The Media and the Message

Abstract

Political marketing models maintain that politicians can achieve electoral success by following strategies based on marketing consumer products and generally assume a passive role for the media. This paper assesses media coverage of the 2010 general election campaign, highlighting the active role played by the media. The various media played a major role in framing, transmitting, championing, and challenging the messages of political actors: models of political marketing that fail to address this effectively are fundamentally flawed. Further, while the press may have been influential in the final days of the campaign, both their influence and interpretative role appear to have been weakened by the televised leaders' debates and the rapid public response to the debates via relatively instant opinion polling. Although online social media failed to have their expected impact, there are signs that a more sophisticated approach to their use by political marketers will play an important role in the future.

KEYWORDS:

• political marketing
• media
• general election 2010

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mick Temple

Mick Temple is professor of Journalism & Politics at Staffordshire University, Staffordshire, United Kingdom. His media and politics publications include: Political Marketing, Party Behaviour and Political Science (2010), Political Marketing Models: The Curious Incident of the Dog That Doesn't Bark (2010), and The British Press (2008).