The Changing Nature of Party Election Broadcasts: The Growing Influence of Political Marketing

This paper reports findings from a study of the changing nature of the narrative contents and production formats of Party Election Broadcasts (PEBs) produced by the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democratic parties for UK General Elections from 1979 to 2010. This analysis tracked production changes that might signal a movement on the part of the political parties towards using marketing-oriented techniques of the kind found in televised advertising. Although PEBs are not technically classified as advertisements by the broadcasting industry, but rather as programmes, they nevertheless present an opportunity to political parties to promote themselves and their policies. Using content analysis, it was found that PEBs have grown progressively shorter from 1979 to 2010 and become faster paced. They have become more sophisticated as productions with wider use of dramatised documentary formats rather than talking heads, popular music and professional performers.