In a Nutshell: "Political Communication is ...."

Doris A. Graber

In a nutshell, what is political communication? When my freshman advisees ask me that question, I often tell them one of my favorite anecdotes. It is a story, attributed to Gordon Allport, about two priests who were debating whether it was proper to smoke and pray at the same time. When they couldn't agree, they asked the Pope for counsel and were perplexed when his answers seemed contradictory. So they compared how each had phrased the question addressed to the Holy Father. One priest had asked whether it was proper to smoke while praying to which the Pope replied "Certainly Not" explaining that praying is serious business. There should be no distractions. The other priest had used a slightly different frame, asking the Pope if it was proper to pray while smoking. "Certainly," responded the Pope, "prayer is always appropriate."

I use that story to illustrate that political communication is nothing more and nothing less than the creation and transmission of politically significant messages that travel from originators to receivers. In our story, the priests are the originators and the Pope is the receiver and, apparently, the message was not altered by intermediary receivers as often happens. When important messages are sent and received, they produce an effect. In this case, the effect was the Pope's response intended to guide the priests' actions. Predictably, the answers did not settle the argument -- which is another part of the story's lesson -- human environments are so complex that message effects are often unpredictable.

Allport's story also carries a lesson about message construction: How messages are framed obviously matters greatly in the conduct of human activities because subtle differences can totally change meanings and effects. Furthermore, the priests' tale demonstrates that the identity and position of the communicating parties matter. When heads of the government, or the clergy, or other leaders speak, their words are likely to prevail. Political communication scholars therefore routinely ask about the identity of message originators and then use that knowledge to speculate about the likely meaning and impact of the message.

Summing up the main lesson, I explain that political communication involves analyzing the effects of message flows and format and content when the subject matter concerns the realm of politics. The priest story was mostly about religion, but it could be potentially political because the issue -- when and where one may smoke -- is currently hotly debated by public officials in the U.S.. Interested citizen groups are engaged in verbal battles designed to produce or forestall laws to regulate smoking.

I point out that political communication researchers might investigate how the parties participating in the debate about it -- citizens, lobby groups, politicians, civic leaders journalists -- are conducting their verbal sparring. The motivations underlying the discussions and the consequences springing from the interchange could be research targets as well, as could the framing and targeting of messages about smoking rules, the ways in which such messages are disseminated, and how interested parties interpret them. Such research might also explore the influence of childhood and adult socialization and cultural and sub-cultural variations in message interpretation.

Moving beyond the Allport story, I try to alert freshmen to the breadths of political situations that can be understood only by knowing about the messages that were exchanged. I point out that multiple aspects of electoral politics have been the most widely-covered research area in recent decades because the selection of public officials is crucial in democracies and hinges on the messages that are circulating within the political system.

I also let students know that political communication is a vibrant, growing area of social science. New research paths are constantly opening up even in well-established research areas. For instance, in recent years election-related research has shifted analyses of the impact of political advertising and political debates on individual voters and on election outcomes. Researchers are assessing how the channels for mass transmission of information, especially new communications media, like cable television and the Internet, have changed the nature and flow of political messages.

When political communication scholars examine the message interplay about domestic and foreign policies that shapes the opinions of elites and ordinary people, they draw on multiple social sciences. That includes psychology, sociology, communication and, in recent years, neuro-science. In fact, crossing disciplinary borders to explain human behaviors in response to political messages is one of the hallmarks of current political communication studies. It is essential for analyzing the substantive content of messages and for inferring the psychological characteristics, beliefs, motivations and strategies of political actors from their messages. Even when the psychological characteristics remain obscure, knowing which political personalities are quoted and in what connections yields valuable insights about power configurations and communication networks. The interdisciplinary approach encompasses theories, subject matter and research methods, especially various types of interviews and experiments and verbal and audio-visual content analysis.

Other areas that appear on the radar screens of political communication researchers include studying public policies relevant to privacy laws, censorship issues, and regulation of mass media to assure that diverse political opinions can receive a wide hearing. Preserving First Amendment freedoms of speech and the press from government intrusion and guarding against excessive self-censorship have been of great concern.

Mentioning the First Amendment provides a great opening for talking about the connection between political communication and political freedom and citizenship -- actual, practical citizenship. 'What do you think about the Patriot Act?' I may ask. What can citizens do to support or oppose it? Should they? What would you do? What do you need to learn and practice to be an effective citizen? Answers to such questions make students realize that political communication is not only something to study and know; above all, it is something to practice. If and when they do, they will feel the thrill of discovering that civic activism can improve the lives of the people they cherish, however wide that circle may be.

Doris Graber is Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the author of Media Power in Politics and Mass Media and American Politics.

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