On Message: Communicating the Campaign

To what extent are the techniques of campaigning and media management critical to the outcome of modern elections? This book brings together a group of leading scholars to provide a comprehensive analysis of the role and impact of political communications during election campaigns. They set the context of election campaigning in Britain, and the methodology used to undertand media effects, review party strategies and resulting media coverage, and draw together evidence of the impact of the 1997 British General Election campaign, analyzing how far television and the press media influenced the public's civic engagement, agenda priorities, and party preferences.

Table of Contents:
PART ONE: CONTEXT Theories of Political Communications The Campaign Context Understanding Media Effects PART TWO: PROCESS The Party Strategy The News Agenda The Public′s Reaction PART THREE: IMPACT The Imapact On Civic Engagement The Impact On the Public′s Agenda The Effects of Television News on Party Preferences The Effects of Newspapers Conclusions The Impact of Political Communications

About the Author :
Pippa Norris is Director of the Democratic Governance group in the United Nations Development Programme in New York and the Maguire Lecturer in Comparative Politics at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Recent books include Sacred and Secular: Politics and Religion Worldwide (with Ronald Inglehart, 2004), Electoral Engineering: Voting Rules and Political Behavior (2004), and Driving Democratization: What Works (2006). Norris, who is a political scientist, has served as an expert consultant for many international bodies including the UN, UNESCO, the Council of Europe, International IDEA, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the UK Electoral Commission. John Curtice is a Research Consultant at the Scottish Centre for Social Research, Deputy Director of CREST, and Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University. Maggie Scammell is a lecturer in media and communications. She was appointed to the LSE in January 1999. Before that she was for five years a lecturer at the School of Politics and Communications at the University of Liverpool, and a Research Fellow at Joan Shorenstein Center for Press/Politics, at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. She took her PhD at the LSE, investigating the Thatcher government's use of marketing and public relations. Holli A. Semetko, PhD is vice provost for international affairs and director of the Office of International Affairs (OIA) and the Claus M. Halle Institute for Global Learning, and Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Media and International Affairs at Emory University. An award-winning scholar with more than 90 publications, her research on communication, information and public opinion in campaigns and international contexts extends from the United States, Turkey, and the European Union (EU) to India, China, and Korea. Most recently, she published the Sage Handbook of Political Communication (May 2012), which includes 41 chapters by leading scholars around the world on the latest research and developments in the field. Dr. Semetko is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, an advisor to The Carter Center China Program, and board chair of Emory's Confucius Institute in Atlanta. She sits on a number of non-profit boards and is a consultant to academic institutions and international media. She has held elected offices in the American Political Science Association, International Political Science Association, International Communication Association, and the World Association for Public Opinion Research. Her networks in the fields of politics and government, public opinion, and media span the globe. Before arriving at Emory in 2003, Dr. Semetko lived abroad first as a graduate student completing her MSc and PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the UK, then as a research scholar in Germany, and later as a professor in the Netherlands. She received the Samuel Beer Prize for the best dissertation on British politics, and a fellowship from the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. supported her research in Germany. She had held teaching and research positions at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, and the University of Michigan. In Amsterdam, Dr. Semetko spent eight years as professor and chair of Audience and Public Opinion Research and served as chair of the Department of Communication Science. She was founding chair of the board of the Amsterdam School for Communication Research (ASCoR), a school for advanced research recognized by the Dutch Academy of Sciences (KNAW), where she remains an honorary professor. Major grants from the EU and Dutch National Science Foundation supported her research in the context of European governance, campaigns, and the economic integration process. Since her arrival at Emory in 2003, the university launched new international programs and partnerships with nations in Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa. She has led numerous delegations to Asia, including China, India, Singapore, and South Korea, and has been a frequent visitor to Turkey, Morocco, and destinations in the EU. Her work has helped to obtain support from foreign governments and foundations to launch Korean at Emory in 2007 and the annual India Summit in 2010, and to expand Chinese language and culture offerings. As director of the Halle Institute for Global Learning, Dr. Semetko launched several new programs, including the endowed Turkish Lecture Series; Cartooning for Peace at the United Nations and Cartooning for Peace and Health at Emory; and the expansion of the Halle Institute's study trip program from Germany and India to Turkey, China, Korea, Brazil, and Indonesia. She established the Halle Institute's research program in 2004 to advance faculty research through expert meetings and conferences at Emory and abroad. A wide range of cosponsors, such as the European Central Bank; Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; local offices of consul generals for France, Turkey, the UK, and Germany; and Nanjing University's Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences have helped to make symposia and other research events possible. Hundreds of scholars have benefited from the program. Dr. Semetko launched the Knowledge Futures initiative, an interdisciplinary program that sponsors conferences, panels, and speakers to address critical issues about the digital, mediated and wireless world. Alongside a team of Emory faculty and students, Dr. Semetko is already planning next year's India Summit, which will take place February 21-23, 2013. Cosponsors over the past three years have included the India, China & America Institute, the Embassy of India in the United States, WIPRO, and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Review :
`The authors provide a most interesting discussion on the developments in political campaigning over the years... This new work develops both the core analysis of political campaigning in its broadest sense and specific British campaigning variables. Having seen most of these authors in action over the years, they can be most satisfied that their work over that time has paid off in such a useful book, which will no doubt form part of any discussion on political campaigning′ - The Reformer `On Message is the most innovative and comprehensive study of the effects of communications on British voting. It is the definitive guide to the new trends in campaign voting and the media′ - Dennis Kavanagh, University of Liverpool `Much has been written about the way parties and politicians run election campaigns, but far less on how voters respond to them. Now, for the first time, On Message lays bare the connections between parties, media and the public. Using original and imaginative research, Pippa Norris and her team have produced that rarity: a book that tells us something genuinely new and important about the nature of Britain′s politics′ - Peter Kellner, BBC Television `At last, a genuinely multi-method study of political campaigning. On Message will be a lasting contribution to ′media-effects′ research′ - Shanto Iyengar, Stanford University `This crisply-written book about Britain′s 1997 General Election Campaign challenges a host of conventional beliefs about the significance of the communication strategies of the political parties, about the limited agenda-setting role of the mass media, and about the impact of the campaign on the political views of British voters. The study benefits from the collective insights of a team of exceptionally experienced researchers. Their sophisticated multi-method research design and apt comparisons capture the dynamic interplay among various political actors and settings with unusual clarity. Given the careful delineation of theoretical bases and judgmental criteria, this study is destined to become a model for excellence in campaign communication research′ - Doris Graber, University of Illinois, Chicago "On Message integrates the study of parties, voters and media in a clear and original way. It is a notable advance in the analysis of election communications. The title could be a comment on the book itself′ - Colin Seymour-Ure, University of Kent `This is a remarkably ambitious and authoritative study of party strategies, media roles and electoral reactions in Britain′s 1997 General Election campaign. The findings are well situated in diverse theories of media effects and the emerging conditions of a post-modern political communication system. The book deserves recognition among the classics of campaign communication research′ - Jay Blumler, University of Leeds `Here researchers focus on the influence of news media on the campaign; the importance of strategic communications and electoral success; and the effect of both on the long term learning, mobilazation and persuasion of voters. In this detailed campaign study, the authors use a combination of research methods: content analysis of news and party messages; public opinion survey analysis, including four-wave panel and cross sectional BES surveys and aggregate poll trends; and an experimental study of telecision news.′ - International Journal of Public Opinion Research