Broadcasting in Political Communication
Public broadcasting has played a dominant role in political communications in many countries. This is because technology has permitted only one, or a limited number of television and radio channels. Whereas it has been possible - given the political freedom and the will - to create numerous publishing outlets of all sizes, broadcasting has been a natural, or near monopoly. Furthermore, television and radio have emerged in recent decades as by far the most popular and influential forms of communication. Thus, control of TV and radio bestows great political influence. See also Regulation of Media.
However, new technologies are changing this situation. In some countries, cable television has meant that there are now numerous alternative channels. It has been possible for many years to listen to the output of foreign radio stations. Improved reception means that TV in some countries also receives programmes from neighbouring countries and further afield. The development of worldwide TV news services, such as the U.S.-owned Cable News Network (CNN), is another innovation, as is the greater availability of video recorders. The Internet and electronic mail promise further revolutions in communications.
Despite these innovations, public broadcasting, and especially radio, remains for the time being the essential medium of political communication in many developing countries. Measures to control TV and radio to ensure that it promotes fairness between opposing political groups are essential. The task of ensuring this fairness is made harder by the fact that public television is so often under the effective control of the government of the day.
As far as elections are concerned, regulations involve both subsidies, usually in the form of allocations of free time on television and radio and controls - a carrot and a stick for the political parties.
Questions about Free Time for Political Broadcasts
A central question revolves around the distribution of time between competing political parties. This is the subject of the next entry, Formulas for Allocating Time. However, there are other issues. These may be at least as important.
First, any system of free television time may create particular problems in political systems like that of the United States, where elections consist of many thousands of essentially distinct battles between candidates, and where the role of political parties is relatively small. Thus, a particular candidate - say, for the office of U.S. Senator for California, for Congressman for a district in the State of New York, for Governor of Illinois, and so forth - will be little affected by the performance of his party's presidential candidate in a televised national debate, or by the general standing of his political party. It is his own propaganda that matters, and the personal image he manages to convey to his voters. Once it is a matter of allocating time between individual candidates rather than between national political parties, the task becomes far more complex; the many different elective offices in the United States contributes to the complexity.
Added to this is the fact that there exists in America a multitude of local TV and radio stations whose catchment areas often rarely coincide with those of electoral boundaries of Congressional districts. It is, therefore, open to argument that practical reasons exclude any possibility of introducing 'free time' for political broadcasts in American campaigns.
Without minimizing the difficulties, the Japanese system for free newspaper advertisements for candidates may provide a suitable model. As outlined in another entry, (see Regulating Advertising), candidates are permitted up to five free advertisements in a newspaper of their choice. Similarly, it would be possible to permit U.S. candidates for national elections, and for senior offices in state governments and legislatures, to choose the TV and radio stations on which they wished their free time slots to appear.
Second, tensions often arise between the broadcasting networks and the political parties about the amount of time they must make available for political broadcasting. Commercial stations stand to lose money from their advertisers if too many advertising slots are used up for political broadcasts. Moreover, the fact that TV sets can often be operated by remote control means that viewers will be tempted to turn to another station as soon as a political broadcast comes on the air.
A further issue is the length of the time slots allocated for political broadcasts. If a political party is given a total number of minutes of free broadcasting time during an entire campaign, it will want the maximum flexibility about how long each broadcast should be. If political broadcasts are to be 'serious' and to provide the opportunity for each side to present its policies and its leaders in detail, then each transmission needs to be relatively long. However, the advertising experts advising parties normally feel that a large number of short 'spots' are more effective than a small number of long programmes. In Britain, where the two main parties are each entitled to five TV broadcasts lasting ten minutes, they have tended in recent campaigns to schedule broadcasts of only five minutes, even though they have therefore had to 'waste' the other five minutes allotted to them. They have not been allowed to trade five slots of ten minutes each for ten slots of five minutes. The civic argument against short advertising spots is that they encourage increasingly shorter 'sound bites', a 'dumbing down' of political discourse, and negative campaigning.
The fact that political broadcasts are unpopular among executives of the broadcasting authorities leads to a number of control devices. First, the same political broadcast is, in some countries, shown at the same time on all the main channels. The remote control thus provides no escape for the politically apathetic viewer. (Electricity authorities and water authorities have occasionally remarked on the increase in the number of cups of tea or of visits to the nation's bathrooms during such 'no escape' periods.) A second method is to oblige the broadcasting authorities to transmit party election broadcasts as condition of their licenses. A third method (as in Mexico) is for the government to purchase broadcasting time for these political transmissions.
As far as the length of time slots for free broadcasts is concerned, international practice varies. In Turkey, parties must use their portion of time in slots of at least two minutes. In Germany, slots are 150 seconds. In Britain, the main parties must take their slots in portions of ten minutes.
Third, there is the issue of the production costs of party election broadcasts. A wealthy party will be able to spend money on preparing elaborate and costly film clips and will be able to employ some of the most experienced and costly advertising advisers and film-makers. By contrast, poor parties may be able to do little more than use their time slots for face-to-camera recordings of party leaders. Arguably, the contrast between the production costs of rival parties may undermine the fairness principle on which the idea of free election broadcasts is based. If this is seen as a problem, possible solutions are:
- provide money or facilities to each party to assist in the production of their broadcasts, or
- ban the use of filmed materials and insist that all the parties use their slots for simple, face-to-camera broadcasts.
Turkey has adopted the latter solution. On free TV broadcasts, male and female speakers must wear suits, and males must also wear ties. Only the Turkish flag and party emblem can be seen in the background.
Fourth, further questions arise about the rules for the broadcasting of debates, such as the famous, and probably decisive, TV duels in the 1960 presidential election in the United States between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon.
Rules on Paid Advertising during Election Campaigns
In several countries, commercial broadcasting networks are prevented from profiting at the expense of political parties by rules laying down that advertising time must be made available to the parties at rates no higher than those for commercial advertisers.
If only a limited time is available for paid TV advertisements by the political parties, there may need to be a mechanism for ensuring that it is fairly divided. Canada illustrates this situation.
In Canada, parties receive an insignificant amount of free broadcasting time. However, they are permitted to purchase air time, and receive partial reimbursement of their costs. The Canada Elections Act requires every broadcasting station to make a total of six and a half hours available for political broadcasts during a period beginning on the 29th day before the poll and ending on the second day before the poll. These hours are divided up by agreement between the rival political parties. If an agreement cannot be reached between them, the matter is referred to the government-appointed broadcasting arbitrator.72
Third, there is the very important question of how to assure that news broadcasts during election campaigns are fair. In Britain, the laws relating to broadcasting incorporate political neutrality. If political parties feel that they have been unjustly treated, they are entitled to appeal to the law courts. One way to try to assure fair coverage of election news is a rule in Britain that the proportion of time given on news and current affairs programmes to the coverage of the campaigns of the different political parties is in the same ratio as the parties' entitlements to free broadcasting time.
In Turkey, during the period that begins fifteen days before the election and ends at 6 p.m. on the eve of the elections, radio and television news bulletins must contain messages that are submitted by the political parties participating in the elections. The High Election Board limits the number of words in each party's text.73
Draft Only
