China there are 137 millions of users of the Internet in contrast with America where the number exceeds 200 millions. However, in Romania the situation is different as the politicians used the blog only for short periods of time in order to communicate with the electorate. The term blog is new for the Romanian public and designates a biographical web log: a type of diary on a Website that is changed regularly, to give the latest news. The page usually contains someones personal opinions, comments, and experiences, and provides links to other places on the Internet. In my opinion, the blog is important and may be helpful for a better and direct communication between the politicians and a large number of people. What is more, the Romanian electorate needs to find out more about its leaders, it is a necessity to benefit of the possibility to ask questions directly. Presently, the blog of Adrian Nstase (http://nastase.wordpress.com) is the most visited political blog from our country and it could represent a start in the domain of communication between the politicians and the electorate. (Dorina Guu-Tudor, 2008: 9- 30, 188-190)

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2.4. The Depoliticization

In the last two decades, in the political area was developed a new form of publicity, handled by the advertising agencies, by the specialists in mass-media and has as a principal tool the Internet. Therefore, this new media discovered a new path: the politics. Taking this into consideration, it can be said that appeared a new commercial manifestation: the political marketing which centers on the simplicity, honesty and intimacy. In this way, it is created a salable image of the political leader in order to convince the electorate to vote him, appealing more and more to the emotional part. Moreover, the political scene tries to detach from the emphatic and an example in this particular sense is the fact that the leader is presented in the electoral campaigns near his family or sometimes shaking hands with poor people, pensioners or with his partisans. The political function of the press consists in informing the public about the actions or the inactions of the political parties and of the govern. Usually, in Romania, an electoral campaign begins with a year before the elections, and regarding this aspect, there are being organized shows where the candidates are invited, political posters and banners are made and their messages appeal to joy and friendship. Regarding the slogans, it can be said that they use more and more an emotional, tender tone: If you vote PSD + PC, you vote for you! Votezi PSD + PC, votezi pentru tine, Together for a better life! mpreun, pentru o via mai bun! (PRM) or "A man to bring us peace! Un om pentru linitea noastr! (the slogan used by Ion Iliescu in his electoral campaign). This strategy of marketing is very criticised as it corrupts the democracy, hiding the internal problems by substituting the political programs with the charisma of the political leaders. Trying to attract a large number of people, their discourses are balanced, simple and have a tendency to become neutral. Refering to the political communication as a type of publicity, the french sociologist Gilles Lipovetsky says that: The seduction, contributes to the maintenance of the democratical institutions. It can not be said that the entertainment replaces the information as long as it is very difficult to delimit the entertainment and the information. On the other hand, it seems that the show politics prolongs the process of desacralization which started at the end of the 17 th century. To draw a conclusion from this quote, I would say that the political publicity is ubiquitous on the contemporary political scene which was named by Jean Baudrillard the consumer society, who wrote that Our society thinks itself and speaks itself as a consumer, and which has as values: the pleasure, simplicity, humor and hedonism.

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The world deals with a depoliticization of the politics which loses its essence and becomes more and more dependent on the press. Following this path, the politicians tend to become salable products. For instance, they appear in newspapers, banners, posters, calendars, at the TV, at the radio, on the internet, in other words we are practically invaded by this mass mediatization and the individual feels that can not hold the control anymore over his own life. What is more important, is the fact that, as Giovanni Sartori emphasized, in his book Homo videns: La sociedad teledirigida, the electronic media makes us migrate from homo sapiens to homo videns. Although it is hard to believe that presently this happens with our society, we accept to be manipulated and to become addicted to the TV and in our mind the concepts are replaced by the image. Moreover, we dress as the TV says, we eat what we hear at the TV that is good for our health and we even educate our children as we see at the TV. The journalists search for the sensational, the politicians try to take advantage of the sensational and we enjoy it. Analyzing the facts presented by the media we conceive ideas and after that, we say our opinions about what is good or what is wrong, about what he/she should do and, in this way, we enter in a vicious circle believing that we have the power to change the world. Nevertheless, the reality is another: our power is nothing but pure illusion, we are those who are manipulated, we have absolutely no power, being just the spectators of a play, which has in the starring role the politicians. It is essential to go beyond this manipulation and start thinking! And as Mario Pereyra said we should try to: return to books, to cultivate the habit of reading, to develop critical thinking, to become not mere refractors of the screen content but thinkers with minds of our own. To all these, we must add another supreme imperative: a return to the Word, to the Holy Scriptures, which not only favors thinking, but establishes ethical principles and transcendental values that are essential to life here and to life in the hereafter. (Mario Pereyra, online article)

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CHAPTER III Approaches to Semiotics (Saussure and Pierce)

Generally speaking, semiotic refers to the science that studies the meaning of the signs. Nevertheless, it represents a field intensively approached by philosophers, therefore it is difficult to give a general definition to the term. The two most important writers of semiotic are Fernand de Saussure and Charles Sanders Pierce who are considered the fathers of semiotic. Their approaches were different to some extent. For a better understanding of this concept, I would use as a starting point the book A theory of semiotics written by Umberto Eco. He also considers necessarily citing the two scholars who have different perceptions regarding the term semiotic. Consequently, the definition given by Saussure to the semiotic is:

Language is a system of signs that express ideas, and is therefore comparable to a system of writing, the alphabet of deaf-mutes, symbolic rites, polite formulas, military signals, etc. But it is the most important of these systems. A science that studies the life of signs within society is conceivable; it would be part of social psychology and consequently of general psychology; I shall call it semiology (from the Greek semeion, 'sign'). Semiology would show what constitutes signs, what laws govern them. Since the science does not yet exist, no one can say what it would be; but it has a right to existence, a place staked out in advance. Linguistics is only a part of the general science of semiology; the laws discovered by semiology will be applicable to linguistics, and the latter will circumscribe a well-defined area within the mass of anthropological facts.

From this definition it can be noticed the fact that Fernand de Saussure gives major importance to the language which is in a dynamic relation with the speech. Language is the total sum of all available speech instances. The relationship between "language" and "speech" is similar to that between "code" and "message", used by later semioticians. We put together and send messages by referring to a code, an existing system of relationships. Most semioticians agree that no messages are possible without the existence of a code (although its actual structure may be difficult to demonstrate). (Visual Communication and Semiotics, online article hj) Furthermore, Saussures theory concerning the signification is a dyadic or two-part model of the sign. He defined a sign as being composed of: the signified (the idea being represented) and the signifier (the word doing the representing). Therefore, the sign refers to what results from the association of the signifier with the signified. The relationship between those two 42

concepts is referred to as a signification and it is known that Saussure refers to the signified as to as an idea. (Umberto Eco, 1976) Another view over the semiotic can be found in a more complete definition given by Charles Sanders Pierce:

Semiotic is the doctrine of the essential nature and fundamental varieties of possible semiosis. By semiosis I mean an action, an influence, which is, or involves a cooperation of three subjects, such as a sign, its object and its interpretant, this tri-relative influence not being in anyway resolvable into actions between pairs [] A sign is something which stands to somebody for something in some respects or capacity.

The philosopher distinguishes the sign from word and sustains that it is a mechanism for understanding. As compared to Saussures self-content dyad, Pierce offered a triad: the representamen (the form which the sign takes), an interpretant (not an interpreter but rather the sense made of the sign) and an object (to which the signs refer). In his view, there are three modes of signification:

Symbol / symbolic: the way in which the signifier does not resemble the signified but which is arbitrary or purely conventional so that the relationship must be learnt (e.g. a red traffic light, the word stop, a number, a national flag).

Icon / iconic: a mode in which the signifier physically or perceptually resembles or imitates the signified (recognizably looking, sounding, feeling, tasting or smelling like it) being similar in possessing some of its qualities (e.g. a portrait, a diagram, a scalemodel, onomatopoeia, metaphors, sound effects, imitative gestures).

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Index / indexical: a mode in which the signifier is not purely arbitrary but is directly connected in some way (physically or causally) to the signified (e.g. smoke, thermometer, footprint, fingerprint, pain, pulse rate, clock, spirit-level). In semiotics, the terms denotation and connotation describe the relation which establishes between the signifier and its signified, and an analytic distinction is made between two types of signified: a denotative signified and a connotative signified. Meaning includes both denotation and connotation. The signs denotation refers to the common sense meaning of it and is said to come from social convention. A sign may have more than one denotation meaning and the choice for a certain meaning regards the context in which it is found. Nonetheless, the signs may have different subjective meanings that come from individuals personal experience. This could be a definition for the connotation of the sign. ( James Hurfold, online article) It should be highlighted the fact that signs are generated by myths and serve to maintain them. Generally, myths refer to beliefs, which in practice prove to be false, can be seen as extended metaphors and they help us to understand our experiences within a culture. Their major function is to make the historical and cultural values seem natural, normal, objective, being as a representation of the way things are. The term myth refers to unconscious meaning that a society makes from a semiotic process. Theorists make a distinction between the three categories of signification and in this sense it can be said that the denotative order of signification is seen as a primarily representational and relatively self-contained. The connotative level of signification reflects expressive values which are attached to a sign. In the third category (mythological) of signification the signs mirror the cultural concepts and assign them a particular view, for instance freedom, individualism, objectivism, femininity, masculinity etc. A perception is considered to be a representation of a sign, for this reason some theorists argue that there are involved codes in our perception over the world. Perception depends on coding the world into iconic signs that can re-present it within our mind. The Gestalt psychology outlined the universal principles of perceptual organization. The most important are the following: proximity, similarity, good continuation, closure, smallness, surroundness and symmetry.

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Hence, the law of proximity refers to certain features which are close together and which are associated; the law of similarity regards those features which look similar; the law of continuity is connected with the contours based on smooth continuity which are preferred to abrupt changes of direction; the law of closure refers to those interpretations which produce closed rather than open figures; the principle of smallness regards those small areas which tend to be seen as figures against a larger background; the symmetry emphasizes the symmetrical areas that tend to be seen as figures against asymmetrical backgrounds and the surroundness which refers to those areas which can be seen as surrounded by others, which tend to be perceived as figures. Codes are not simply conventions of communication but rather procedural systems of related conventions, which operate in certain domains. Those which are the most known in the context of media can be classified in three categories: Social codes verbal codes (phonological, syntactical, lexical, prosodic and paralinguistic subcodes - Bodily codes (bodily contact, proximity, physical orientation, facial expression, gestures and posture - commodity codes (fashion, clothing, cars) - behavioral codes (protocols, rituals) Textual codes - (scientific codes, aesthetic codes in poetry, painting, music etc.), Genre, rhetorical, stylistic codes, mass media codes including Photography, television, radio, newspaper and magazine codes Interpretative codes perceptual codes of visual expression, ideological codes such Individualism, capitalism, feminism, liberalism, racism, Socialism, consumerism The art of communicating by using symbols implies a process through which the signs pass through a system image from the designers conceptual model to the users mental model. This process happens unconsciously in our mind and when trying to decode an image, two persons might look to the same object, but they can see different things as each persons values and knowledge modify the information received distorting the reality and giving it a personal representation. To outline this process I would include an illustration which emphasizes the parts of our mind which contribute to decoding the signs we receive. (Daniel Chandler, online article)

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CHAPTER IV Case Study: Electoral Views in Romania and in the USA

4.1. Brief Survey of the Two Political Regimes

In order to make a comparison between the two countries, there are certain aspects that should be drawn, as the differences regarding the two political systems are very significant. From my point of view, there are also a lot of distinctions concerning the quality of the debates and of discourses, the clarity of the messages sent to the electorate and also their coherence. These are the main reasons for which I consider that an investigation in the each states history is necessary, with an emphasis over the fact that in the United States democracy has been lasting for 200 years whereas Romania has undergone many regimes after 1918 and has been a democratic country since the revolution from 1989 (20 years of democracy).

