Abstract
The modernization of electoral campaigns was
often investigated through political spots. This research will go deeper and
will scrutinize the relation between politics and media under the light of campaign
professionalization. This research also explores if the campaign techniques
were more “top – bottom” or “bottom – up”. First we introduce the three phases
of campaign modernization. Through seven focus groups we reveal the changes of
electoral campaign in Albania Albania
Keywords: Personalization, politics, Americanization,
Albania, 2013 Elections
Introduction
For most of the parties the
electoral race is the most important political activity because it serves its
aim to gain power. That is why they support it with large human and financial
resources. Techniques of modernization are fading out the importance of the
party structure replacing it with the communication experts who place all the
media attention on the candidate and his/her characteristics. The
personalization of the political commercials is seen from political
communication researchers as part of the “Americanization” or modernization of the
electoral campaigns. This modernization comes also from a deep change in
political culture, media professionalism and civil society (Doolan 2009).
Several studies analyzed
the modernization of the campaign through investigating the political
commercials in a quantitative perspective. However, until now the researches
seemed to ignore the social perception of the professionalization of the
electoral race. This study aim to study in depth the audience feedback in a
qualitative analyze of the modern techniques of the campaign. Thus, we
conducted seven time-sessions with focus groups where we discussed about the
development of electoral campaigns in the light of modernization.
First we showed them the
political commercial and later had a free discussion about what elements of
modernization did the percept. Later we also asked about how they understood
these techniques and what did they suggest. This study aims to contribute to
the extensive literature of political communication through this qualitative
analyze of the campaign modernization in Albania
Theoretical
Framework
Do campaign matter? This
was the key question several decades ago when researches about electoral
campaigns began (Raknes, 2007). If in the beginning it was believed that the
tine of campaign is too short to change voter’s behavior, in the 80’ this
skepticism began changing (Raknes, 2007). This was explained through the
voter’s volatility and the increasing role of the communication experts.
The last two decades a lot
of researches are focused in the modern techniques compared with the
traditional ones of the campaigning (Lamprinakou, 2010). Some important studies
researched why parties needed to use the “Americanization” model for their
campaigns (Gibson and Rommelle, 2001)
One of the most influential
researchers of political communication Pipa Norris (2002) argues that the
electoral campaign developed through three stages: Pre-Modern (from half of XIX
century until 1950); Modern ( from 60’ to 80’) and Post Modern (from 90’ until
now). The first phase was totally focused in the interaction between the
candidate and the voters without other means of communication. Everything was
based through personal contact in door to door campaign. The Modern phase began
when the TV was born. This technology innovation totally changed the rules of
the game. The campaign was leaded now just from the party leader but from a
group of important staff who organized more professional political activities.
Media management became of utmost importance. The last Post Modern phase is
based actually on continuous campaign which does not limit itself just in
thirty days. Communication experts took had the key role.
In their study, Fisher and Denver United Kingdom
“Americanization” is often used as a question
rather than an answer (Doolan, 2009). Fritz Plasser (2002) after interviewing
502 political advisers reported that 84% of them accepted that the last years
their campaign techniques changed radically. On the same line Swanson and
Mancini (2004) emphasize that “Americanization” is a reference point also due
to the difficulties of defining it.
The adviser of
a political marketing company, Mc Can-Ericsson, Alberto Conte, described the
presidential elections in Panama
“The triumph
of Ernesto Perez Balldarez in presidential elections singed for the second time
a victory of “Saatchi and Saatchi” (an American campaign consultancy company).
They had a very disciplined client who accepted all their recommendations. It
was a well-structured campaign placing a lot of attention on details. The
experts did their job and “the product” followed them. (Negrine dhe
Papathanassopoulos, 1996).
The techniques
include personalization, catch-all policies, media centricity,
professionalization and political marketing (Plasser, 2002), (Butler
Methodology
Seven focus groups were
conducted with Albanian citizens in the capital city of Tirana
The focus group took place
in a meeting office in the center of Tirana where we showed by video projector
all the campaign political spots. The participants were asked about their
opinions. As moderators we stayed passive and we did not lead the conversation.
Participants were encouraged to share their perceptions about personalized spots
and how did they like it. They were notified that the conversation was being
recorded on audio and was part of a research. The tracks recorded were later
transcribed. The data were analyzed by qualitative software, Atlas ti. The
program generated the coded section numbers. We were interested to know how the
perceptions were connected between groups. In the “results” section we will
provide citations from the focus groups to illustrate the main outcomes.
We conducted our focus
group in the office where we observed their reactions when showing the
political spots. This perception was added to the result section. We composed
the focus group with different ages, genders and professions. We tried to place
in each group students, middle class workers, people who lived in the center
and in the periphery, poor and rich people. Specific participants category may
be more critics to some video-spots rather than others. These differences might
bring tough discussions which is a very good way to generate data with this method (Kitzinger & Barbour, 1999).
The groups had 56 % men and
44% women with and average age of 41 years old varying from 19 to 67 years old.
We wanted to have different ages in the focus group since we predict that these
group ages might have different level of interest about the political campaign
and that they may react differently to changes in those political races. 20% of
participants did not follow with attention the electoral campaign but just had
slight information about it through friends, social media or TV zapping. 55 %
had a medium level of interest in the electoral race and 25 % were very
interested and checked every day the news or political websites for latest
information.
Half of the participants
had Albanian medium income, 250 euro monthly payment. 1 in 5 participants had
high school education, 3/5 had university degree and 20% had professional
degree. (...)
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* European University of Tirana