Political Reputation Management

The Strategy Myth

Christian Schnee

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317634324
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Public Relations
• Index: Business

It is widely assumed that a competitive political environment of public distrust and critical media forces political parties to manage communications and reputations strategically, but is this really true? Comprehensive control of communications in a fast-moving political and media setting isoften upset by events outside the communicator's control, taking over the news agenda andchanging the political narrative.

Based on interviews with leading communicators and journalists, this book explores the tensions between a planned, strategic communications approach and a reactive, tactical one. The interviewees, who over the past 15 years have been instrumental in presenting and shaping the public persona of party leaders and Prime Ministers, include, amongst others, William Hague, Ian Duncan-Smith, Michael Howard, David Cameron, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.It draws a unique picture of how political reputations are managed and, ultimately, confirms the discrepancy between what political communications management is thought to be, and how communications practitioners actually operate. This book empirically reviews political communications practice in order to analyse to what degree reality matches the concepts of strategic communications management.

This will be essential reading for researchers, educators and advanced students in public relations, communications studies and marketing.

1 Strategic reputation management

Nothing but a myth?

Introducing the argument

The question I shall be dealing with in this book originates from my professional experience as a communications manager in politics. I spent more than a decade advising candidates and incumbents on their relations with the public in general and the media in particular. My research was driven by an interest in the strategies and techniques that are used by communicators to build up and safeguard a politician’s reputation. It was this broad perspective that I adopted when commencing preliminary work on this project in January 2005.

After a number of bends and detours I narrowed my focus and ultimately sought to explore if and to what degree a politician’s reputation is being planned and managed strategically. Inspired by my own professional experience, I intended to investigate if what communications advisers and some academics portray as being a planned and strategic process is perhaps more akin to a streak of somewhat haphazard publicity activities as well as reactive and tactical media relations. My findings were a surprise and contrasted with much of what had been published about the subject in the past. The conclusion I arrived at is reflected in the subtitle of this book: The Strategy Myth.

I should at this early stage clarify that for practical reasons I decided to limit my attention to the relationship between communicators on the one hand and professional journalism on the other, which turned out to be a complex one, driven by constant rivalry, frequent collaboration and occasional collusion. Gregory (2011) points out that the word ‘communication’ is the preferred term for all public relations and marketing activities in government, and for this reason throughout this book I refer to communicators, unless there are specific reasons to distinguish between public relations and marketing advisers.

An underlying assumption of this research project implies the centrality of images and reputation, which is shrewdly touched upon by the Spanish philosopher Baltasar Gracian, who reminds us that phenomena cannot be taken for what they are but for what they appear to be (Gracian y Morales, 2005). When we turn to the map of the world we see continents and countries whose location, shape and size seem familiar and plausible to us. However, what we normally look at is a Mercator projection of the world, which for the sake of nautical navigation gives a precise representation of directions and shapes and thereby vastly distorts the sizes of countries, which only vaguely resemble actual world proportions – a factual deficiency most of us will not notice or easily accept, as the traditionally used image of the world looks so appropriate and unquestionable to us (Schechner, 2002).

This example aptly points out how we may be misled by appearances that we take for granted: a lesson politics has learned since the onset of civilization. Leary (1995) details how political leaders throughout history have recognized that their effectiveness and power depends in part on their public persona. Thus, since the early 20th century it has been debated that public opinion may be much less swayed by the electorate’s grasp of a factual matter or the candidate’s policies (Lippmann, 1997). Instead, politicians have to reckon with public images and reputation (Boorstin, 1992; Eisenegger, 2010). In the view of Eisenegger (2010), the focus on a candidate’s or an incumbent’s personality has long been used to emphasize and epitomize executive power.

While formerly the party leadership found its support soundly anchored in the party rank and file, nowadays its legitimacy hinges upon the audience’s willingness to grant it (Gould, 2002). The British philosopher David Marquand (2004) notes a return of quasi-absolutism in politics. Instead of God, he argues, it is now the mass audience from which the head of government obtains its blessing of legitimacy.

Today it may therefore appear that the individual politician is taking centre stage both in people’s perception and media coverage. Already in the 1980s and 1990s findings described the public’s attitude towards on-screen political protagonists as highly personalized (Hart, 1998). This in turn raised expectations for a politician’s impression management practice (Marquand, 2004).

Communications advisers at the time took up the cue, and Ronald Reagan’s aide, Michael Deaver, claimed that images of politicians are sometimes as useful as substance: ‘Not as important, but as useful’ (Deaver, 1987, p.73).