4.1.1. Romania
Looking back in time at Romanias history, it can be noticed that our country confronted with many invaders who wanted to conquer our territories and to benefit from the richness of the natural resources. Therefore, the Romanian people always fought fiercely to defend our land and never intended to take control over other countries. After years of wars and revolutions, Romania strengthened its position on 1st December 1918 when it became a national unitary state as Transilvania united with Romania at Alba Iulia. Romania participated in both the First World War and the Second World War and in 1944, after signing the armistice treaty with URSS, Romania entered under its influence. Furthermore, in December 1947, King Mihai abdicated and it was proclaimed the Romanian Popular Republic which had as a principle the fact that the power of the state is in the hands of its citizens. The Constitution of 1952 implemented another institutional reform through which it was implemented the Stalinist regime and which imposed a single party: The Romanian Communist Party (Partidul Romn Comunist - PCR). The leaders of the communist party were Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (1955-1965) and Nicolae Ceauescu (1965-1989). (Brdan, Alexandra, 2001:57-58) In this perspective, Nicolae Ceauescu was the most important figure and its regime was based on the union between the party and state (He was not only a state secretary of the Romanian 46

Communist Party, but also the President of the Republic ). Nicolae Ceauescu imposed a drastic regime trying to industrialize the country in a short time with no regard for the real needs of the people. This regime was followed by more periods of transition until the implementation of a democratic constitutional structure. After the communist regime ended, The National Salvation Front (Frontul Salvrii Naionale - FSN) took the control becoming the supreme organ of the state. Secondly, in 1989 was established the new name of the country would be Romania and that the system of government would be the Republic. In 1992, there were many candidates for the presidency of Romania, but the favorites were Ion Iliescu (the National Salvation Front) and Emil Constantinescu (Romanian Democratic Convention Convenia Democrat Romn - CDR). Ion Iliescu won the elections and after this period appeared many political parties such as the Social Democratic Party from Romania (PDSR), Greater Romania Party (PRM), Socialist Labour Party (PSM), Romanian National Unity Party (PUNR) and the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania. In 2004, the elections were won by Traian Bsescu, a president who knew how to become popular among the citizens. (Florin Abraham, 2006:43-72) Furthermore, in Romania the political parties form alliances before and after the elections and this had become a common thing. In my opinion, this is a political strategy as the interest of a party which lost the elections is to make an alliance with the wining party in order to form the majority in the Parliament. For instance, after the elections from 2004 the Liberal Democratic Party allied with the National Liberal Party having as a purpose to be more powerful in the Govern. Nevertheless, as the Liberal Democratic Party retired from governing, the National Liberal Party remained in minority, but they were supported by another powerful party from Romania, the Social Democratic Party which has the majority in the Parliament. My prediction would be that, in the context of a country where the politicians and the parties concentrate on the conflicts rather than on the problems of the society, after the presidential elections from 2009, the Social Democratic Party would retire from the alliance as the programs of the two parties do not correspond. Therefore, among the politicians from the parties appear divergences and this seriously affects their methods of governing. Taking into consideration the years when Romania had a communist leader, I would say that, presently, our country is not entire democratic as the influences of the communist regime are still existent. This is the major reason of distinction between Romania and the United States and the difference is not felt only in the system, but also in the way of thinking of the citizens. For this reason, I would say that the Romanian electorate is diverse regarding the age and also the political options because of the continuous changes of the political regimes from the country and I would 47

divide it into three categories. The first category includes the citizens who lived during the regime of the inter-war period, during the communist regime and who also know what the present democracy entails. The second category includes those citizens who were born and educated in the communist regime and who have been living in a democratic regime since 1990, a regime which is not consolidated and where there are many economical, political and social conflicts. These citizens keep living with the melancholy of the communist regime. The third category includes those persons who were born after 1989, who have the right to vote and who live in a democratic regime without having any knowledge of the communist regime.

4.1.2. The United States

In the USA, the history, the system and the citizens way of perceiving the world are totally different from Romania. Firstly, the United States of America has been a democratic country since September 17, 1787 the date when the Constitution was ratified. Therefore, for the American people the concept of democracy is far more advanced than for the Romanian people. The Constitution represents the most important legal document in the United States and it must be looked at from the point of view of its impact on the evolution of the past and present human rights movement. (Silvia Irimiea, 2002: 11). The most important participants in the constitution-making process were Alexander Hamilton and James Madison who is considered the father of the American Constitution. Therefore, he subjected the reform of the Constitution to the Virginia Plan, and his ingenuous idea was that the people should delegate authority both to the national government and to the states. This process of making the Constitution encountered several problems and the major one was the fact that appeared two opposite parties: the federalists and the anti-federalists. The first party wanted that a central power to be created whereas the opposite party sustained that if a strong and powerful government was formed, it would fall into the hands of interest-groups who would eventually oppress the people and deprive them of their basic rights. (Silvia Irimiea, 2002: 12). Therefore, the contrary ideas of the two opposite parties gave rise to many compromises and one of the most relevant concessions is that of slavery. It is important to know that it was not condemned, and the slaves were given the right to vote. Another major step in the constitution-making process is represented by the constitutional act, The Bill of Rights (under this name are known the first ten amendments of the Constitution). This document contains amendments to the Constitution intended to restrict the federal power and it was initiated by the federalists when the anti-federalists said that 48

the Constitution did not mention anything concerning the individual right. The Bill of Rights prohibits the Congress to establish an official religion, guarantees to every citizen the right to bear arms, prohibits the federal government from depriving any person of liberty, life or property without due process of law, it requires that the grand jury must indict any capital or infamous crime, guarantees a speedy public trial having an impartial jury, prohibits the cruel punishments and states that the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Furthermore, the USA is a federal state with a federal government which exercises control over the entire nation. The concept of federalism refers to a form of political organization in which the governmental power is divided between a central government and territorial subdivisions in the US, among the federal and state governments. (Nathan R., Hoffman, E., 1996 cited in Irimiea, Silvia, 2002: 25). According to Richard Nathan and Erik Hoffman (1996), the four aims of federalism are: to protect against abuses and arbitrariness by the central government, to enhance participation of citizens in the political process within and between various organs of government, to increase the policymaking and administrative efficiency of government through regional competition, to stimulate innovative socio-economic, scientific, technological, and culturaleducational policies by regional governments. Moreover, in the United States of America there are two powerful parties (the Democratic Party and the Republican Party) which benefit from a very well-organized system. On the one hand, the Republican Party is also called the Grand Old Party (GOP) and sustains a conservative or center-right platform. The republicans sustain the fact that the Constitution should be interpreted strictly according to the original and also emphasize the role of free market for a prosperous economy. On the other hand, the Democratic Party supports a liberal or center-left platform. They sustain a progressive tax structure in order to reduce injustice and to provide more services. In this survey regarding the evolution of the two political systems, I set out to emphasize the fact that regardless of the fact that the both countries have a democratic system, the major differences come from each states history. In my opinion, the fact that in Romania the history of the constitutionalism had to pass through many stages because of the foreign domination and the influence of some powerful countries over the political, social and economical issues, it determined important changes regarding the political regimes, the constitutions and therefore, the electoral laws. In contrast, the US did not confront with wars on its territory and this fact allowed the democratic regime and the society to be in a permanent evolution and economical development. Nevertheless, I have found a resemblance between the two countries regarding the way of perceiving things. Firstly, 49

it is well-known the fact that in America, once with the first colonies also came the Afro-Americans and that slavery was practiced for a long period of time. Even though in 1864 was adopted the law for abolishing the slavery, it took almost 200 for the Americans to forget the racial hate and to accept the Afro-Americans as their compatriots. Secondly, Romania passes through a similar situation concerning the democratic system. It will take some years for the Romanian people to understand the concept of democracy and to behave accordingly, only when there would remain the generations born after 1989 because, as long as, there would be citizens with communist ideas, it would be hard for them to adapt to the democratic system. In both cases the problems regard the humans perception and their mentality. The fact that presently the US has an Afro-American president, Barack Obama, demonstrates that the American people managed to view the black people as their compatriots and not as inferior persons, and I think that this is also illustrated in Obamas inaugural discourse as he did not speak about the racial hate, but he mentioned the fact that the emigrants who came in America worked hardly every day and together put the basis of the United States.

4.2. Political Marketing

4.2.1. Political Life before the Electoral Campaign in 2004 (Traian Bsescu)
The electoral year 2004 confronted with many overturning situations especially because the candidate who won entered in the competition for the presidency with only two months before the elections. The presidential elections from 2004 took place in a different political and constitutional context as those from 2000. The reason for this situation arose from the fact that the Constitution which was revised in 2003 clarified the relation of the president with the prime-minister, meaning that the president does not have the power to revoke the leader of the cabinet. Another important change refers to the fact that the presidents mandate was prolonged on a period of 5 years, and this was a consequence of the fact that, at that time there was a wish to separate the presidential elections from the parliamentary elections. Nevertheless, the most important changes appeared in the distribution of power on the political scene. After the Social Democratic Party from Romania (transformed in the Social Democratic Party Partidul Social Democratic - PSD) won the elections in 2000, it dominated the Romanian political scene until June 2004, when took place the local elections. These elections established a balance of the political scene and its bipolarization between the Social Democratic 50

Party and the alliance D.A. (the National Liberal Party and the Democratic Party). Therefore, it seemed that the electoral competition is given between Adrian Nstase, president of the Social Democratic Party and Theodor Stolojan, president of the National Liberal Party. Adrian Nstase initiated a dynamic campaign helped by the press and, according with the inquiries, he succeded to outrun his contracandidate, Theodor Stolojan. Being phisically exhausted, Theodor Stolojan retired from the competition. It is interesting that, immediately after this change, the president of the Democratic Party, Traian Bsescu, invoked a blackmail of the power against Theodor Stolojan. Therefore, only two months before the presidential elections, takes place a significant change, as the mayor of Bucharest, Traian Bsescu enters in the competition for Cotroceni Palace. It is hard to explain the reason for which, Adrian Nstase, who had with 700.000 votes more than Traian Bsescu, lost the presidential elections. It is possible that his defeat was caused by the theory of Bsescu who argued that the elections were defalcated. (Florin Abraham, 2006: 72-78)

4.2.2. Political Life before the Electoral Campaign in 2008 (Barack Obama)
In the United States, the situation is different with regard to the election of the president, as he is not elected directly by the voters as in Romania. Surprisingly, it is an institution called the Electoral College which makes the decision concerning the elected president. As the US is a federal state, the president visits all the countries in order to obtain as more votes as possible. With reference to the political background before the electoral campaign from 2008 of Barack Obama, it is known that the country started to confront with many political, social and especially economic problems. The fact that the US was involved in many conflicts with countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and Palestine generated enormous expenses and the money were taken from the state budget. All these had as a consequence the economic crisis for which the US is still looking solutions. In one of his speeches Barack Obama declared that those who are guilty of starting this crisis will pay. Invoking this idea, Obama attracted more voters on his side. A final aspect that contributed to the election of Barack Obama as a president is the fact that the democrats had two representatives (Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama) whereas the republicans had one representative (John McCain). When Hillary Clinton saw that loses ground, left the competition for the White House and, as she also was a democrat all her votes went to Barack Obama.

