Suchergebnisse

Contents -- List of Contributors -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Chapter 1: Introduction -- 1 The UK Context -- 2 Understanding the Campaign Through Political Marketing Research -- References -- Chapter 2: Election Strategies, Campaign Themes and Target Voters -- 1 The Unofficial Long Campaign (April 2009-May 2015) -- Age of Austerity -- Austerity-Lite -- The Scottish Question -- The Permanent Campaign -- 2 The Short Campaign (March-May 2015) -- The Conservatives and the Crosby Strategy -- Labour and the Axelrod Strategy -- The Liberal Democrats and the Coetzee Strategy

Alessandro Nai & Annemarie Walter (eds), New Perspectives on Negative Campaigning: Why Attack Politics Matters, England, Colchester: ECPR Press, 2015; 424 pp.: ISBN: 9781785521287£65.00 (hbk)

Political campaigns are orchestrated attempts by political organizations to garner public support through persuasive communication in order to influence public policy in their favor. This broad definition encapsulates all forms of campaigns from those of neighborhood organizations seeking to influence local politicians to the campaigns of political parties and candidates who seek election to office in order to shape policy themselves. In pluralist democracies, campaigns are crucial for representation. Campaigns are a means by which groups of individuals with a common cause can communicate their stance and enable others with similar concerns to join their campaign; thus, campaigns give voice to those individuals and the supporters of their cause. The majority of academic research has focused on the campaigns orchestrated by those seeking election, in particular political parties or candidates seeking to be elected as national president. Due to the levels of resources, the campaigns run by candidates for the U.S. presidency are the most sophisticated and gain most attention. The campaign environment is more complex, however. This entry explores that complex environment, discusses the evolution of political campaigns to their current professionalized form, and concludes with research around campaign effects.

© 2016 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.Studies of election campaigning from a comparative perspective have a long history; this study approaches the topic through a most-similar regime perspective to explore the ebb and flow of innovations in digital campaigning between presidential campaigns in France and the United States. The hype surrounding the 2008 Obama campaign overshadowed innovations in France the previous year, while the 2011 contest gained little serious academic attention. Using a well-established content analysis methodology the research explains the strategic design of the digital dimension of the campaigns of the leading candidates (Sarkozy and Royal in 2007, Obama and McCain in 2008, Hollande and Sarkozy in 2011, and Obama and Romney in 2012). The research then assesses the strategic contribution of each feature using schematics for understanding the flow of communication, as well as the strategy employed by each candidate. The key findings are that the campaigns are becoming more interactive, with the citizens increasingly more able to enter into conversations with the campaign teams, however interactivity when it happens is carefully controlled. Largely, however, there is a strong similarity masked by the sophistication of US contests. Despite the advances in communication technology and the social trends they have instigated, campaign communication remains top-down and digital technologies are used to gather data and push supporters towards activism than creating an inclusive space for the co-creation that cyberoptimists argued would revitalise the structures of democracy.

Online campaigning is now embedded in most democracies and has evolved to focus on activating and mobilising online followers in order to extend the reach of campaign communication. This article explores the extent of party use of social media platforms in the UK during the 2015 general election, and the extent to which they were able to harness their followers to work for the campaign. The data, drawn from analysis of social media profiles and a survey, finds parties keen to develop shareable content and using all three major social media platforms. The followers largely performed few sporadic interactions, with parties only gaining 1-3% who would be activists that were committed to the campaign. The reasons for this appear to be the failure by parties to enthuse their followers, rather they lag behind NGOs in having active, campaigning communities. Overall the article suggests that the online campaign might play a marginal role in elections, perhaps firming up wavering supporters although there could be evidence that some parties do gain active followers over the course of an election contest.

Within this article we examine the adherence to the conventions of online communication and hypermedia campaigning techniques among European political parties using UK parties as a case study. Overall we find UK political parties adapting to the norms of online communication and a hypermedia campaign model. The Internet is also a feature of the permanent campaign and having a vibrant, frequently updated and interactive web presence is, almost, de rigueur, though sophistication is hindered by resources. One corollary may be that members feel closer to the party, though techniques for achieving this are explored to a greater extent by opposition parties rather than those of government suggesting campaigning norms prevail and there is little indication parties wish to relinquish any of the power over 'doing' politics.

The reception of political communication is a highly important aspect of the process of politics. The way in which communication is received, how it is considered by the receiver, and with what impact, are key determinants of understanding how messages are acted upon, and so how support is gained for initiatives and how voter choices are influenced. This important study takes a psychological approach to exploring how audience members receive messages and what cognitive processes may take place. Cognition is explored drawing on theories from the field of communication psychology, applying them to the modern political environment using examples from a wide range of contexts, and a wide range of media, from television to Facebook. The book offers an in-depth and detailed theoretical framework and is the first work to position cognitive psychology at the heart of political communication and make it accessible to as wide an audience as possible.

Who were the British MPs sympathetic to the Soviets - the 'crypto-communists' 'left-wing gadflys', the 'neo-Stalinist left' so derided by fellow politicians, journalists, historians and the public. These Labour MPs, fingered as 'Soviet spies' who developed links with post-war Russia, were seen as potentially anti-Western actors in the Cold War. Against the Cold War examines the careers and motives of MPs like Arthur Horner, Tom Driberg and Ian Mikardo who developed ideological links with the Soviet Union and whose ideas influenced Labour's left-wing. Although radical and sympathetic to Communi

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