Politinės reklamos kūrimo procesas Lietuvoje ; The process of creating political advertising in Lithuania

Abstract

Political advertising becomes a simultaneous part of electoral process for all political parties, as common independent elections are approaching and the citizens of a country are going to vote for their representatives to the government. This process becomes especially important to political parties, as recent evidence proves that every political force in Lithuania can potentially apply for the same electors in Lithuania, as they are not devoted to one exact party. The number of such voters, who make up their decision on who to vote during the elections, is increasing. The expression and influence on the electors of political advertising in the media has widely been analysed, however, the process of creating political advertising has not been thoroughly researched in Lithuania. Therefore, the concept of political advertising is comparatively new in our country. The objectives of this work – is to analyse and explain the procedure of creating political advertising – in the process of planning, organizing and realizing it. Besides, the purpose is to research the legal regulations of political advertising on the basis of Lithuanian legitimate system. The object for the research is political advertising itself as well as the process, structure and peculiarities of creating it. The study relies on the analysis, filing and classification of Lithuanian and foreign scientific literature. In addition, the qualitative investigation, i.e. partly structural interview, is carried out. The latter method has been chosen, in order to discover the organizational characteristics of the process of creating political advertising in political communication in Lithuania, as well as to ground and illustrate the analysed theoretical studies. Lithuanian politicians or people, working in electoral headquarters during the elections, have been chosen as research objects (see appendix no.), as well as the representatives of advertising companies and specialists of public relations (see appendix no.), working in the field of creation of political advertising. In order to achieve the clear evidence, Lithuanian and foreign advertising experts have been interviewed. Political advertising in Lithuania is not supported by stable background of legal regulation. In European Union and other foreign countries every single move of political advertising is governed by statutes. In Lithuania the problem is connected with having a general system of legal regulation of political advertising. For some time political advertising was not legally governed at all. Even though the Statute of Advertising 2001 was adopted, it is not applicable for political advertising. For the first time the concept of political advertising, it's propagation means and restraints were defined in 2004 when the Parliament of Lithuania in urgent order and special session adopted the Statute of Financing and Financing Control of Political Parties and Political Campaigns. The study has proved that the model chosen by the political parties in Lithuania this year will be common to post-modern electoral campaigns. The characteristic features were reflected in the interviews with the respondents. This is a long period of campaign, the major part of work being accomplished by professional advisers and not by the party authorities; moreover, a wide range of media is employed. Electoral campaigns are concentrated on the needs of electors, whereas, the comprehensive analysis of electors or their groups provides the possibility to form effective political offer. The hypotheses raised in the study proved out only partly. The research confirmed that the common concept of political advertising in Lithuania does not exist. The data of the qualitative research allows to state that the representatives of Lithuanian political parties and the specialists of public relations are aware of the fact, political advertising performing the function of persuading. Moreover, political advertising is the process of communication, during which a political party or a candidate gets the possibility to send political news via the media channels and to influence political views of the recipients of that information. The second hypothesis appeared to be untrue, as the process of creating political advertising does take place during the electoral campaign. Representatives of bigger parties claimed that it is necessary to start the preparatory work as soon as the elections are over.