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4.2.3. Building the Image of the Candidate, the Program and Formulating the Messages
4.2.3.1. The Image of Traian Bsescu Regardless of his position, Traian Bsescu was a well-liked politician and the reason may consist in his capacity of making a distinction between his life as a politician and his life as a citizen of Romania. As I mentioned above, he entered in the competition for the presidency only two months before the elections. I consider that the way he built the path through victory was a premeditated strategy which, finally, proved to be successful. It is interesting to see that after one of the candidates, Theodor Stolojan retired from the competition, Traian Bsescu started to accuse Adrian Nstase of blackmail against the DA alliance. Moreover, another step in convincing the citizens to vote him is re presented by the fact that he built his electoral campaign on the idea that he would be a president totally different from his predecessors, an active politician, a player president rather than a spectator. The theme of his electoral campaign was the fight against corruption, the positive dimension was conceived on the motive of welfare and his slogan was S trii bine! (Have a good life!). 4.2.3.1.1. Political Opponents to Presidency The favorite candidate from that year was Adrian Nstase who tried to win the elections through a complex electoral campaign based on: his succeses as prime minister (the adhesion of Romania to NATO, obtaining the right for the Romanian citizens to travel in Schengen space without presenting an official endorsement, building 400 sport halls, the economical raise from the years of his mandate etc.), the alliance with Ion Iliescu under the slogan Together for Romanias future which had as target the attraction of the countryside electorate, the alliance with Mircea Geoan with the intention of attracting the youngers from towns and he also based on his abilities of political leader (president of the Social Democratic Party). The third candidate for the presidency was Corneliu Vadim Tudor who entered in the electoral campaign having certain disadvantages as he was categorized as being an extremist and anti-semitic. Therefore, he made efforts in order to democratize his speeches but the results were inconclusive and for this reason he decided to leave the competition in spite of the request made by

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Adrian Nstase who asked him to remain in the rivalry because the departure of Corneliu Vadim Tudor was in favour for Traian Bsescu. The electoral campaign had specific strategies due to the different conceptions of the two candidates. Consequently, Adrian Nstase based on a positive campaign trying to highlight his achievments as president of theGovern and attempting to counteract the direct disputes with his contracandidate. Traian Bsescu adopted a different strategy, making efforts to give the impression that he is irresistible and he continuosuly tried to provoke his opponent to direct disputes on TV shows. The courage is one of his principal political qualities, nonetheless this brought him displeasures when declaring that he sustains the marriages between the homosexuals and that 20% from Romanias population is homosexual. Another point would be that another difference regarding the campaign strategies of the two candidates consists in the type of the target electorate. On the one hand, Adrian Nstase and the alliance PSD+PUR (the Social Democratic Party and the Romanian Humanist Party) wanted to maintain their sympathizers for convincing them to vote, and for this reason they used calm messages and the themes from Adrian Nstases speeches were those regarding the stability and the continuity. On the other hand the electorate of Traian Bsescu was more heterogeneous and unpredictable, and as a result the urban electorate with high incomes was insufficient to win the elections. Hence, for attracting the electorate of Corneliu Vadim Tudor, Traian Bsescu used a popular language with populist characteristics in some place identical with that of Vadim Tudor (the term people was often used in his speeches and the tone was redeeming: the decapitation of a corrupt minister). Other electoral strategy used by the two opponents and which should be pointed, refers to their international image. Thus, Adrian Nstase wanted to convince the electorate that his personal relations with important political leaders from West (Tony Blair English Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi Italian Prime Minister, Gnther Verheugen European commissary) can be useful for Romania. Traian Bsescu tried to fill his lack of diplomatic experience by attacking his opponent. In this sense, he realized a campaign accusing Adrian Nstase of obtaining the support of those leaders and of the European Union by purchasing their benevolence throughout some contracts. The final results of the poll from 28th November 2004 were: Adrian Nstase 40, 94%, Traian Bsescu 33, 92%, Corneliu Vadim Tudor 12, 57%. The second poll of the presidential elections took place after Traian Bsescu contested the results and required the organization of new elections. Thus, after the poll from 12th December 2004, from a total percentage of 55, 21% were obtained the following results: Traian Bsescu 51, 23% and Adrian Nstase 48, 77%. (Florin Abraham, 2006: 75-78). 53

4.2.3.1.2. Electoral Platform of D.A. Alliance In 2004, the D.A. alliance of the National Democratic Party and the Democratic Party promised a better life for the Romanian citizens, consequently, their electoral platform contained especially educational problems they wanted to solve if Traian Bsescu was elected president. The major problem that was discussed was the depolitizacion of the educational system, according to the European standards: eliminating the political encroachments from the system of promoting the teaching staff. Another promise was connected to the fact that the schools and the high schools will receive autonomy for elaborating educational programs, for hiring new staff and also for using the financial resources in order to differentiate the incomes. Other objectives of the D.A. alliance were: improving the quality of the education in rural areas, bringing the educational system from Romania to the level of that from the European countries, ensuring the equal access to education regardless of social, religious and ethnic affiliation, reducing the number of students from each class to 25 and diversifying the methods of teaching by introducing a more practical system. Furthermore, they based on many programs for supporting the youngsters from Romania by according funds for the construction of new hostels for students, more private scholarships and financial advantages for the younger person who start a business. (official site of D.A. alliance)

4.2.3.1.3. Promoting Strategies Felix Ttaru (general director of Gmp/MAP Romania) said that the electoral campaign of Traian Bsescu extended on five media components: press, TV, outdoor, events and Internet, from which the last proved to be the most efficient component. The online campaign of Traian Bsescu was the most spectacular and impressive campaign ever made in Romania. Surprisingly, 1 of 5 citizens from Bucharest pressed a banner or the pop-under of this online campaign. When entering in the competition for the presidential elections, Traian Bsescu needed a place for developing his messages which could be seen everywhere (on the street, in buses) and which needed support, arguments. Therefore, the Internet proved to be the ideal place for sustaining the image of Bsescu and his electoral campaign, and it was realized the site basescu.ro. One of his slogan was: Singur fac multe, Cu un consiliu fac totul!(I can do much by myself, but with a 54

Counsel I can do Everything!) and the words much and everything represented the base of building the site. Much signifies the accomplishments from 2000-2004 with the Social Democratic Party and Everything refers to his strategy from 2004-2008 with a supporting Counsel.

Figure 4. Online Presidential Campaign Source: http://www.markmedia_ro.htm For realizing this original campaign there were taken into consideration three aspects: the pepper represented the image of the brand, Bsescu was a funny, open-minded and ironic person and for succeeding the site should have been special and original. Consequently, appeared the game Winn with the pepper! which had a simple rule: he player had to transport at least 28 Cancellers to the Town hall. The game also presented the main points of the electoral platform of Traian Bsescu and it had an impact on the mind of the player as it unconsciously suggested to the player that he must go to vote as the election of those cancellers depends also on his choice. Moreover, for increasing the interest, there were offered prizes 1000 t-shirts with electoral messages. The statistics are amazing as over 12000 people played the game and the site registered 500000 visitors and 290000 displays in only one week.

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4.2.3.2. The Image of Barack Obama In the US, the electoral campaign lasts two years whereas in Romania the politicians begin their electoral campaigns only two months before the elections. From my point of view, Traian Bsescus approach over the electoral campaign was a well-organized strategy but, by accusing the other competitor of blackmail he did not act with fair-play. He won the elections, became a popular president among the citizens from Romania, but in time his reputation was compromised by the fact that he was not an apolitical president and his image had to suffer as he was always in conflict with the prime minister Clin Popescu Triceanu instead of persevering in solving the problems that our country confronts with. In contrast, the American president Barack Obama is a well-balanced person and he won the elections on his own and not by appearing in press accusing the other candidates. His electoral campaign did not begin with two years before the elections, but with seven years in advance. It is known that he benefited from a powerful promoting campaign on the Internet, but it is the serial 24 broadcasted by Fox which unconsciously suggested the citizens that an Afro-American could be their president. It was an ingenuous and at the same time an original campaign which paved the road of Barack Obama to the White House. The film registered high ratings and was broadcasted in six seasons (symbolically these represented six days from Americas life) and each season had 24 episodes (each episode presented an hour from the respective day). The first season of the TV series started to be broadcasted on 6th November, 2001 and the action of the film consists in political conspiracies, antiterrorist fights and also it presents the election of the American presidents. One of them is an Afro-American, his name is David Palmer and he wears at the right hand a bracelet which resemblance with the one that Obama has on his hand. The actor which interpreted this role is Dennis Haysbert and in an interview he declared that: From publics point of view, this film opened a path in their minds according to which an Afro-American could be the new president of the United States. I think that we both have a similar opinion about what involves the function of president. Barack is not a choleric person, he has a well-balanced character. I depict my character David Palmer as being very intelligent and as a person who knows how to control his emotions. 4.2.3.2.1. Political Opponents for Presidency Obama had two major political opponents: Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Hillary Clinton was a democrat as Obama and the fact that she quite the competition for presidency represented an advantage for Barack Obama as all her votes went to him. 56

Other powerful opponent was the republican John McCain who had a well-organized political platform based on the principles sustained by the Republican Party. Therefore, his policy included 9 points meant to preserve the freedom, liberty and prosperity of the United States and to fight for defending their principles. The proposed objectives of the republicans are the following: Defending Our Nation, Supporting Our Heroes, Securing the Peace, Reforming Govern to Serve the People, Expanding Opportunity to Promote Prosperity, Energy Independence and Security, Environmental Protection, Health Care Reform: Putting Patients First, Education Means a More Competitive America, Protecting Our Families, Preserving our values. Their program was strictly organized and debates all the problems of the US, emphasizes the preservation of the traditional values, nevertheless this represented a disadvantage in comparison with Barack Obama who based his electoral campaign on the word change. 4.2.3.2.2. Democratic National Platform In my opinion, the political platform of the democrats is more convincing as their objectives regard a promise of a change and for this reason their electoral program Renewing Americas Promise is based on four main points which make reference to something new: Renewing the American Dream, Renewing American Leadership, Renewing the American Community and Renewing American Democracy. The first point Renewing the American Dream emphasizes that the current crisis and the economical transformation affect drastically the United States, and it is stated that a new government is needed to stand up for the values, the interests and the hopes of the working people and to improve the health care system by providing incentives for innovation, investing in biomedical research and stem cell research. The Democrats promise good jobs and better paid, highlighting that Bush Administration failed to protect the American workers; they also sustain that it will be raised the minimum wage and increase the Earned Income Tax so that workers can support themselves and their families. The Party believes that the fight against poverty must be national priority and that they want to offer more opportunities for women, to fight against sexism and intolerance and for convincing the electorate the example of Hillary Rodham Clinton is given, as she was the first woman in Americas history to win presidential primaries. Another promise regards the Educational system which will be noticeably improved. The second objective refers to Renewing American Leadership and the democrats underline the idea of putting an end to the war in Iraq, defeating Al Qaeda, combating terrorism and, 57

if possible seeking a new partnership with Pakistan. All these measure will be taken to strengthen Americas security and to ensure a peaceful life to its citizens. The third point Renewing the American Community encourages people to invest in America as to create opportunities for international service and for experienced and retired persons to work. In this part, the democrats promise to prevent and respond to future natural catastrophes and also to restore the communities affected by floods in 2008. In the last part of the political platform Renewing American Democracy the democrats promise a new democratic system with an ethical government, the restoration of the constitutional traditions and the protection of the Constitutional right of every American to vote. At the end, they promise to seek for partnerships with civic institutions and with other states to which the govern will provide temporary funding. (2008 Republican Electoral Platform, online article). 4.2.3.2.3. Promoting Strategies The path of Obama through the White House represents an innovative electoral campaign with interesting marketing strategies. It should be taken into consideration the fact that the presidential elections from the US took place under the situation of economic crisis and of the wars in which the country was involved. The advantage of Obama was the fact that he was black and coming with the idea of change, it is interesting to see that his image matched, as when looking at him, one could see the change as compared to the other candidates. Moreover, Barack Obama believed in team work, as he made a company to act having the same objectives We are one or Yes we can. His quality of having a well-balanced personality contributed to his election, as during certain TV debates, in spite of the fact that McCain was aggressive and sometimes lost his temper, Obama was self-confident, calm always answered the questions on a balanced tone. Having excellent communication skills, he was also original concerning the fact that his team made a brand from the name Obama beginning with the concept of the symbol O as a rising sun over the United States. It should be also pointed his ability of organizing the electoral campaign, and he recognized this when saying When I started this campaign [] I wasnt sure I was going to be the best of candidates. But what I was absolutely positive of was that there was the possibility of creating the best organization. The way great things happen is when people are willing to submerge their own egos and focus on a common task. Thats my old organizing mind-set. Its not just a shtick. I actually believe in it.

