Packaging Politics

Packaging Politics is a chapter in Political Communications in Britain’s Media Democracy by Bob Franklin, which talks about how politics have used and continue to use the media to help move forward in their careers, specifically in Britain. He talks about the use of the ‘spin doctor’[1], specifically referring to the relationship between Tony Blair as Labour leader and Alistair Campbell, and the idea of using the media to shape politics, believing, along with Young who he cites, that ‘in the struggle to capture the public mind, spinning is the most elementary weapon.’[2] It is an interesting thought to visualise where the political world would be now without media, as it has become such a vital device in which to put information across to the voting public, whether it has a spin on it or not.

 Arguably naïve former Prime Minister Bevan believed that the publicity one received was deemed unimportant so long as the policy they backed was a good one. This may have been partly true back when he was heavily involved in the government in 1959, however Wilson, first active in the 1960’s believed that most of politics is presentation and what isn’t is timing[3], which I think is a more accurate view of modern politics. Another idea brought up in the chapter is that politics is becoming more of a consumer business than it ever has been – the idea that governments are getting better at ‘packaging politics’ in a more user friendly way to appeal to more voters. They are employing communications officers and directors to ensure that the information being given out is on point and will help their respective parties. The politicians themselves are also making themselves more widely received, for example political shows are being broadcast on television, and also politicians are not limiting themselves to purely topical shows, for example Tony Blair’s appearance on Richard and Judy[4] or more recently David Cameron’s appearance on Daybreak.

The downside to this media ‘spin’ is when critics say that the media corrupts and manipulates the information, making it more about the form of content than the content itself[5], however I think there is a strong possibility that politics were corrupted even before the media were involved. The idea of ‘packaging politics’ has stemmed from the exchange relationship between politicians and the media, where the insider information is traded for coverage in the Press, and the interesting thing is that neither are particularly dominant in the relationship, and that the two are slowly merging and we are seeing careers in both politics and communications. The two also work on a hierarchy, in that the Prime Minister or say a Cabinet member will be in the position to be interviewed by a prestige newspaper or television programme, however the lower down Party members would deal with the less known media – known as ‘press party parallelism’[6] and the two ends of the spectrum rarely collide.

The sad fact is also that politicians often use their opponents’ weaknesses to get ahead, rather than focus on their own campaigns, which begs the question; is this what politics has come to?

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[1] Franklin, B., 2004. Packaging Politics. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. np.

[2] Franklin, B., 2004. Packaging Politics. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. np.

[3] Franklin, B., 2004. Packaging Politics. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. np.

[4] Franklin, B., 2004. Packaging Politics. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. np.

[5] Franklin, B., 2004. Packaging Politics. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. np.

[6] Franklin, B., 2004. Packaging Politics. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. np.