The Politics of Political Communication

Vignettes from India at election time

Some words or terms conjure strong images. For me, the term ‘political communication’ brings to mind the huge election rallies in India led by mike-wielding and garlanded politicians and huge cutouts of politicians dominating the landscape. Fellow Indians, I’m sure will agree to this image as well.

Political communication is the strongest during elections and, perhaps, this is the reason why it is also considered synonymous with elections. The last class that we had was on political communication in which we had a fairly animated debate on the various forms of political communication.

Five types of political communication were identified and the discussion mainly centred around whether these could be considered as political communication or not.

1. Election campaign

2. Campaigns to influence government decisions

3. Party communications with supporters

4. Party political marketing

5. Media relations campaigns aimed at political journalists.

During the discussion in class, I voiced my reservations about considering ‘party communication with supporters’ as a form of political communication. To me, this seemed more like a form of internal communication, than political communication. But Pam, quoting Brian McNair’s book on An Introduction to Political Communication, said that communication with supporters was just as critical, if not more and therefore a very important type of political communication.

I am still not convinced about this being a part of political communications. Any communication within an organisation, in this case the political party, is internal communications regardless of what is communicated. This communication helps the party cadre to understand its vision, values, culture and position on issues.

Granted that politics as ideology, as an agenda, and as propaganda itself, is the basis of communication to party supporters here. But does that make it political communications?