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4.2.3.2.4. Media Campaign Baracks Obama campaign is most know for the use of technology, especially of the Internet through which Obama made his political ideologies and policies known. The target public on the Internet had the age between 18 and 29 years old, and it is important that Obama realized the reason for which younger voters tend to ignore politicians and politics: because politicians tended to ignore the issues which more concerned them, and for this reason Obama received a positive feedback from the youngsters from the US. Using forums and websites such as MySpace, Facebook (with two and a half million fans), Twitter (100.000 fans), YouTube, adverts Xbox Live Games, IPhone application which helped contacting friends to support Obama. Moreover, the Internet donation campaigns using BarackObama.com as a small donation website from many people totaled to hundred of millions of dollars. Regardless of the original idea of suggesting the electorate by broadcasting a TV serial that the new president of the United States could be an Afro-American, Barack Obama was intensively promoted on the Internet. Furthermore, his image became a brand and it is interesting to notice that when typing on Google the word change, the majority of the links displayed were about Obama. For a better understanding of Obamas popularity on the Internet, I would include a scale representing the traffic of Barack Obama.

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Figure 5. The traffic of Barack Obama from United Kingdom in2008 Source: online powerpoint

The logo of Obamas electoral campaign is the most known for the original concept it invokes. It represents a circle with wavy lines suggesting a sun rising over fields in colors of the American flag designed by a team from Senders LLC, and according to Sol Sender We were looking at the o of his name and had the idea of a rising sun and a new day. The slogan of his campaign is Yes We Can and represents Obamas team spirit as he always says that only together with the citizens the success will be guaranteed. The presidential campaign song was composed by Joss Stone as she appeals across racial boundaries and Obamas campaign inspired other artists to create more music than any other candidate in American political history. For instance, Will.i.am from the band Black-Eyed Peas composed the song Yes We Can, Ruwanga Samath and Maxwell D. wrote the song Make it to

60

the Sun, JFC composed Barack Obama and Unite the Nation by the Greek-American hi hop group Misa/Misa. Regarding his TV advertisements, it should be emphasized the fact that Obama started his electoral campaign with a biographical commercial in which he emphasized his patriotism. The advertisements were broadcasted in 18 states and his 30-minute spot American Stories, American Solutions run on NBC, CBS, Fox, MSNBC, TV One, Univision and BET concentrating on many issues including health and taxation. ABC was the only major US network that did not show the advertisement being indecisive. The Obama team bought a channel on Dish Network to screen Obama ads 24/7. 4.2.3.2.5. Negative Publicity Nevertheless, Barack Obama had to confront with a rough negative publicity as he was the target of many campaigns which had the purpose of denigrating his image. Those campaigns were promoted on the Internet and the attacks were connected with the fact that his second name is Hussein or that he is a Muslim (Obama denied all this speculations and declared that he is a Christian). Another attack which put him in a difficult situation made reference to the fact that the Forbes magazine published an article in which speculated the fact that Obama could be the expected warrior who would come to help the Shiite Muslims to conquer the world. Moreover, it was published a photography made when Obama visited his cousin from Kenya and the fact that in that picture he wears a turban made that the suppositions according to which he is a Muslim increase. To sustain this idea, an official site from Iran published a text from 17th century reporting that Imam Ibn-Talib (the cousin of the prophet Mohamed) said that a tall and black person would take the power in West. The new leader would bring signs from the third imam, whose name is Hussein Ibn Ali. The most interesting part comes by deciphering the signification of Barack Obamas name in Arabian and Persian. In these languages Barack Hussein signifies the blessing of Hussein. His last name Obama, written in Persian alphabet O Ba Ma signifies he is with us (this is the message from the Shiite texts).

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4.3. Semiotic Analysis Applied on Political Publicity

4.3.1. Barack Obama
To illustrate the power of image in the process of seducing the population, I have chosen to make a semiotic analysis of some political posters used by Barack Obama and Traian Bsescu in their electoral campaigns in order to demonstrate that communicating messages by using codes and signs represents an art which is intensively used in the process of political communication. Moreover, this domain is representative for semiotics as in the posters there is being used a codified visual and written language which has the role of transmitting unconscious messages to the electorate.

Figure6. Banners from Baracks Obama Presidential Campaign When trying to make a semiotic analysis, it should be taken into consideration certain aspects, and Harold Lasswell suggests the following questions: Who?, Says what?, In which channel?, To whom?, With what effect?. He considers that these elements are essential for a better understanding of the communicational process regardless of its form. It is obvious that in this case, Barack Obama is the transmitter of the message which is addressed to the electorate. Beginning from the moment when Barack Obama entered in the competition for the White House it is evident that he became a brand and his image is the most popular representation of the 21st century. For this reason and for the fact that his picture is used everywhere, he is considered to be a pop icon the same as Madonna, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson, Jackie Kennedy. In my view, this happened not only because an Afro-American wanted to become the president of the United States, but also for his original and intensively promoted 62

electoral campaign. In this sense, the promoting campaign on the Internet brought him a large number of votes, the same as the promises he invoked especially when saying that he represents the change. Therefore, he is not seen only as a brand, but also as a God, a Savior of the US and even of the world. Nevertheless, the publicity represents a type of communication based on signs with different significations which have the purpose to unconsciously manipulate peoples mind. Regarding this aspect, politicians use the visual communication for persuading and attracting the electorate. Making a close analysis of Obamas posters, billboards and his TV apparitions, it can be noticed that with regards to the language implemented, he continuously uses four words we, can, change, and hope. In my opinion the word change represents a semiotic code and it is significant for the theme of his electoral campaign which is based on it. Consequently, the message transmitted contains an articulated code (a vocabulary of basic units with syntactical rules) which generates meaningful combinations and in this case the entire sense is connected with the idea that together (both the president and the citizens) we can change the world in better. The slogan of Obamas electoral campaign is also used in domains such as sports, music, language, literature etc. and represents a combination of three words in which yes is an adverb that indicates agreement or affirmation whereas we (first person plural noun) denotes a collective force or unity, and can, a modal auxiliary verb suggests ability, possibility, permission, request, prediction, opportunity. Moreover, The Global Language Monitor said: Obamas Yes we can speech ranked in tone, tenor and rhetoric with memorable political addresses of Martin Luther King, Jr.s I have a Dream and Ronald Reagans Tear Down this Wall. On a denotative level, the above pictures clearly represent the face of a politician who promotes his image using the banner as a method of attracting the electorate. However, on a connotative level, it makes us think of Obama as a powerful man and due to the colors implemented (the blue background and the white letters) he could be seen as a Savior. Hence, the colors are important when analyzing a publicity poster as they have power to influence, to catch the attention and to induce certain messages in peoples mind. At first sight it can be noticed that the colors used are representative as they are the same with those from the national flag of the United States. The message becomes more convincing as the face of Obama from the second poster is painted with red and blue, the main colors of the American flag. By using this strategy, Barack Obama suggests the idea that he is a patriot, and that he loves his country. Nevertheless, in both images as well it can be seen the logo of Obamas electoral campaign which resemblances surprisingly well with the logo used by Pepsi company. 63

Obamas logo

Old logo of Pepsi

New logo of Pepsi

Figure 7. Oabamas Logo vs. the Logo of Pepsi As it can be observed in the above images, there are used the same colors, wavy lines and the same shape. There is the possibility that this logo was intentionally created so people would associate the image of Obama with Pepsi as it is known that since 1903, Pepsi has been a brand with tradition in the US. With regards to the mythological level, I would say that the symbolic part of the first picture makes reference to Americas cultural values and ideals and it suggests the idea of the American dream. Personally, when seeing the photo for the first time, I had the impression that the most important fact is to succeed in life and that America represents the change in better. Furthermore, the first picture combines many single elements which are related to each other, giving meaning to the message. Firstly, there is a discourse of the image which speaks by itself and communicates to the electorate that the politician is a friend of the citizens and not a person who wants to dominate. This is suggested by the fact that Obama smiles friendly and he adopts a relaxed position of his body, as his hands are crossed and in this case this gesture gives the impression of a calm and peaceful person. These represent social codes which refer to facial expression, gestures and posture. Moreover, the costume he wears induces the idea of a respectable man and the logo which contains the colors from the national flag, gives the impression of a patriot who loves his country. In order to draw the attention of all categories of electorate, the political posters, the language and the message transmitted are simple, contain catchy phrases and words, and the type of argumentation used is the deduction. This type of inference is based on reasoning which emerges immediately in the mind of the person who sees the image. Moreover, the figure of Obama can be considered an archetype, as he became a model followed by many and in this sense the lawyers from the White House are trying to limit the commercial use of presidents image. 64

The political commercials are as simple as possible in order to seduce the electorate however the effort for realizing them is considerable as the reality is always encoded because in any culture, when the publicity passes for reality, it becomes a code of each countrys culture.