Waterman observed that image creation had become a serious business that had critical implications for a politician’s success (Denver et al., 2012). Already in 1999 for Plasser et al. self-presentation had become a fact of political life and a core concern for any ambitious politician. At the time of Plasser’s writing, New Labour exhibited an interest in candidate images that in the view of some observers verged on the obsessive (Rowan, 1998) – an alleged advantage the Conservatives sought to catch up on a decade later with the ascendancy of David Cameron (Shepherd, 2008).

Politicians have adapted to these growing expectations and learned the ropes of public performance in what Sarcinelli (2005) calls a media-representative democracy. Waterman reminds us that ‘in politics, candidates and incumbents spend considerable time and money cultivating a preferred image’ (Waterman et al., 1999, p.11). In his view the recognition that a politician’s image may oscillate between the positive and the negative concedes professional communicators a pivotal role in the political process and makes their expertise in designing images and building reputation indispensable. Thus, the concern with images and the tangible personalization in politics played into the hands of communications advisers who seek to position politicians prominently and present them to specific publics. On television politicians have therefore been portrayed as a clique of individuals who replace policy advocacy with carefully rehearsed sound bites (Maarek, 2011).

When in 2007 Gordon Brown succeeded Tony Blair in 10 Downing Street, The Economist launched a poignant criticism against the new prime minister, claiming that what was known about his personality was ‘unappetising’ (Bagehot, 2007, p.44). The author eerily concluded that ‘for Mr. Brown perhaps personality is destiny after all’. Indeed, for many of the preceding months the media had busied themselves with a debate about the new Labour leader’s personal strengths and weaknesses. While Gordon Brown’s ideological credentials and political visions for the country still appeared to be shrouded in mist, political pundits and the electorate sought to find clues that might help interpret his personality. In the spirit of this debate, Theakston (2010) reminded us that a politician’s job specification requires individuals to score well on policy vision, emotional intelligence and communicative competence. In other words, both the media and academic discourses raised the question as to whether Brown’s public persona could be related to his fitness to govern the country. In a similar vein, Marquand had argued that the public may not be able to distinguish between the government, the office holder and the private individual, but concentrates its attention on the leader both in his political role and his private life (Marquand, 2004). Brown’s case is evidence for the relevance of a candidate’s and incumbent’s reputation for political success, which has been testified to in interviews that de Landtsheer conducted with 50 marketing experts in various European countries. Respondents agreed that a politician’s public profile was a prerequisite upon which political careers might hinge and therefore of ‘capital importance’ (de Landtsheer et al., 2008, p.218).

In response, politicians seek to ensure that their public persona at least appears competent and appealing. Swanson and Mancini (1996) explored how politicians build up a support structure that helps accommodate and reconcile their respective public persona with the expectations of the media and the electorate. What Swanson and Mancini (1996) describe are instruments and techniques related to political impression management, and tools to alter and adjust a politician’s reputation. In a more recent comparative study of political personality public relations (PR) practice, Esser and d’Angelo (2006) insist that candidate selection in the UK is driven by concerns for telegenic criteria, while communications managers are particularly expected to guide politicians’ public persona in response to media expectations.

These and similar phenomena in the view of de Landtsheer et al. (2008) comfortably fit into concepts of political marketing theory. In this context the candidate is seen as the product and the citizens as consumers who withdraw their support if they are not kept satisfied. It may therefore be argued with some credibility that consumerism has found its way into the political arena and is leaving its mark on democratic processes (Newman, 1999a, 1999b; Lees-Marshment, 2004; Maarek, 1995, 2011). On the surface it would appear that today marketing concepts have become firmly established in a political context and eagerly used by politicians and their advisers to create images of candidates (O’Shaughnessy, 1990; Maarek, 1995; Newman, 1999a, 1999b).

Politicians see themselves and are seen by others as performers whose objective it is to influence public perception and gain their audiences’ support (Schwartzenberg, 1977; Newman, 1999a; Maarek, 1995, 2011). A reliance on technical expertise and the recruitment of special advisers to fulfil the function of communications professionals – popularly referred to as ‘spin doctors’ – testifies to this development (Wring, 2004; Negrine, 2007, 2008).

When investigating the contest between political actors and journalists, Negrine found that both sides have become more professional. Moreover the relationship between political communicators and journalists has seen a realignment of power in recent years (Negrine, 2008). In particular, the 1990s witnessed strenuous efforts by New Labour to recruit professional communicators who were tasked not just with advocating the party’s cause. Rather, their brief was to emphasize the position of party leaders, help them communicate their messages and gain support among the media (Cook, 1998; Wring, 2004). The journalist Andrew Rawnsley analysed these developments and detailed how improved organizational skills and techniques could potentially give political actors an edge in their personal media relations (Rawnsley, 2010).

