Political Communication-政治沟通Essay

政治沟通Essay，While corporate journalism has become dramatically tabloidized, it is more difficult to delineate the boundary between information, news and entertainment.  Some scholars such as Douglas Kellner (2009) argue that even politics now became a form of entertainment and spectacle, at the meantime, politicians are packaged and sold as other cultural products. Political actors, such as parties, politicians and governments are developing ever more possibilities of using media (Street, 2001).  It is the fact that media produce celebrities and celebrities are the most important figures in media industries (Kellner, 2009). Those celebrities could be singers, movie stars and sportsman, and reports about their daily life occupied much space of mass media.  In last decades in the United States (Negrine, 1996), there is a trend that politicians are becoming celebrities and it is true that politicians need to be in the media if they want to be known by the public.  Those politicians are thrown in spotlight with publics’ wanting about their public images and private lives.  Some scholars believe that this trend is the evidence of a diversified and broadly involved democratization, but others argue that it is the undermining of democratic culture and that it weakens the function of election, which should have provided serious political information to the public (Street, 2004).  This essay would try to demonstrate how celebrity culture weakens the function of election, while how significant is the actual impact of it remains to be seen. The main body is divided into two parts, including ‘elements compelled celebrityhood process’, and ‘to what extent are young voters influenced by celebrity culture’ in the context of American presidential election.

 

There are two main variants of celebrity politician. One is politician who used to be public figures such as singers, movie stars and sports man, for example, Ronald Wilson Reagan who is the 40th president of the United States and Arnold Schwarzenegger who used to be the governor of California State, both of them used to be famous actors. Another one is a politician who uses the elements and platforms of celebrities to enhance their personal image and communicate information to the public (Street, 2004) such as Barack Obama, president of the United States and Ma Ying-jeou, top leader of Taiwan. Both these two variants are playing important roles in politics nowadays, while this essay will pay more attention to the latter regarding its packaging techniques and impacts on political communication. Packaging refers to the managing and controlling of politics’ representation conducted by political actors (2001, Street). The effect of this, as some claimed, is to weaken the function of election, which should have provided chances to citizens to receive coherent information about serious political issues. Nonetheless, there are others believe that packaging political actor is actually the transformation of politic itself , or wording as “Americanisation”, which indicates the mass use of social media and neatly packaged personal narratives (Negirne, 1996). In order to advance this debate, it is necessary to have a brief look at packaging techniques used in enhancing celebrity politician and, then, in what aspects do these techniques weaken the function of election.#p#分页标题#e#

 The first technique is the exploitation on non-traditional platforms such as talk show and interview with renewed conventions. For politicians, it provides them with opportunities to articulate their political issues and promote a public image. For example, American politicians such as Barack Obama, Jay Leno and David Letterman have appeared on chat show hosted by Oprah Winfrey. In 1996, Russian presidential candidate, Boris Yelstin’s wife Naina was interviewed for a new item. She disclosed her husband’s personal life ‘which include washing the dishes and cooking Siberian dumplings’, according to the Financial Times (10 April 1996, cited in Street, 2001). Coincidently, Mitt Romney and their families cooed about their personal virtues on TV programme such as pick up kids after school and do the laundry regularly. It is true that traditional celebrities attract public attention and maintain exposure rate by disclosing private life and even concocting gossips. For politicians who also need a high exposure rate, being in the media and getting public’s attention is important. However, the significance here is that the public’s attention has been paid to politician’s personal identity instead of policies pursued.

 

Secondly, politicians are paying more attention to their images and appearance in order to promote their popularity. Both politician individuals and political parties devoted much more efforts to generate a distinct image of reliability instead of delivering detailed policy proposal.  Meanwhile, there are scholars explained that “candidates must attend to political image if they want to be serious players in the political market” (Margret Scammell, 1999 cited in Inthorn and Street 2001). Building an image includes personal appearance and dress, crafting of sound bites and photo opportunities. For example, candidates usually wear white shirt when they are making speech and this makes them looks more reliable and competent. Then they would be put at the centre of a photo so as to suggest that he or she wins popular support. Not surprisingly, politicians’ well-groomed image and appearance empower them in winning an election. According to a telephone survey in Taiwan, 47% of female supporters of its present leader-- Ma Ying-jeou, admitted that they are interested in his speech because of his graceful bearing (China review news, 2012). Consequently, it is risky for voters because they vote for a “product” that is neatly packaged, and it is possible that the product is unauthentic.