4.3.2. Traian Bsescu

Figure 8: Banner from the Presidential Campaign of Traian Bsescu In the above image, there is an electoral billboard representing Romanias president, Traian Bsescu in the electoral campaign from 2004. It should be emphasized the fact that this photography appeared during his electoral campaign and it could have represented a disadvantage for the image of Traian Bsescu as there is an enormous difference between the message transmitted and the reality, nevertheless I will debate on this situation in the following paragraphs. At first sight and on a denotative level the situation is the same as in Obamas case since there can be seen a politician who uses the publicity as a method of seducing the public to vote him. On a connotative level, we could see a person full of energy and the entire billboard suggests a state 65

of excitement. This is given especially by the orange color which is a combination between red and yellow, therefore it shares common features with those colors. Furthermore, the energy given by this color comes from the fact that it is found at some fruits such as oranges which are known for containing Vitamin C, an important resource for our health. Another characteristic of orange would be that it attracts immediately the attention and in my view it was well chosen as it speaks for itself, instead of Traian Bsescu who is a talkative person. Regarding Traian Bsescus position of the body, it can be noticed that the social codes he uses are also friendly, the smile giving the impression of a calm person and the gesture he makes with his hand is a form of salutation in army and it is known the fact that before involving in politics he was a sailor. It is an interesting strategy as when looking at this billboard, a person might have the impression that the politician friendly greets him/her. Moreover, it has a strong impact as the person who watches might have the tendency to return Traian Basescus bow. The language attracts especially by the slogan used S trii bine! (Have a good life!) which makes reference to the living standards from Romania. As our country is known to have the smallest incomes, the biggest prices therefore a low living standard, Traian Bsescu, through his electoral slogan, makes a promise to the citizens that if he is elected president, than the economic situation of the country will improve and we will live in better conditions. In addition, there is used a pun for highlighting firstly the fact that Traian Bsescu is the politician who should be our president, secondly for underlining the parties he represents (the DA alliance of the National Democratic Party and the Democratic Party). Thus, the first situation arises from the sentence Aa DA Preedinte!, where DA refers to the alliance of the two political parties. However, the photo of the political billboard and the poor man who sleeps below the commercial raises many questions regarding the social and economic situation of our country and it represented a disadvantage for Traian Bsescu as it was put on the Internet during his electoral campaign. The reason for which I have chosen this photo is represented by the fact that in Romania the real life is in a total opposition with the reality that the politicians try to present it. When seeing this image the mind of the viewer unconsciously relates the words from the slogan Have a good life! with the poor man and, immediately in our mind takes place the process of deduction through which we are able to understand the contrast. In spite of some negative aspects of Traian Bsescus electoral campaign, he was elected as president because his popularity continuously increased due to the crowd baths and to his unique methods of approaching citizens and situations. Nevertheless, presently, Bsescu is not popular anymore among people because of the conflicts he had with some politicians and for the fact that during his mandate as president he sustained certain political parties, was not apolitical. 66

As a conclusion, I would say that after Barack Obama was elected president, he started to accomplish his duties, making the first steps for ending the wars in Middle East. Therefore, after several weeks from his elections, he declared in public the retreat of some troops from Iraq. On the other hand, Traian Bsescu lost his popularity due to his continuing conflicts with some politicians and to the fact that he did not respect the Romanian Constitution. At this moment he attacks the most important institutions from our country, accusing their leaders. Another major thing that should be taken into account is that he continues to infringe his duties as a president and the Constitution. In this sense, he infringes one of the most important articles of the Constitution, the separation of powers, by interfering in the judicial system, entering in conflict with The Superior Council of Magistracy.

Conclusion
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Considering the title of my work The Role of Publicity in Presidential Campaigns an insight view over political communication-, this paper examines various elements related to political communication, emphasizing the methods of political marketing with major contribution in the process of persuading, seducing and manipulating the electorate. Also, the paper investigates current issues regarding the difference between the American and the Romanian political systems, developing the idea that even though the political communication implies common features, the differentiation comes from peoples perception of the social and political reality. Moreover, on the world political arena, politicians are not only actors which pretend to make efforts to improve the life of the citizens, but they are also film producers who direct us from behind the scene, in other words, manipulate us using the most powerful weapon: mass media. For this reason, it can be said that the impact of mass media over politics is major, as political actors use it for trying to influence our perspectives and most of the time they succeed in doing so. To illustrate what I have previously mentioned in the theoretical section, I underlined the pattern followed by the politicians in the process of drawing our attention through the means of communication such as the Internet, the TV, the radio, the print media etc. The method proposed in this paper, an investigation of the electoral campaigns of Traian Bsescu and Barack Obama, provides an answer to the three cardinal questions posed by the Romanian citizens: why?, how are we different? and what can we do in order to live as the Americans?. Therefore, in the first part of the case study, I realized a short survey of the historical background of the two countries, emphasizing that Romania is not entirely democratic as the influences of the communist regime are still persistent and that even though America was in continuous evolution, it encountered problems concerning racial hate, and it should be noted that it took 200 for the American people to accept the Afro-Americans as being their compatriots. I demonstrated that the problem comes from each countrys past and it is strongly related to the mentality of the people. In this way I gave a response to the three questions, stating that a final consideration will be that the Romanian people will understand and behave as in a democratic system only when there would remain the generations born in democracy. Additionally, in the second section of my case study I approached the particular strategies used by the two presidents in their electoral campaigns proposing a semiotic analysis for a better understanding of the manipulating methods through images and language. Thereby, I demonstrated and argued my opinion that political publicity has as a final target the public manipulation. In my view, the suggested method of demonstrating this statement has a major impact and all the semiotic elements applied on the analysis of the two banners represent powerful arguments of this idea. 68

With reference to the effort of writing this paper I state that it required a thorough documentation and concrete research over the political communication and the semiotic theory. In my opinion, all the chapters are interesting and captivating, as some debated aspects shed light on some insight parts of politics and mass media that are attractive for the reader who can discover methods to perceive the language behind the image.

Works Cited
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1. Abraham, Florin. Romnia de la comunism la capitalism: 1989-2004:sistemul politic. Bucureti: editura Tritonic, 2006 2. Eco, Umberto. A theory of semiotics. London: Indiana University Press, 1976 3. Guu-Tudor, Dorina. New Media. Bucureti: editura Tritonic, 2008 4. McNair, Brian. Introducere n comunicarea politic. Bucureti: editura Polirom, 2007 5. Peirce, Charles, Sanders. Semnificaie i aciune. Bucureti: editura Humanitas, 1990 6. Rus, Flaviu, C. Evoluia procesului de comunicare de la forma interpersonal la cea politic i mediatic. Cluj-Napoca: editura Accent, 2005 7. Sartori, Giovanni. Homo videns. La sociedad teledirigida. Madrid: Taurus, 1998 8. Seceleanu, Andra. Comunicare politic n spaiul mediatic: analiza unei campanii electorale. Constana: editura Fundaiei Andrei aguna, 2008 9. Silvia, Irimiea. American political institutions. Cluj-Napoca: Cluj University Press, 2002 10. Sinescu, Clin. Comunicare politic. Bucureti: editura Universitar, 2007

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Rezumat
Avnd n vedere titlul lucrrii mele de licen Rolul publicitii n campaniile prezideniale, principala tem abordat este comunicarea politic prin intermediul mijloacelor mass-media avnd ca i scop final evidenierea metodelor de marketing politic n procesul de persuasiune a electoratului. De aceea, n studiul de caz al lucrrii am fcut o analiz comparativ ntre campania prezidenial a lui Traian Bsescu din 2004 i cea a lui Barack Obama din 2008. De asemenea, prin alegerea a dou situaii diferite de campanie electoral am ncercat s dau un rspuns la ntrebarea general pe care i-o pun muli ceteni romni, i anume de ce nu putem tri ca americanii? Astfel, nc din titlul primului capitol este lansat ntrebarea Poate fi considerat publicitatea politic o ncercare de a manipula cetenii?. Prin urmare, am nceput lucrarea prin a reda anumite consideraii n ceea ce privete comunicarea politic, evideniind faptul c aceasta se regsete pretutindeni mbrcnd diferite forme precum afiele stradale, bannere, reclame TV etc. De asemenea, am precizat faptul c aceasta implic trei dimensiuni importante i anume dimensiunea pragmatic (face referire la situaiile reale de comunicare), dimensiunea simbolic (rolul simbolic pe care l au cuvintele n comunicarea politic) i dimensiunea structural (trateaz mijloacele prin intermediul crora se realizeaz comunicarea politic i anume radio, televiziune, presa scris, internetul). Un alt aspect important privete actorii politici care sunt principalii pioni ai scenei politice i care pot fi mprii n mai multe categorii avnd ca i criteriu principal ideologiile politice pe care le susin. Aadar, ntr-o prim categorie sunt incluse partidele politice ce reprezint un grup de oameni care mprtesc aceleai idei, ideologii politice i care au acelai scop. Un exemplu elocvent n acest sens ar putea fi cele dou partide puternice din Statele Unite: partidul republican (ai crui reprezentani sunt adepii unor idei conservatoriste) i partidul democrat (ai crui membri susin ideile social-liberale). n sprijinul acestor partide vine i departamentul de relaii cu publicul care se ocup de crearea unei imagini pozitive asupra partidului pe care l reprezint prin organizarea de conferine de pres, i, totodat ncearc s contracareze, atunci cnd este cazul, imaginea negativ creat de pres.

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Cea de-a doua categorie de actori politici cuprinde sindicatele, grupurile de consumatori i organizaiile publice. Membrii acestor organizaii nu sunt unii de ideologii politice comune, ci mai cu seam de anumite caracteristici legate de problemele de munc. Cea de-a treia categorie include grupurile de presiune ale cror preocupri sunt constituite n jurul unei singure probleme precum mediul nconjurtor, i se deosebesc de organizaiile publice prin faptul c sunt mai puin instituionalizate. Organizaiile teroriste pot fi considerate i ele ca fcnd parte din categoria actorilor politici, dar aceste grupuri recurg la terorism pentru a-i ndeplini obiectivele. n categoria actelor teroriste sunt incluse atentatele cu bomb, asasinatele, rpirile. Cele mai cunoscute organizaii teroriste sunt Hamas i Hezbollah n Orientul Mijlociu, ETA n ara Bascilor din Spania, IRA n nordul Irlandei i al-Qaida, organizaia responsabil cu atentatul asupra turnurilor World Trade Center din New York. Chiar dac aciunile acestora includ acte de terorism, acetia au ca scop transmiterea de mesaje politice unor anumite grupuri de electorat. n comunicarea politic, principalul rol al mass-media este acela de a informa cetenii cu privire la problemele societii, incluzndu-le i pe cele de pe plan politic. Odat cu liberalizarea presei, funciile acesteia s-au multiplicat, iar n procesul de comunicare politic ndeplinete urmtoarele funcii: prezint informaiile publicului, interpreteaz aciunile politicienilor, influeneaz opinia electoratului, stabilete care sunt prioritile aciunilor politice, asigur comunicarea ntre politicieni i electorat. Harold Lasswell abordeaz dintr-un alt punct de vedere funciile mass-media i le clasific n trei categorii. Prima este cea de supraveghere a lumii avnd ca scop prezentarea evenimentelor de actualitate i concentrarea pe anumite evenimente, personaliti, instituii. Cea de-a doua funcie este cea de interpretare a sensului evenimentelor care formeaz i deformeaz opinia public asupra celor ce se ntmpl n lumea politic, direcionnd impactul acestora asupra vieii indivizilor. Socializarea indivizilor n mediul lor cultural reprezint cea de-a treia funcie n opinia lui Laswell i care presupune nvarea principalelor valori n vederea integrrii individului n mediul cultural. ns, se poate vorbi i de o a patra funcie, cea de manipulare a proceselor politice. Aceasta apare n momentul n care teama individului de izolare l determin s accepte anumite convenii sociale, s fac ceea ce fac i ceilali din jurul su iar n acest fel opinia public se transform ntr-un factor de control al opiunilor, ajungnd sa fie un produs acceptat de valorile generale ale societii, iar n aceast situaie intervine i rolul acesteia de manipulare. n procesul comunicrii politice, emitorii mesajelor au ca i scop seducerea sau persuasiunea electoratului, dar pentru a reui acest lucru trebuie s adopte anumite strategii de marketing pe care le aplic prin intermediul televiziunii, publicitii, radioului i a presei scrise. Mai 76

