Electronic Media and Politics - Riccardo Lagano

Electronic Media and Politics

Riccardo Lagano

Electronic media and politics

Communication is one of the main social activities that we have in our life; it is at the base of the human development. We can say that human evolution is strongly linked to the increasing efficiency of the media, which is today an essential aspect in our everyday life.                                                                                               

The introduction of the electronic media began in the 19^th century, with the invention of the electric telegraph, the first point of an evolution that will never stop and that has influenced, and is still influencing, the way people communicate. There is a huge number of examples through which to understand these high social impact changes. One of these is the way electronic media are changing the political discourse, a kind of communication that today is very different if compared with political speeches from 15 years ago. The use of the social media (the most used among the modern electronic media) is requiring a sort of adaptation of political discourse, as some of the strategies of persuasion used are more or less the same but the approach is quite different.

This essay aims to analyse to what extent social media are used by the political parties to promote their image and political messages, comparing this new trend with the way politics communicated years ago with people. After a general examination of the political communication before and after the social media, the focus will be on three important strategies used in political speech (the rule of three, the use of “we”, the figures of speech), trying to establish if something has changed or not.

     Basically, political communication has always had the aim of collecting people’s consensus and promoting the image of the political party among supporters.Until 10 years ago, before the diffusion of the social media, there were three main channels of communication through which the interaction between people and politics took place. In chronological order, these were as follows:

·         political billboards (the first medium, already used in ancient Rome)

·         newspapers (a medium that at the beginning could involve only educated people)

·         the mass media (namely, radio and TV)

These three channels are still extensively exploited today, but we have to consider that there is not a direct dialogue between citizens and politics.

     On one hand, there is the opportunity of explaining clearly the main message to the people, using prepared sentences or particular words in order to persuade them; but on the other hand, it is not possible to understand if the message has been correctly interpreted. In other words, it is a sort of one-way communication without having an immediate feedback by the listeners. However, in an era characterised by instant messaging, where there is no time and space anymore, there is an opportunity for having an immediate interaction with the audience that has encouraged politics to enter into the world of the social media, world that, paradoxically, even though virtual is getting close to the reality.

     Popular social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, are the most used in the political context; as already mentioned, social networks are an ideal platform to spread not only information in general but also political and personal opinion reaching a very substantial number of people. Therefore, we can outline the main purposes of communicating through the social media in two points:

-          first, that of entering into direct dialogue with citizens, increasing political discussion and sharing ideas;                                                                                          

-          second, concerning political campaigns, it is an opportunity for political parties to promote their electoral plans and convince people about them, in an affordable way (it can also be totally free), because social networks are free of charge.

In the same way, YouTube also plays a fundamental role in political communication. If with Facebook and Twitter ideas are expressed with short messages (especially in Twitter where there is a limit of 140 letters), uploading videos on YouTube is a very persuasive way for politicians to show themselves in various aspect of their life.

     Social media are an essential tool of communication in the political context and could also represent an important aspect of the electoral results. The comparison between Obama and Romney represented in the following image, regarding their friends/followers/viewers, on the main Social Media, during the elections in the USA in 2012, is very interesting:

There is no comparison between the two; moreover, it is not surprising, as Obama is considered the most famous politician in the world.                                                     It could be quite unwise to assert that Obama won those elections thanks to the number of followers or friends, but it is sure that every time he wrote a message or uploaded a video, a higher number of people compared to his competitor were reading or listening to his ideas. I think this was crucial.

It is obvious that the final aim of a political speech is that of convincing people about the idea of a party or strengthening the enthusiasm among its supporters. In order to do this, politicians have adopted and gradually improved the use of specific strategies of persuasion during their speeches, so that a sort of similarity with the advertising communication is not so far.

     There are many strategies used in the political speeches, which are still fundamental for politicians even if the communication takes place in the world of the social media. Some examples are given below:

a)      The “rule of three” is the tendency of listing elements of the speech in groups of three in order to give the discourse a complete aspect. It has been used by a lot of politicians, among which, for example, Tony Blair in 1996 (“Education, Education, Education!”), and also today is very common in the social media.

b)      The use of “We” is necessary in political speeches (“Yes we can”, Barack Obama) and, in the same way, has become fundamental also in the social media.

c)     The strategy called “figures of speech” makes abstract ideas easier to think about (for example “strong economy”, “healthy country”). This is very popular in the social media among political parties, especially because of the short messages characterising the communication.

    Nowadays, social media are an essential tool for all the subjects involved in mass communication. The fast development of the electronic media is bringing changes every day for us and, as more than once been said, it has changed in a radical way communication among people. As a consequence, activities like politics, made by communication, need to move with the times and adapt their habits. For this reason, the strategies adopted in the political speeches years ago can be found also today with some adaptations, in the communication through the social media managed by politicians.

     To sum up, the fast advent of social media has changed and surely will continue to change our lives and various aspects of communication. The strong importance that social media have today, is modifying communication also in the political contexts, through sort of adaptations, as mentioned before. This is changing the approach that people have with politics, as social media are for sure a common factor between people and politics. Moreover, the use of social media could be seen as an easy way to put in contact these two worlds that need to be nearer than in the past.