 

The third technique used is celebrities’ endorsements. It becomes usual that we got pictures with Tony Blair welcoming Noel Gallagher to 10 Downing Street, or President Ma Ying-jeou singing with Andy Lau, a well-known Hong Kong singer, or Russia’s President Putin singing a song in a charity party. Politicians have increasingly connected themselves with singers and actors, and they always provide occasions where they and celebrities are gathered. The emerging practice with celebrities could be dating back to 1930s in Britain when society hostesses married popular stars like Noel Coward (Mckibbin, 1998 cited in Street 2001). While the star then became adornments to the social status, they also successfully promote populist values. What differs then and now is that today’s celebrityhood is to enhance political credibility and popularity rather than promote social status. By borrowing trust and admiration from the idol-fans relationship, politicians create an aura of ‘popularity’.  For example of Obama and Oprah Winfery, research suggests that although Oprah’s endorsement has little impact on how much respondents liked Obama, it led exposed respondents to say that they were more willing to vote for Obama because of Oprah’s endorsements（Street,2011）. As a result, celebrities should be questioned about their qualities of judging political issues since the voting decisions of a considerable number of people might be affected by their public statements, and the fact is that, as Barnett(1998) pointed out, very few of those celebrities who live in Beverly Hills know the real needs of the public.#p#分页标题#e#

 

It seems to be a tendency that politicians are becoming celebrities using various media methods. Some scholars argue that celebrity politicians encourage more citizens to participate in politics, which is one of the core values in democratic process. Meanwhile, celebrityhood provides more viability about politicians’ private identity by disclosing his or her personal life, and, voters are able to know comprehensively about the candidates. Meanwhile, some scholars are worrying about the diminishing in serious information resulting from giving form priority over content, and the public might get an unauthentic product because of the neat packaging（Inthorn and Street，2001）. However, are voting decisions influenced by celebrity culture dramatically? This will be discussed in the context of American young voter’s decision in their presidential election. 

 

Celebrity politician has positive impact on encouraging young generation’s involvement. Research conducted by American Behavioural Scientist claims that today’s young generation in America care less about politics and election than their parents’ generation (Payne, Hanlon and Twomy,2007). Some of the young even regard election as a waste of social resources, and, is boring. However, young citizens’ turnouts in the election day of 2004 increased dramatically, according to MTV (Weiskel, cited in Payne, Hanlon and Twomey, 2007). This change is partly owed to the celebrity culture in politics. Celebrities who have a large number of young followers, such as Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs, organizes a campaign named ‘Vote or Die’ in order to raise voter turnout. At the same time, politician’s showing up in entertainment channels such as Talk Show and Music Programme attract young generations’ attention, under the condition that 93% of the young watch TV regularly (Inthorn and Street, 2011).

 

Apart from encouraging involvement, celebrity politician are also expected to influence young generation’s voting decision, and this is also the reason why candidates deploy celebrity’s endorsement during the election. This essay would treat celebrity politician as inhomogeneous, admitting that the audience don’t respond celebrity politician in the same way, and the differences could be caused by both politician’s identity and voter’s perception. As Street (2011) claimed, the existing political stance of voters may mediate the persuasiveness of celebrity politician. For the example of celebrity’s endorsement, which is a method commonly applied in America’s celebrity culture. Celebrity’s endorsement is expected to increase attractiveness for politicians in the same way as how endorsement functions in marketing: celebrities develop some positive personal identities, and when they endorse a product, these positive images are hopefully transferred to that product. On the other hand, young citizens are likely to be persuaded by celebrity’s political stance (Inthorn and Street, 2011). The young believe that it is not celebrities’ job to help the politician, and most of celebrities have no financial problems, so they are less likely to speak for a politician in order to satisfy their own interests.#p#分页标题#e#

 

It seems that the effect of celebrity endorsement is pivotal to voting decision, however, in a research carried out in 2004 regarding that year’s presidential election, two professors found out that the influence of celebrity endorsement in voting decision has been over-valued (Inthorn and Street, 2011). It is the fact that candidate enjoy a greater chance of winning than he would have absenting the endorsement. Nonetheless, although celebrity’s endorsement led exposed voters to say that they would vote to the candidate who have the support from this celebrity, it is appealing only to people who have strong positive impression about that celebrity. Secondly, personal and family relationships rather than others are cited as the most concerned elements by young voters when they are making voting decision. In summary, young generations’ turnouts are encouraged by celebrities and their voting decisions are affected by celebrity endorsement, however, the effects of endorsement are not decisive and other crucial elements should be taken into consideration.