mult dect att, publicitatea politic formeaz, promoveaz i direcioneaz spre anumite grupuri int imaginea unui partid politic sau a unui candidat. Un aspect particular al publicitii politice const n crearea unui sistem standardizat al acesteia. Aceast particularizare are rolul de a transforma politicianul ntr-un produs deoarece acesta are ca scop final atragerea opiniei publice i obinerea de voturi n urma campaniei electorale. Exist trei tipuri de strategii n cadrul acestui proces: strategia de proiectare, ce presupune realizarea unui proiect de campanie bazat pe sondaje de opinie, strategia de ntiinare a opiniei publice prin care proiectul trebuie s fie fcut cunoscut cetenilor i strategia verbal i nonverbal care implic limbajul mimico-gestual al actorilor politici, conferind discursului acestuia un plus de convingere. Ca orice alt tip de comunicare, cea politic se bazeaz pe mai multe elemente fixe precum: emitor, mesaj, canal de transmitere al mesajului, cod, receptor, context, feed-back, zgomot i repertoriul. Astfel, emitorul comunicrii politice are rolul de a iniia procesul de comunicare, iar in cazul acesta emitorul este actorul politic ce transmite electoratului mesaje coninnd concepiile i ideologiile sale, avnd ca scop persuasiunea publicului su. Cel de-al doilea element al comunicrii politice este mesajul, ce este transmis prin intermediul emitorului politic i care scoate n eviden ideologia politic pe care o adopt. Caracteristicile principale ale mesajului politic sunt informarea i convingerea. Canalul de transmitere al mesajului este cel de-al treilea element i se refer cu precdere la modul prin care este transmis mesajul politic. Un alt element al comunicrii politice este codul ce reprezint o enumerare logic de elemente realizat prin folosirea unor pattern-uri bine stabilite care difer n funcie de structura mental a utilizatorilor. Receptorul politic este un element de baz al comunicrii i este reprezentat de o persoan sau un grup de persoane ctre care sunt direcionate mesajele emitorului. De asemenea, aceste persoane trebuie s aib capacitatea de a decodifica mesajele primite pentru a putea rspunde la acestea sub forma feed-back-ului. Contextul se refer la valorile i regulile pe baza crora se deruleaz procesul comunicrii politice. Sursa de zgomot reprezint un factor important n comunicarea politic, nsumnd totalitatea elementelor perturbatoare, fizice sau psihice, care acioneaz direct sau indirect, influennd ntr-un fel sau altul procesul de comunicare. Acestea pot fi: intensitatea vocii, lipsa coerenei discuiilor, defecte de vorbire, vorbirea prea lent sau prea rapid. Repertoriul constituie ultimul element al comunicrii politice i care se refer la bagajul de cunotine ntr-un anumit domeniu, att al omului politic (emitorul) ct i al electoratului (receptorul). Scopul fiecrui politician este acela de a se face apreciat i de a ctiga ct mai multe voturi. n vederea realizrii acestui obiectiv, actorul politic trebuie s aib n vedere contextul politic, economic, social, cultural, iar pentru ducerea la bun sfrit a acestei aciuni, procesul trebuie s 77

parcurg mai multe etape. n prima etap se stabilete care este publicul int i se face o analiz a acestuia. n acest context se vor identifica indivizii care au un grad mai mare de receptivitate a programelor politice. Urmtoarea etap presupune crearea imaginii actorului politic, care trebuie promovat n vederea punerii ntr-o lumin ct mai favorabil a politicianului. Astfel, pentru ca imaginea s aib un impact ct mai mare i s fie ct mai convingtoare, aceasta trebuie s nu conin contradicii, s fie clar i s fie recunoscut cu uurin. Din cauza faptului c n prezent politicienii ncearc s i creeze o imagine ct mai original, se ajunge la viziunea c profilul acestuia este mai important dect ideologia pe care o reprezint. n aceast situaie, dac la un moment dat presa creaz o imagine negativ asupra unui politician, atunci, dac acesta a fost etichetat ca fiind corupt, imaginea acestuia va avea de suferit pentru totdeauna. Acest sistem este ntlnit n special n rile de tranziie, n care nivelul de trai este mai sczut i apare din cauz c oamenii consider c bunstarea politicianului corupt este o cauza a mpovrrii lor. De aceea, n aceste ri oamenii vor admira un om cinstit i onest, iar dac acesta dovedete faptul c este i un bun familist, atunci i-a ctigat aprecierea electoratului. Pentru crearea unei imagini pozitive este important ca printre calitile i responsabilitile unui politician trebuie s se regseasc i urmtoarele: s fie n relaii bune cu presa, s participe la evenimentele mai importante, s respecte tradiia i istoria, s fie deschis la dialog, s aib capacitatea de a asculta oamenii, de a cunoate realitatea economic i social i cel mai important s se fereasc de greeli. A treia etap n procesul comunicrii politice o reprezint lansarea actorului politic i a programului su. Astfel, transformarea unui om politic ntr-un personaj ct mai popular n rndul electoratului se poate realiza prin intermediul aciunilor oc, adic prin bombardarea cetenilor cu informaii despre actorul politic, sau printr-o prezentare n mai multe etape a oamenilor politici, iar la aceast modalitate apeleaz ndeosebi politicienii care doresc funcii nalte n stat. Cea de-a patra etap face referire la tehnicile de difereniere a actorului politic n contrast cu opozanii. n acest fel, se ajunge la evidenierea anumitor aspecte sau chiar la exagerearea unor caracteristici prin care imaginea candidatului s poat crete n sondajele de opinie. Dac scopul comunicrii politice este acela de a realiza o legtur ntre oamenii politici i ceteni, atunci rolul acesteia este acela de transmitere a ideilor, ideologiilor politicienilor ctre electorat. Prin urmare, comunicarea politic se mparte n funcie de ideologie i de imagine n dou pri: comunicarea politic de tip dialogic i comunicarea politic de tip marketing. Primul model, nglobeaz ideologia omului politic, care analiznd problemele sociale sau economice ale societii, sugereaz o serie de principii i de idei prin care s gseasc o rezolvare pentru problemele respective. n acest tip de comunicare, omul politic folosete limbajul ideologic pentru a da 78

mesajelor un caracter informativ i ct mai concret i de asemenea, limbajul operaional prin care elementele abstracte sunt transformate n aciuni politice sesizabile percepute de publicul larg. Cel de-al doilea model, de tip marketing are ca scop principal seducerea i persuadarea electoratului prin utilizarea mijloacelor de convingere i este folosit n special n campaniile electorale. Aceast metod se axeaz pe crearea unei imagini a omului politic din perspectiva limbajului folosit. Publicitatea de tip politic se refer la chemarea electoratului pentru votarea sau susinerea unui anumit candidat. De obicei, politicienii recurg la o serie de metode pentru a atrage electoratul la vot, iar aceste metode pot fi considerate ca fiind teme ale comunicrii politice. n acest caz, n primul rnd se poate vorbi de publicitatea de aciune, ce se refer la reprezentarea unei aciuni aflate n proiect pentru a convinge electoratul s acorde votul unui candidat sau s adere la un partid sau asociaie. O alt form de publicitate politic este reprezentarea, prin care nu vizeaz n mod special s declaneze o implicare special a electoratului n procesul politic, dar dorete s ancoreze n spaiul politic partidul sau ideologiile politice pe care le reprezint. n cel de-al treilea rnd, exist persuasiunea i seducia, cele dou efecte retorice ale publicitii crora politica le accentueaz specificitatea. n capitolul II al lucrrii intitulat Media scena politicienilor am evideniat metodele de marketing politic folosite cel mai mult de politicieni i care au un impact mare asupra publicului. Prin urmare, am nceput prin a prezenta relaia care se stabilete ntre politicieni, televiziune i radio. Aadar, se poate vorbi de o dependen a actorilor politici fa de mijloacele mass-media, deoarece, n ncercarea de prea ct mai convingtori, concep campanii electorale ct mai originale i mai atrgtoare, care s fie n primul rnd pe placul presei pentru a le promova. n Romnia, totul se nvrte n jurul banilor, i a prieteniilor legate ntre politicieni i unele posturi de televiziune. Mai mult dect att, sumele cheltuie n campanie sunt enorme i provin din bugetul statului n timp ce banii pentru campaniile electorale din SUA sunt din bugetul propriu. De altfel, prin intermediul televiziunii, politicienii vnd imagine i nu ideologie politic. Radioul reprezint i el o modalitate de promovare fiind folosit n special datorit faptului c este mult mai ieftin. n privina presei scrise, se poate spune c aceasta are menirea de a acorda ct mai multe informaii despre un anumit candidat, i pot ajunge la un public ct mai variat pentru c politicienii i fac reclam att n ziarele politice, dar i n revistele sportive sau de divertisment. Cu privire la publicitatea stradal, se poate spune c rolul acesteia este de a aminti i nu de a convinge, acesta fiind motivul pentru care principala lor caracteristic este simplitatea (puin informaie, mult culoare, scoaterea candidatului n prim plan).

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Dac n anii '90 internetul era un mijloc de comunicare practic necunoscut pentru majoritatea publicului, dup aceast perioad numrul utilizatorilor a nceput s creasc n special n rile industrializate. Astfel, pentru a ilustra dezvoltarea rapid a acestuia, se poate spune c dac pentru a ajunge la un numr de 50 de milioane de utilizatori, radioului i-au trebuit 38 de ani, televiziunii 13 ani iar internetului doar 4 ani. Mai mult dect att, se poate trage o concluzie uimitoare, i anume c n anul 2007 n ntreaga lume erau 1 miliard i 114 milioane de utilizatori. n acest context, internetul a devenit o cea mai rspndit form de comunicare ce s-a extins i n domeniul politicii. De aceea, politicienii apeleaz la el din ce n ce mai mult, deoarece se poate ntreprinde o comunicare mai eficient cu electoratul prin intermediul blogurilor, forumurilor, sau a jocurilor pe care unii politicieni le inventeaz n timpul campaniilor electorale n vederea atragerii a ct mai muli simpatizani. Cu toate acestea, din cauza dezvoltrii mijloacelor de comunicare ce cultiv simplitatea, hedonismul, s-a ajuns la crearea unei imagini a politicianului ca produs, iar n Romnia se poate vorbi de o politica-spectacol practicat de candidai prin certurile permanente din mediul politic, prin ncercarea de manipulare folosindu-se de false promisiuni. Astfel, societatea a ajuns s fie una a consumatorului, ajungndu-se la o depolitizare a politicului care i pierde tot mai mult esena i devine tot mai dependent de pres i noi la rndul nostru la fel, ne transformm dup cum evidenia Giovanni Sartori din homo videns n homo sapiens. De aceea, trebuie s nu ne lsm influenai de aceast manipulare politic mediatic, i s rencepem s cultivm obiceiul cititului crilor. n cel de-al treilea capitol al lucrrii am ncercat s dau o definiie conceptului de semiotic (ce se refer n sens larg la tiina interpretrii nelesului semnelor), ncercnd s abordez problema prin prisma a doi scriitori importani din domeniul semioticii, Fernand de Saussure i Charles Sanders Peirce. Astfel, cel dinti acord o mai mare importan limbajului care este ntr-o relaie dinamic cu discursul i ofer semnificaiei o diad conform creia semnul este compus din semnificant i semnificat. Pe de alt parte, Peirce face o distincie ntre semn i cuvnt i susine c acesta reprezint mecanismul nelegerii. De asemenea, acesta ofer acestu proces o triad alctuit din simbol, din icon i index. Un alt element important al acestei tiine l reprezint codurile care pot fi clasificate n trei categorii: coduri sociale, coduri textuale i coduri interpretative. n studiul de caz Abordri electorale n Romnia i n SUA am ncercat s analizez comparativ campaniile electorale ale preedintelui Romniei Traian Bsescu i Barack Obama, ncercnd s gsesc o posibil motivaie n ceea ce privete diferenele majore dintre de gndire, i nivel de trai dintre cele dou ri, i de asemenea, ntre modurile n care sunt vzute personalitaile politice. De aceea am considerat c este necesar s fac o mic analiz a evoluiei celor dou ri de-a 80

