Introduction to political communication

October 22nd

communication = the message that a sender transmits to a receiver; it is

information that has been encoded using a common code through a mean of
communication (e.g. speech, body language)

Feedback:
1) Positive / Negative
2) Immediate / Delayed
3) Internal / External (the perception of the message from an internal/external
point of view)

The Dance Osgood model of communication - the only dynamic one (spiral)

Mediated communication: Marshall McLuhan - "Medium is the message"

Political communication = dynamic process that involves three elements:

1) political actors (politicians, parties, organisations)
2) media
3) public opinion as it results from opinion polls (Dominique Wolton)

The 4.5 media functions:

1) to inform (the agenda setting; through media, people learn what is important,
what they should be thinking about - the human factor)
2) to entertain
3) to form opinions
4) to educate
5) to form social links (it provides people with subjects to talk about) - generalist
TV

Propaganda model of the media - Noam Chomsky + Ed. S. Herman

Five filters that interfere with the way media broadcasts:

1) site, ownership and profit orientation (of the media institution)
2) advertising
3) sources of information and experts
4) media analysis, institutions
5) anticommunism - changes to antiterrorism.

The public opinion = the sum of rational, emotional, experience elements that
appear after the contact with a controversial issue on a relevant public scale (!=
right, wrong, true, false)

the smallest group - a village

Evaluating the public opinion (changes very very fast => it doesn't exist):
-polls
-vote
-riots

Dominique Wolton - in this trinome we have a weak element - the media

-because it works on an agenda based on either public or political actors - the
idea of neutrality does not apply.
-one of the main sources in the public opinion's information are the opinion polls;
to some extent, public opinion is autogenerated.
-opinion leaders - not automatically the group leaders.
People will tend to expose themselves rather to the messages sent by the
opinion leaders of their own groups than to the media original message.
-the only public of a campaign is the undecided.