Contemporary Political Communications: Audiences, Politicians and the Media in International Research

Abstract

Research into political communication has grown rapidly in the past three decades, shifting from specific, quantitative and utilitarian studies to include a broad variety of research questions, methods and theoretical frameworks. Interdisciplinary work in political communication takes audiences, political actors (such as governments and politicians), and media content and media institutions as central foci. Research has traditionally focused on election campaign‐specific studies within national contexts. Emerging research, however, is now addressing broader questions about media texts and organisations and also about representations and power. This research is working to trace technological changes and developments in an era of globalised media and political communication and developing new, complex conceptions of audience agency and reception.

Negative political advertising and the imperative of broadcast regulation in Ghana

“…The media can, by being used as the forum for the trading of insults between parties and candidates and supporters, engender a malign influencea mood or climate of opinion that is dubious about democratic government and politics -and ultimately, a 'dumbing down' (Young et al 2007: 54) of political efficacy. Given Ghana's chequered political history and experience with military takeovers -and the corresponding shaky state of media rights and freedom of expression -any equivocation about the efficacy of the democratic alternative could, quite conceivably, encourage -or in any case provide the pretext for -a subversion of the current constitutional order -and a consequent abbreviation of the current dispensation of broadcast pluralism.…”