lungul istoriei, deoarece de aici pornesc toate diferenele. Astfel, Romnia este o ar care a trecut prin multe rzboaie, a fost continuu cotropit i cucerit, acesta fiind motivul pentru care multiplele regimuri politice prin care a recut s contribuie la ceea ce este astzi, adic o ar de tranzit, ai crei ceteni susin c triesc ntr-un regim democratic, dar care nu s-au desprins de influenele regimului comunist. n cealalt extrem, se afl SUA, care nu au suportat rzboaie mari pe teritoriul ei, iar acest lucru a contribuit la permanenta dezvoltare economic. Cu privire la analiza comparativ a celor dou campanii electorale, am nceput prin a descrie mediul politic dinaintea nceperii cursei prezideniale. Prin urmare, atmosfera politic nainte de intrarea n competiia pentru Palatul Cotroceni a lui Traian Bsescu era tensionat, din cauza distribuiei puterii ntre partidele politice. La aceast tensiune a contribuit i faptul c Traian Bsescu a intrat n competiie prin acuzarea oponentului su, Adrian Nstase de antaj asupra lui Theodor Stolojan. Pe de alt parte, i n SUA situaia era destul de tensionat din cauza crizei financiare i a rzboaielor din Orientul Mijlociu. n ciuda acestor lucruri, ambii preedini s-au concentrat pe campaniile de promovare care au fost spectaculoase, fiecare n modul ei. n acest fel, Traian Bsescu i-a construit imaginea prin ncercarea de a demonstra c el este diferit de predecesorii si, c este un politician activ, nu un spectator, iar prin carisma i ingeniozitatea sa a devenit popular n rndul cetenilor ntr-un timp relativ scurt. Adversarii si politici au fost Adrian Nstase i Corneliu Vadim Tudor, acesta din urm retrgndu-se din cursa electoral cu puin timp nainte de alegeri. Cei doi politicieni care au rmas n competiie s-au difereniat prin modul de promovare, astfel Traian Bsescu a profitat din plin de spiritul su ironic aducnd n continuu acuzaii i provocri adversarului, n timp ce Adrian Nstase s-a bazat pe succesele sale ca prim ministru i se pare c nu a fost de ajuns, fiind nfrnt n turul doi de scrutin. Platforma electoral a alianei D.A. din care fcea parte Traian Bsescu s-a bazat pe reformarea sistemului educaional i pe ncurajarea tinerilor de a studia prin acordarea de burse. Strategiile pe care acesta le-a iniiat pentru a-i promova imaginea au fost interesante i au atras muli simpatizani de partea lui. Campania online a fost cea mai spectaculoas pn la momentul respectiv, n special prin jocurile cu premii realizate i prin imaginea brandului care era un ardei rou. O alt strategie a fost faptul c Traian Bsescu i provoca mereu adversarul la nfruntri televizate, n timp ce acesta din urm ncerca s le aplaneze. Pe de alt parte, se poate afirma c Barack Obama a nceput cu apte ani nainte de alegeri campania electoral prin faptul c n SUA a rulat un serial de televiziune 24, n care preedintele Americii era o persoan de culoare. De aceea, se poate spune c americanilor li s-a sugerat n mod 81

incontient c viitorul lor preedinte ar putea fie de culoare. Adversarii politici ai lui Obama au fost Hillary Clinton i John McCain, iar n urma retragerii lui Hillary Clinton din cursa pentru Casa Alb, Obama a rmas cu voturile acesteia dat fiind faptul c ambii erau reprezentani ai partidului democrat. Aadar, pentru a combate ideile conservatoriste ale republicanului John McCain, Barack Obama mpreun cu ntregul partid democrat au creat o platform electoral bazat pe ideea de refacere, de nou, titlul acestui program fiind Rennoirea promisiunii ctre America, scopul principal reprezentndu-l schimbarea. n ideea acestui concept a fost realizat i campania electoral a lui Obama, un om politic ce i-a dovedit calitile de politician, de om calm, ncraztor n forele proprii i un adevrat patriot. De asemenea, a neles faptul c pentru a-i atrage tinerii de partea sa, e important s le neleag plcerile, i de aceea a creat o interesant campanie online prin care i-a atras un numr mare de simpatizani. n acest fel, imaginea lui aprea pe cele mai cunoscute siteuri i forumuri precum Facebook, MySpace, YouTube. Pentru crearea unei imagini pozitive s-a ncercat evidenierea ideii c Barack Obama reprezint schimbarea, pe conceptul de mpreun ca naiune ce reiese din sloganul acestuia Yes We Can i pe ideea de un nou nceput sugerat de logo-ul acestuia care a fost realizat n ideea unui soare ce rsare. Cu toate acestea, Barack Obama a trebuit s treac i peste publicitatea negativ care i s-a fcut mai ales de adversarul su, care l acuza c este musulman deoarece al doilea su nume este Hussein sau c este rzboinicul ateptat de lumea musulman pentru a-i ajuta s cucereasc lumea. Pentru a ilustra puterea imaginii de a comunica mesaje, de a persuada sau chiar de contribui la formarea de opinii, am analizat din punct de vedere al semioticii dou afie electorale, unul al lui Traian Bsescu, iar cellalt al lui Barack Obama. n acest sens, am luat bannerul folosit de Obama n ntreaga campanie electoral i care l nfieaz din punct de vederea al semnificaiei la nivel conotativ un salvator al Americii, limbajul folosit mpreun cu logoul i culorile utilizate reprezint simboluri care dau un neles ntregii imagini i care analizate la un alt nivel, dezvluie lucruri pe care nu le putem percepe la o prim vedere. Astfel, logoul lui Obama ce se aseamn cu cel folosit de compania Pepsi ar putea sugera faptul c preedintele se leag de tradiia acestui brand pentru a-i crea la rndul lui o astfel de imagine. Un alt lucru interesant ce poate fi observat n afiul acetuia este celebrul slogan Yes we can ce este foarte sugestiv din mai multe puncte de vedere. n primul rnd sugereaz faptul c Obama niciodat nu a vorbit despre faptul c el va face un anumit lucru sau c va scoate America din criz, ci, dimpotriv mereu a folosit cuvntul noi, referindu-se implicit la

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populaia Statelor Unite. n al doilea rnd, mesajul las loc de interpretri n sensul c Obama se poate referi la faptul c putem s dm o nou nfiare Americii! sau putem opri rzboaiele!. n ceea ce privete bannerul electoral al lui Traian Bsescu din 2004, am evideniat c acesta are ca i culoare central portocaliul, ce denot energie i care, atrage atenia. Un alt element din acea fotografie l reprezint contrastul dintre sloganul preedintelui S trii bine! i ceretorul care doarme zgribulit n partea de jos a panoului. Acest lucru a adus o umbr asupra imaginii lui Traian Bsescu, dar, cu toate acestea, el a fost ctigtorul alegerilor.

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Resumen
Conforme al ttulo de mi licencia El Papel de la Publicidad en las Presidenciales, el principal tema debatido es la comunicacin poltica mediante mass media y el propsito final de este proyecto es subrayar los mtodos de marketing poltico en el proceso de persuasin del electorado. Por eso, en el estudio de caso hice una comparacin entre la campaa presidencial de Traian Bsescu de 2004 y la campaa presidencial de Barack Obama de 2008. De este modo, mi intencin fue la de elegir dos situaciones totalmente diferentes para dar una respuesta a una pregunta frecuente entre los rumanos: Por qu no tenemos el mismo estndar de vida como los americanos?. Asimismo, desde el ttulo del primer captulo se nace una pregunta: Podemos considerar la publicidad poltica una manipulacin de los ciudadanos?. Por consiguiente, al principio de mi trabajo he escrito sobre los aspectos generales de la comunicacin poltica, destacando la idea que la podemos encontrar en diversas formas como las carteleras de calle, los banners, los reclamos de televisin etc. De modo igual, he aclarado el hecho de que ella supone tres dimensiones: la dimensin pragmtica (que hace referencia a las situaciones reales de comunicacin), la dimensin simblica (el papel simblico que tienen las palabras en la comunicacin poltica) y la dimensin estructural (con referencia a los medios de comunicacin mediante los cuales se realiza la comunicacin poltica: la radio, la televisin, la prensa escrita, el Internet). Otro aspecto importante se refiere a los actores polticos que son los principales peones de la escena poltica y se pueden dividir en tres categoras segn sus ideologas polticas. De este modo, en una primera categora podemos incluir los partidos polticos que representan un grupo de personas que comparten las mismas ideas, ideologas polticas y que tienen el mismo propsito. Un ejemplo elocuente en este sentido lo representan los dos partidos polticos muy poderosos de los Estados Unidos: el partido republicano (cuyos representantes sostienen las ideas conservadoras) y el partido democrtico (cuyos miembros sostienen las ideas socio-liberales). El departamento de relaciones con el pblico viene de apoyar estos partidos, creando una imagen positiva, organizando ruedas de prensa y tambin, contrarrestando la imagen negativa creada por la prensa.

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La segunda categora es representada por los sindicados, los grupos de consumidores y las organizaciones pblicas. Los miembros de estas organizaciones no estn unidos por ideologas polticas sino por algunas caractersticas de los asuntos de trabajo. La tercera categora incluye los grupos de presin cuyos intereses se constituyen alrededor de un problema como, por ejemplo, el problema del medioambiental, y se distinguen de las organizaciones pblicas por el hecho de que estn menos institucionalizados. En la categora de los actores polticos estn incluidas tambin las organizaciones terroristas, pero la diferencia es que estos grupos recurren al terrorismo para cumplir sus objetivos. Los ataques terroristas ms conocidos son los atentados con bomba, los asesinados y los secuestros. Las organizaciones terroristas ms renombradas son: Hamas y Hezbollah en el Oriento Medio, ETA en el Pas Vasco de Espaa, IRA en el norte de Irlanda, y, al-Qaida, la organizacin responsable del atentado sobre los turnos gemelos World Trade Center de Nueva York. Aunque las acciones de estos grupos incluyen ataques terroristas, su propsito es de transmitir mensajes polticos haca determinados grupos de ciudadanos. En la comunicacin poltica, el papel de los mass media es de informar los ciudadanos sobre los asuntos de la sociedad, incluso sobre los problemas polticos. En el mismo tiempo con la liberalizacin de la prensa, sus funciones se multiplicaron, y en el proceso de comunicacin poltica tiene los siguientes papeles: presenta las informaciones al pblico, interpreta las acciones de los polticos, influye la opinin del electorado, establece las prioridades de las acciones de los polticos y asegura la comunicacin entre los polticos y el electorado. Harold Lasswell tiene otro punto de vista sobre los papeles de los mass media y les clasifica en tres categoras. La primera funcin es la vigilancia sobre el mundo, con el fin de presentar los eventos de actualidad, concentrndose en determinados eventos, personalidades, instituciones. El segundo papel es de interpretar el sentido de los eventos que forman o deforman la opinin pblica sobre los acontecimientos del mundo poltico, orientando su impacto sobre la vida de los individuos. En la aceptacin de Laswell, la socializacin de los individuos en su medio cultural representa la tercera funcin que supone el aprendizaje de los principales valores de la integracin del individuo en su medio cultural. Sin embargo, se puede hablar sobre una cuarta funcin de los mass media, la manipulacin de los procesos polticos. Esta funcin aparece cuando el miedo del individuo de no quedar aislado del resto de la sociedad lo determina a aceptar ciertos convenciones sociales, haciendo las mismas que hacen las personas de su alrededor. De este modo, la opinin pblica se transforma en un factor de control de las opciones, siendo un producto aceptado de las valores generales de la sociedad, y, en este caso interviene su papel de manipulacin. 85

