Political Communication Strategies in Post-Independence Jamaica, 1972-2006

Floyd E. Morris

• Publisher: The University of the West Indies Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9789766407803
• eBook ISBN: 9789766407827

In Political Communication Strategies in Post-independence Jamaica, 1972–2006, Floyd E. Morris analyses some of the factors that contribute to apathy among citizens towards the political process by focusing on the communication strategies used by leaders and their administrations. He examines the relationship between leaders and the wider society they seek to influence, the communication methods and techniques that have been deployed in the exercise of power, and how change is effected or stymied by political communication. The central argument of the book is that the success or failure of leaders and their administrations in modern Jamaica is closely linked to an effective communication strategy to support their programmes and policies.

Morris examines the campaigns and tenure of three of Jamaica's longest-serving prime ministers and assesses the communication strategies used to market their government's programmes and policies. By analysing the successes and failures of administrations between 1972 and 2006, he offers insight on the best approaches for connecting with and engaging citizens through effective communication.

1.

The Conceptual Framework of Political Communication

Communication is extremely important in any political process, and in a modern context, no political parties or their leaders can be effective in communicating their programmes and policies without using the media. It is that institution that gives efficacy to what is being communicated, where the receiver interprets and understands messages in the same or a similar manner as the sender intends (Hall et al. 1973). If there are misunderstandings or misinterpretations by individuals, that suggests something is wrong with the process. Misunderstandings and misinterpretations of messages contribute to the failure of these leaders and institutions. Conversely, correct interpretations and understandings redound to their success.

Because this book explores the argument that “the success or failure of a leader and his or her political organization in Jamaica is closely linked to an effective communication strategy for their programmes and policies to citizens”, there is a concentrated focus on the media and the process of communication.

Those who are charged with the responsibility of producing and disseminating the messages of political leaders and their political organizations must be cognizant of the process and what it entails.

They must ask the following questions:

• What is the relationship between leaders and the wider society they seek to influence?
• What are the communication methods and techniques that have been deployed in the exercise of power in relation to the perceived popular source of that power – the people?
• How is change effected or stymied by political communication?

They must also be conscious of some of the foundational ontological and epistemological issues driving political communication, such as freedom and order.

The concepts are quintessential, as they serve to highlight some of the central issues related to the subject. These ontological and epistemological issues are central to understanding and explaining some of the concerns involved in communicating messages from political leaders and their political organizations in Jamaica.

The dichotomy between freedom and order has been debated by scholars and philosophers from the time of Socrates, and more recently, other philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Hahn and John Stuart Mill have differed in their points of view.

Hobbes believed that in the state of nature, men are “solitary, poor, nasty brutish and short”. Because of this state of nature, he believed that the state had the right to preserve order and to restrict freedom (Hobbes [1651] 1969). Locke, on the other hand, believed that no one had the right to impose restrictions on another unless that person agreed to surrender his or her rights. If there were impositions, then people had the right to defend themselves. He maintained the view that the state should be there only to preserve the rights of citizens (Locke [1689] 1988).

In On Liberty, Mill offered some interesting perspectives. He discussed the historical struggle between authority and liberty and described the “tyranny” of government, which in his view needed to be controlled by the liberty of citizens (Mill [1859] 2010). He divided this control of authority into two distinct areas – necessary rights belonging to citizens and the “establishment of constitutional checks by which the consent of the community, or a body of some sort, supposed to represent its interest, was made a necessary condition to some of the more important acts of the governing power” (4). Mill cautioned against tyrannical rule, either from government or from the majority. He felt there were three fundamental liberties that must be preserved for individuals: freedom of thought and emotion; freedom to pursue taste, providing this did no harm to others, even if deemed immoral; and freedom to unite, so long as the involved members were of age and were not forced, and no harm was done to others (Mill [1859] 2010, 19).

Hahn (2003) articulated the concepts of freedom and order in the context of political communication and liberal democracy. He argued that political communication was related to a societal conversation taking place linked with politics. In this dialogue, the conversations revolved around freedom and order.

In the case of Jamaica, political conversations have been shaped by the political parties and the media, and in the case of the political parties, the issues of freedom and order are quite glaring.

Since 1938, two political parties have dominated Jamaican politics. Both have been influenced by their British counterparts: the PNP was aligned with the British Labour Party, a liberal political organization, and the JLP was aligned with the British Conservative Party, a conservative political organization. Accordingly, the principles and practices of the local political class and their political organizations have been adopted from their British counterparts and are best manifested in the programmes and policies implemented for the people.

What, therefore, is the reality of Jamaica’s political system and culture? How do they help shape the communication strategies of leaders and their administrations? To what extent have the political system and culture helped to shape or stymie the practice of political communication in Jamaica? In answering these questions, arguments by Hobbes, Locke, Mill and Hahn explain some of the issues related to the practice of political communication in this country.

Effective Communication

But before examining those arguments, to determine the effectiveness of the communication strategies of the leaders and their political organizations, there must also be a lucid understanding of the political culture of the society under study. In this context, the work of Carl Stone obtains.

Stone, one of the foremost political scholars from Jamaica and the Caribbean, posited that Jamaica’s political culture is deeply embedded with dependence on political leaders. He argued that a clientelistic relationship has developed, with three distinct players: the patron, the broker and the clients. The patron is the leader, who sits at the top and is seen as the ultimate provider for the broker and the client. The broker is the intermediary, who negotiates for benefits with the patron for the clients. Finally, the clients are citizens who depend on their leaders for scarce benefits (Stone 1980).