Moreover, in their attempts to shape individual politicians’ reputations, communications managers have been espousing the notion of planning and strategic management, which writers in marketing and PR defined as a research-based process led by objectives (Grunig and Repper, 1992; Smith, 2012). Planned action and strategic thinking is believed to increase efficiency and effectiveness, as it suggests future action and anticipates developments. Trux (2002) advocates that a strategic plan will bring about better results than reactive and improvised action. This may explain why communicators have sought to create themselves more latitude to manoeuvre strategically by personalizing party political communications, while keeping the respective political party officials at arm’s length and relegating the electorate to passive spectators of stage-managed appearances (Swanson and Mancini, 1996; Barkham et al., 2005).

However, when applied to political communications management the case for planned and strategic action starts to appear less feasible. Notwithstanding strenuous efforts in media relations management, it seems fair to say that total control of messages has so far been elusive as events upset the communicators’ news agenda, change the political narrative and potentially damage reputation (Smith, 2001). Gould (2002) argued that images in politics are fickle and so is the environment in which politicians and communicators are operating. In his view, campaign objectives and strategies cannot be controlled easily, if at all. Adaptability to constant change is a core requirement for any political communicator. Gould (2002) finds that current literature about communications management does not sufficiently take into account the vulnerability of images as a result of the unpredictable nature of politics and political journalism. Indeed, in his comprehensive survey of strategy making and planning in a communications context, Moss (2011) elaborates on the added challenges posed by a dynamic environment. He contends that across different industries managers tend to have ‘little time for planning and abstract strategy formulation’ (Moss, 2011, p.30). Already in the mid-1970s some of the management literature called the notion of strategic management a myth, replacing it with an image of evolutionary, reactive action (Mintzberg, 1975). In line with both Moss and Mintzberg, O’Shaughnessy et al. (2012, p.357) acknowledge that the media environment in which politicians operate is unpredictable and fluid to a degree that ‘defies any attempts at political management’. From this they infer that communications management in politics needs to up its game. Baines (2005) recognized that a volatile environment, sudden shifts in public mood, scandals and eruptions of accusations have to be addressed through more effective and efficient marketing tools and mechanisms.

In these introductory paragraphs I have very briefly touched upon the defining issues that motivate and guide this book. First of all, the centrality of images and personality in political communications explains why individual candidates and incumbents seek to manage their public perception (Smith, 2001). Second, the unpredictability of events and the volatility of the environment challenge intentions to project reputation strategically and to plan communications activities systematically.

Against this backdrop I seek to explore the potential discrepancy between what political communications management purports to be doing (exercising a strategic function), on the one hand, and how communications practitioners in politics actually operate (tactically and reactively), on the other. In Chapters 2, 3 and 4 I shall be reviewing how current research on management and communications has largely ignored this gap. The subsequent empirical part of this book (Chapters 5, 6 and 7) can be understood as a response to Moss (2011, p.40), who insists that this distinction between planned strategy and responsive tactics ‘requires closer attention if we are to understand more fully the nature of the managerial role in the communications context’.

This backdrop informs more specific objectives that I am pursuing in this book:

• To explore and identify features that distinguish a planned, strategic communications approach in political reputation management from a reactive, tactical one.

• To consider the resources and circumstances that enable or militate against a strategic approach in political reputation management.

• To understand if, to what degree and under what circumstances we may expect a politician’s reputation to be managed strategically.

• To integrate findings into a predictive theoretical framework of strategic personal reputation management in British politics.

To forestall equivocation and misunderstanding, it is worth clarifying that the subject of this book is not primarily the political candidate or incumbent, but instead the collaboration between communications managers and politicians. Together they devise arrangements that allow more or less strategic reputation management activities to take place.

The value of this work is intended to be twofold. Insights drawn from my research should help practitioners advance political public relations practice by identifying prerequisite features for strategic management of reputation in politics. I assume that a strategic approach carries practical advantages in terms of efficiency and effectiveness: thus by constituting a model that assists PR managers in steering personal reputation management more strategically, arguably my findings will help communications advisers in politics to operate more successfully.

Moreover, this book also aims to make a theoretical contribution to the discipline by generating a model that serves as a predictive tool that allows us to identify and forecast the presence or absence of strategic practice in political reputation management.

The data collection and analysis for this empirical study is informed by a research design upon which I would like to touch briefly in order to help the reader understand how I arrived at my findings and conclusions (Mason, 1993). The researc...