En el proceso de la comunicacin poltica, los emisores de los mensajes tienen como objetivo la seduccin o la persuasin del electorado, y por eso, siguen algunas estrategias de marketing aplicadas mediante la televisin, la radio, la publicidad y la prensa escrita. Ms an, la publicidad poltica, forma, promueva y directa hacia determinados grupos la imagen de un partido poltico o de un candidato. Un aspecto particular de la publicidad poltica consiste en la creacin de un sistema estandardizado de sta. De esta manera, el poltico se transforma en un producto porque el propsito final es obtener votos despus la campaa electoral. Hay tres tipos de estrategias en este proceso: la estrategia de proyeccin que supone la realizacin de un proyecto de campaa a base de unos sondeos de opinin, la estrategia de anunciar la opinin pblica para que los ciudadanos conozcan el proyecto y la estrategia verbal y non verbal que implica el lenguaje mmico gestual de los actores polticos, concediendo al discurso ms conviccin. Como los otros tipos de comunicacin, la comunicacin poltica se basa en muchos elementos fijos como: emisor, mensaje, el canal para transmitir el mensaje, cdigo, receptor, contexto, feed-back, ruido y repertorio. De este modo, el emisor tiene el papel de empezar el proceso de comunicacin, transmitiendo al electorado mensajes en conformidad con sus ideologas. El segundo elemento de la comunicacin poltica es el mensaje, transmitido mediante el emisor y que destaca la ideologa poltica del candidato. Las caractersticas principales del mensaje poltico son la informacin y la conviccin. El canal mediante el cual se envan los mensajes es el tercer elemento. El cdigo es otro elemento de la comunicacin que representa una enumeracin lgica de elementos realizada con el uso de determinados patterns bien establecidos que se diferencian segn la estructura mental de los usuarios. El receptor poltico representa una persona o un grupo de personas hacia el cual estn transmitidos los mensajes. Asimismo, estas personas deben tener la capacidad de decodificar los mensajes recibidos para ofrecer el feed-back. El contexto se refiere a los valores y las regulas que contribuyen al proceso de comunicacin poltica. El ruido es un factor muy importante que representa la totalidad de los elementos de perturbacin, fsicos o psquicos, que influencian directa o indirectamente el proceso de comunicacin. Unos ejemplos en este sentido seran: la intensidad de la voz, la falta de coherencia en los discursos, defectos en la habla, el ritmo de hablar etc. El repertorio es el ltimo elemento de la comunicacin poltica y se refiere a los conocimientos de un determinado mbito, tanto de los polticos (los emisores) como del electorado (los receptores). El propsito de los polticos es de lograr la consideracin del pblico y da ganar votos. Para realizar este objetivo, es necesario que el actor tenga en cuenta el contexto econmico, social, cultural, poltico, y para finalizar esta accin es importante que el proceso pase por algunas etapas. En la primera se establece el pblico y en este sentido se identifican los individuos con un mayor 86

inters en los programas polticos. La siguiente etapa supone la creacin de una imagen positiva del poltico, sin contradicciones, clara y reconocida con mucha facilidad. Dado que en el presente los polticos tratan de crear una imagen original, podemos destacar que su imagen es ms importante que la ideologa que el representa. Entre los cualidades de un candidato en la presidencia, se pueden enumerar los siguientes: el poltico debe establecer buenas relaciones con la prensa, participar a los eventos culturales, histricos, sociales importantes de un pas, respectar la tradicin, tener la capacidad de escuchar la gente, de conocer la realidad econmica y social de su pas y, lo mas importante es que debe saber como evitar los errores. La tercera etapa se refiere a la promocin del actor poltico y de su programa electoral. La cuarta etapa hace referencia a las tcnicas de distinguir los candidatos y sus adversarios. Si el propsito de la comunicacin poltica es de realizar una conexin entre los polticos y los ciudadanos, entonces su papel es de transmitir las ideas, las ideologas de los candidatos y el electorado. Por consiguiente, la comunicacin poltica se divide conforme a las ideologas y a la imagen en dos partes: comunicacin poltica dialgica y comunicacin poltica de marketing. En el primer tipo de comunicacin se usa el lenguaje ideolgico se usa para dar a los mensajes un carcter informativo y, el lenguaje operacional mediante el cual los elementos abstractos estn transformados en acciones polticas percibidas por el pblico. El segundo modelo, tiene como propsito la persuasin del pblico, usando mtodos de convencer el electorado, especialmente en las campaas electorales. De costumbre, los polticos usan una serie de mtodos para atraer el electorado, convencerlo a votar, y, estos mtodos pueden ser considerados los mayores temas de la comunicacin poltica. Para evidenciar este asunto, se puede hablar de tres grandes temas: la publicidad de accin, la representacin y la persuasin. El tercer captulo nombrado Media la escena de los polticos, destaca los mtodos de marketing poltico con un impacto muy grande sobre el pblico. Por lo tanto, se puede hablar de una dependencia de los actores polticos hacia la mass media, que, para convencer al pblico, conciben campaas electorales originales y atractivas. En Rumania todo se hace con mucho dinero y el poltico que tiene muchas amistades entre los puestos de televisin, tiene muchas ventajas. Ms an, las cantidades de dinero necesarios por las campaas son enormes y proceden del presupuesto del estado mientras que, en los Estados Unidos proceden del presupuesto propio. En cuanto a la prensa escrita, se puede decir que est es importante porque ofrece muchas informaciones sobre los candidatos y el pblico es muy diversificado, teniendo en cuenta que los polticos promueven su imagen tanto en los peridicos de especialidad como en revistas esportivas o de divertimiento. Con referencia a la publicidad de la calle, se puede decir que su papel es de 87

recordar y no de convencer, y, ste es la razn por lo cual su principal caracterstica es la sencillez (poca informacin, mucho color para evidenciar la imagen del candidato). Si en los aos '90 el Internet era un medio de comunicacin desconocido por el pblico, despus este perodo, el nmero de los usuarios creci especialmente en los pases desarrollados. De este modo, para subrayar su rpido desarrollo, se puede decir que, la radio alcanz el nmero de 50 millones de usuarios en 38 aos, la televisin alcanz el mismo nmero en 13 aos y el Internet solamente en 4 aos. Ms an, se puede destacar la conclusin sorprendente de que, en 2007, en todo el mundo eran 1.114.000.000 de usuarios. En este contexto, el Internet se convirti en el ms difundido medio de comunicacin. Por esta razn, los polticos lo usan cada vez ms, especialmente porque pueden comunicar directamente con el electorado a travs los blogs o los forums. Por otra parte, el rpido desarrollo de los medios de comunicacin ha hecho que el poltico se convierte en un producto, y en nuestro pas se puede hablar de un espectculo poltico resultado de los frecuentes altercaciones entre los polticos y de su deseo de manipular a los ciudadanos mediante sus falsas promesas. Asimismo, la sociedad lleg a ser una sociedad del consumidor, y ocurre una despolitizacin de la poltica que pierde sus valores y deviene cada vez ms dependiente de la prensa y, nosotros pasamos a otra etapa, involucionamos segn la opinin de Giovanni Sartori desde el homo videns a homo sapiens. Por eso, no debemos dejarnos influidos por esta manipulacin poltica y tenemos que empezar cultivar el costumbre de leer libros. En el tercer captulo de mi trabajo trato el concepto de semitica, es decir, la ciencia de interpretar el sentido de los signos. Presentar este problema desde el punto de vista de dos escritores importantes de este dominio, Fernand de Saussure y Charles Sanders Peirce. De este modo, el primero cientfico da una mayor importancia al lenguaje que tiene una relacin dinmica con el discurso y nos da una dada terica diacrona-sincrona, que sostiene el hecho de que el signo es compuesto de significante y significado. Por otra parte, Peirce hace una distincin entre signo y palabra y sostiene que estos representan el mecanismo de entender. l nos ofrece una triada compuesta por el smbolo, el icono y el ndice. Otro aspecto muy importante de esta ciencia lo representan los cdigos, clasificados en tres categoras: cdigos sociales, cdigos textuales y cdigos interpretativos. En el estudio de caso hice una comparacin entre las campaas electorales del presidente rumano Traian Bsescu y de Barack Obama, el presidente de los Estados Unidos para encontrar motivaciones referentes a las grandes diferencias de pensamiento y estndar de vida entre los dos pases. Por eso, consider necesario hablar un poco sobre las historias de los dos pases, porque de ah empiezan las diferencias. Asimismo, Rumania es un pas que pas por muchos regmenes 88

polticos, y por eso, en el presente el rgimen democrtico no es muy bien definido, especialmente porque an se sienten las influencias comunistas. Por otro lado, los Estados Unidos conocieron un permanente desarrollo econmico, y, por eso, el sistema democrtico se desarroll continuamente. En cuanto al anlisis comparativo entre las dos campaas electorales, hice una descripcin del mbito poltico antes de que la competicin empezara. Aunque en los dos pases la situacin poltica era tensionada, los dos presidentes concibieron espectaculares campaas electorales. De este modo, Traian Bsescu construy su imagen intentando demostrar que el es diferente de sus predecesores, que es un poltico activo, carismtico e ingenioso, en contrasto con su adversario poltico, Adrian Nstase, que se bas en sus xitos como primer ministro. El programa electoral de la alianza D.A. presidida por Traian Bsescu, se baso principalmente en la reformacin del sistema educacional y en apoyar los jvenes concedindole becas de estudio. Con respecto a la campaa de Barack Obaam, se puede decir que su campaa empez siete aos antes de las elecciones, por un filmo 24 que sugiri de modo inconsciente que el futuro presidente americano puede ser de origen Afro-Americano. El programa electoral de los republicanos se bas en la idea de la renovacin de todo el pas, y para atraer los jvenes a su parte, organiz una campaa de promocin en el Internet, y su imagen apareca en sitios web como Facebook, MySpace, YouTube. No obstante, Barak Obama tuvo que sobrepasar la publicidad negativa que lo acusaba de ser musulmn, por que lleva el nombre de Hussein Para ilustrar el poder de la imagen como medio de comunicacin de los mensajes, de manipular o cambiar las opiniones de los individuos, hice un anlisis del punto de vista de dos psteres polticos de Traian Bsescu y Barack Obama. En este sentido, hice un comentario sobre el pster usado de Obama en su campaa, y destaqu el hecho de que su eslogan tena valores connotativos, Yes we can haciendo referencia a la poder de los americanos de sobrepasar todos los obstculos sin estn unidos. En el caso del pster de Traian Bsescu se destaca el color orange que significa poder, energa (las principales cualidades del presidente) y, tambin la gran diferencia de significado entre el eslogan S trii bine (Que vivis bien!) y el mendigo que duerme a la baja del pster.

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