By STEPHANIE BROOKES
Shaking hands. Kissing babies. Throwing snags on the barbie, or wandering through a suburban shopping centre.
These are the familiar scenes of “retail politics”, a campaign style in which candidates sell themselves and their policies by talking to as many voters as possible.
American political communication scholars Judith Trent and Robert Friedenberg, in Political Campaign Communication, define “retail politics” as being about “direct contact”: meeting and talking to voters to appeal personally for their support.
This, Trent and Friedenberg argue, has two clear benefits.
Firstly, meeting a political candidate makes voters feel more engaged and more likely to support the candidate, who has been “humanised” through a face-to-face meeting. More importantly, it allows for interaction. Voters can ask questions, engage with candidates, and come to feel that their concerns matter.
This may seem like an element of a “golden age” of political campaigning that has long since passed. The rise of the mass media and the centralised, professional campaign means that election campaigns are now national and presidential, appealing to the majority of the electorate while also carefully targeting voters in marginal seats.
However, most voters will never meet their local candidate, let alone one of the contenders jostling for the position of prime minister. As voters, our feelings about the personality and values of politicians develop from a mixture of media coverage, pre-existing partisan preferences, word-of-mouth and gut instinct.
Top Comments
What appeals to me is a leader who seems sincere and human, not fake and contrived. It wouldn't matter where they spent their campaign time or time as leader if when they spoke to us, it was in plain language with more honesty. Australians in particular would respond better to a leader who said "We just can't pay for that road this year as we have to fund that new hospital. We will finish that road next year though." Plain and simple, surely not so hard??
Bradley - you sound even worse than KRudd. Just cruisin' for a bit of exposure are you? Is this your life long dreams -1. To make the most number of comments on one post or 2. to do 1 and also aiming for PM are you?
Anxiously awaiting your reply, then you may be up to 80% !!!!!
Bradley for PM I say. He is the voice of reason on many posts. I love the fact he mostly keeps the hysteria out of it.
Bradley for PM!!