In designing any communication strategy, leaders must be cognizant of the political culture in the society. This culture, embracing attitudes, norms, practices and beliefs, is fundamental to developing programmes and policies that are responsive to the people and available for them to show appreciation to their leaders and administrations, who will determine success based on that appreciation.

Crucial to the actions of political leaders in creating and communicating programmes and policies to citizens is an understanding of human actions and behaviours involved in the concept of agency. According to Giddens (1984), agency refers to the capacity of individuals to act independently and make their own free choices based on their will. Human beings by nature are individualistic and have the capacity to act independently. This capacity to act independently and exercise free will is grossly manifested in liberal democracies that promote basic civil liberties. Jamaica is a liberal democratic state, and citizens strongly embrace their civil liberties. They sometimes express this freedom by abstaining from elections (over 40 per cent), thus causing concerns about the communication strategies being used by political leaders and their political organizations.

The behaviour of the Jamaican voting population is difficult to predict, and politicians must be conscious of this fact. There must be greater understanding of the audience (citizens) and the way they receive and consume messages. The communication strategies of leaders and their administrations must be sensitive to the needs of citizens, as it is this sensitivity that will engender greater responsiveness, and ultimately successful leadership and administration.

In this regard, media messaging and audience reception theories are significant. The works of Hall et al. (1973), Lasswell (1948) and McLuhan (1964), therefore, are instrumental to the understanding of the context.

Communication Models

Hall et al. (1973, 128) debated the communication models which prevailed at the time – linearity versus the cyclical: “Traditionally, mass communications research has conceptualized the process of communication in terms of a circulation circuit or loop. This model has been criticized for its linearity (sender/message/receiver), for its concentration on the level of message exchange and for the absence of a structured concept of the different moments as a complex structure of relations.”

They suggested instead that the communication process entailed production, circulation, consumption and reproduction, which they crystallized as the encoder/decoder model of communication.

But they also saw that it was possible (and useful) to think of this process in terms of a structure produced and sustained through the articulation of linked but distinctive moments – production, circulation, distribution/consumption and reproduction. This means to think of the process as a “complex structure in dominance”, sustained through the articulation of connected practices, Each of these, however, retained its distinctiveness and had its own specific modality – its own forms and conditions of existence (Hall et al. 1973, 128).

In this theoretical development, Hall and his colleagues submitted that the production phase deals with the design of the message; circulation entails the media through which the message is distributed; consumption refers to how the message is received and used by the receiver; and reproduction deals with the meaning ascribed to the message by the receiver and how it is repackaged and sent back to the sender. Accordingly, this constituted how the communication process contributes to effective communication. They further suggested that “it is in the discursive form that the circulation of the product takes place, as well as its distribution to different audiences. Once accomplished, the discourse must then be translated – transformed, again – into social practice as if the circuit is to be both completed and effective. If no ‘meaning’ is taken, there can be no ‘consumption’. If the meaning is not articulated in practice, it has no effect” (Hall et al. 1973, 129).

Lasswell’s (1948) model of communication defines an act of communication in terms of what was said, in what channel it was said, to whom it was said and with what effect it was said. But McLuhan (1964) noted that the medium, not the content, is really the message. He went on further to explain that a medium affects the society because it plays a role, not only by the content transmitted through the medium, but also by the characteristics of the medium itself. He also believed that it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action.

His perspective of the medium in a very broad sense saw the light bulb as a clear example of his famous phrase, “The medium is the message.” A light bulb does not have content the way a newspaper has articles or television has programmes, and yet it is a medium with social effects; that is, a light bulb enables people to create spaces during nighttime that would otherwise be enveloped by darkness. It was McLuhan’s view that the “medium” is what gives effect to the message, as that is what determines how the message is transmitted, when it is transmitted, why it is being transmitted and who is transmitting it.

The theories of Hall et al., Lasswell and McLuhan are of fundamental importance. The media is one of the major institutions of socialization in Jamaican society, so it is a critical agent in the political communication process.

The ongoing dialogue on politics, as postulated by Hahn, takes place and is manifested in what political scholars consider the public sphere. Jürgen Habermas, one of the foremost scholars in the field of political communication, made seminal contributions through theories postulated in Theory of Communicative Action (1984) and The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1989). From a socioscientific viewpoint, he posited that language is a medium for coordinating action, although it is not the only medium. The fundamental form of coordination through language requires speakers to adopt a practical stance oriented towards “reaching understanding”, which he regarded as the “inherent telos” of speech. When actors address one another with this sort of practical attitude, they engage in “communicative action”, which is distinguished from strategic forms of social action (Habermas 1984).

In communicative action, called “strong communicative action” in Some Further Clarifications of the Concept of Communicative Rationality (Habermas 1998), speakers coordinate their action and pursuit of individual (or joint) goals on the basis of a shared understanding that the goals are inherently reasonable...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. The Conceptual Framework of Political Communication
• 2. Political Culture and Political Communication in Jamaica
• 3. The Structure of Political Communication in Jamaica
• 4. Communicating Economic Programmes and Policies
• 5. Communicating Social Programmes and Policies
• 6. Communicating Programmes and Policies Relating to the Regional and International Agendas
• 7. Political Campaigning in Jamaica
• 8. New Media, Political Communication and Citizen Participation in Jamaica
• 9. Closing Analysis of Findings and Recommendations
• Conclusion
• References
• Index