Browsing by Subject "Political Marketing"

Ever since the 1980s, political parties have used commercial marketing agencies to conduct their election campaigns. The use of these agencies resulted in what Nicholas O'Shaughnessy has coined political marketing, the marketing of a political product through commercial marketing techniques. This thesis evaluates the normative dimension of this technique, evaluating how it may impact party diversity through the case study of the past three German federal election cycles. To come to a conclusion on the normative dimensions of the utilisation of political marketing the thesis references both O'Shaughnessy's political marketing theory and Otto Kircheimer's catch all party theorem to evaluate the impact political marketing has on party representation. This thesis argues that the political marketing theory and catch all theorem intersect theoretically, making the point that political marketing can both be a symptom and cause of parties transforming into catch all parties, thus constituting a threat to democratic diversity. As its method the thesis uses an audiovisual analysis using the method of iconography. Through it analyses the audiovisual communication of German parties in the past three election cycles by looking at their election advertisement videos. This thesis concludes, through its theoretical framework, analysis of the case study and interpretation, that the advertisements show two main features of a catch all parties defined by Kircheimer: A homogenisation of stylistic means of parties not ideologically affiliated, and de- ideologisation and personification. This means that according to this thesis the German pluralistic party system turning into a system of catch all party system is exemplified and exarcebated by the utilisation of political marketing techniques, a process that is illuminated by the election advertisements of the main political parties.