Political communication is defined as the process of creating and sending verbal and written messages from politicians, political parties, and other political actors to citizens in a democratic society. The way politicians communicate is the representation of their values, positions, and policies (De Vreese et al., 2018). Perloff (2021) argued that communication is about getting the message about their positions to the general public.
The primary purpose of communication is to establish trust with your audience by employing techniques that legitimate oneself and cause as an expert in an issue they represent. On the other hand, political communication strategies are defined as general rules or guidelines intended to help a person effectively communicate the essence of their messages (Farkas & Bene, 2021). Strategies of communication politicians use should consist of a message that contains the core ideas and is often presented using a specific medium such as message boards, newsgroups, among others.
Political communication strategies include the notion that a political campaign can be won because of how a candidate communicates with people. For example, Obama being the candidate incited many voters to vote for him because of his rhetorical style, delivery, and choice of words. This leads to voters feeling they would be in a safe pair of hands. The effectiveness of political communication is judged by how well it conveys information and how effectively it spreads knowledge to the masses (López-Paredes & Carrillo-Andrade, 2022).
Politicians must communicate effectively with their audience to win and convince them on different issues. President Obama has been considered one of the most influential presidents in terms of his implementation of policy (Iosifidis & Wheeler, 2018). He came up with the Affordable Care Act, which was implemented to provide health care for all Americans, including those with pre-existing conditions.
Obama worked with agencies to form Better Health Choices initiative that provides citizens with information on their health insurance choices while lowering costs. At the same time, President Trump has been criticized for his inability to communicate his agenda. “Trump has continued to ignore traditional channels of communication like the (DNC) and (RNC).” In addition, he has also been criticized for not utilizing modern media; he has not been using Twitter or his page and social media sites such as Facebook (Brym et al., 2018). The main reason behind this is that he believes these are tools used by the political elite and that they cannot communicate effectively with the general public (Brym et al., 2018). Hence, although Donald Trump and Barack Obama were both considered effective leaders at their time, in terms of political communication, Obama’s is better than Trump’s.
In addition, a political communication strategy could be considered a plan that outlines the arguments, information, and strategies to convince the audience to vote for a particular candidate. For example, Trump communicated effectively by sharing his policies with the public through rallies and interviews he gave (Brym et al., 2018). Trump focuses on himself only and the good intentions he can bring to America.
A political campaign is an organized effort to influence the decision-making process of voters when they choose their representatives. Balakhonskaya et al. (2019) claimed that a typical election campaign contains three phases: the first phase is the exploratory phase, where a presidential candidate will announce their candidacy. It is also when the candidate will start to raise funds (Balakhonskaya et al., 2019). For instance, looking at President Obama’s political communication in election campaigns, Obama raised more than $750,000,000 before being elected and re-elected as president (Iosifidis & Wheeler, 2018, p. 112).
On the other hand, Trump’s political communication strategy during his campaign enabled him to raise $363,000,000 before being elected president (Brym et al., 2018). These two presidents’ political communication strategies have different effects on the population and affect their campaigns differently.
The second phase is the initial phase of the campaign, where they will lay out the platform and issues they want to deal with. Candidates will give speeches on television and radio; they will have large or small rallies depending on their popularity (Balakhonskaya et al., 2019). They will attend debates and meet with voters. So it is the beginning of the political process of getting their name out there for citizens to vote for that particular politician (Jaffrelot & Verniers, 2020).
For instance, Barack Obama did this eloquently through his different speeches giving speeches to the Party faithful about proposals and ideas for the country. The third phase is the general election phase, where the candidate will start appealing to voters and convince them why they should vote for the politician. It is the last phase of the campaign, so candidates will begin to appeal to their audience more (Jaffrelot & Verniers, 2020). Candidates are starting to get closer to voters to gain their trust and persuade them to vote for them.
In conclusion, politicians’ communication strategies are essential in the political world. Communication strategy is important for politicians because it does play a crucial role in gaining voters. Politicians’ strong communication strategies help them win elections and gain supporters, while weak communication strategies can lead them to lose elections and even a revolution. With this being said, from the past two examples, people make a decision based on what they hear; for example, in Trump’s case, people are not sure about his policies or whether he will be a good president or not because he has not communicated well with his audience.
References
Balakhonskaya, L. V., Zhuravleva, N. N., & Beresneva, I. V. (2019). Communication Strategy of Political Leader’s Image Mythologization in Digital Space during the Course of Election Campaign: Comparative Aspect. In 2019 Communication Strategies in Digital Society Workshop (ComSDS) (pp. 22-29). IEEE.
Brym, R., Slavina, A., Todosijevic, M., & Cowan, D. (2018). Social movement horizontality in the internet age? A critique of Castells in light of the Trump victory. Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie, 55(4), 624-634.
De Vreese, C. H., Esser, F., Aalberg, T., Reinemann, C., & Stanyer, J. (2018). Populism as an expression of political communication content and style: A new perspective. The international journal of press/politics, 23(4), 423-438.
Farkas, X., & Bene, M. (2021). Images, politicians, and social media: Patterns and effects of politicians’ image-based political communication strategies on social media. The international journal of press/politics, 26(1), 119-142.
Iosifidis, P., & Wheeler, M. (2018). Modern political communication and web 2.0 in representative democracies. Javnost-The public, 25(1-2), 110-118.
Jaffrelot, C., & Verniers, G. (2020). The BJP’s 2019 election campaign: Not business as usual. Contemporary South Asia, 28(2), 155-177.
López-Paredes, M., & Carrillo-Andrade, A. (2022). The Normative World of Memes: Political Communication Strategies in the United States and Ecuador. Journalism and Media, 3(1), 40-51.
Perloff, R. M. (2021). The dynamics of political communication: Media and politics in a digital age. Routledge.
Stier, S., Bleier, A., Lietz, H., & Strohmaier, M. (2018). Election campaigning on social media: Politicians, audiences, and the mediation of political communication on Facebook and Twitter. Political communication, 35(1), 50-74.