Political Marketing and Communication

Course scope
Marketing has become a major force in contemporary politics. Today, political entrepreneurs, parties and governments, adopt a broad array of techniques to pursue their political goals, pass legislation, shape public debate, win elections or stay in office. These include the analysis and management of public opinion research, as well as strategic campaigning in response to the needs and wants of selected groups in society. How do political entrepreneurs, parties and governments use marketing techniques to understand what do the people want, what issues to campaign on, and what policies to implement? How effective are these strategies in driving public opinion in a desired direction? And what are the implications of voter and citizen profiling for democracy? This course examines the burgeoning area of political marketing, focusing on both macro and micro levels, synthesizing predominant theoretical perspectives, and examining the mechanisms that underlie marketing effects.

Course Topics

• Introducing marketing in politics
• Political market research
• Political strategies: targeting & positioning
• Negative campaigning
• Populist communication
• Political branding
• Critical perspectives and ethical issues
• Candidates, campaign and policy communication
• E-communication and big-data
• Government and delivery marketing

Specific Course Aim
The course aims to advance students’ knowledge of marketing and strategic communication in politics, the theories about the effects of these techniques, and the critical understanding of its implications for democratic processes. By the end of the course, students should master the theoretical foundations of political marketing; they shall know the techniques employed to promote political ideas, policies and candidates, and be able to critically evaluate the effectiveness of strategic communication in contemporary politics.

Face-to-face/hybrid teaching, lectures, collective work sessions based on the readings, class discussions about ongoing/real-world cases.

Contribution to the teaching profile

Learning Outcomes

Students who complete this course should be able to:

• Understand how political marketing affects leadership, campaigning and government
• Apply theories of political marketing and communication to real-world events and developments involving actors and issues of interest to them
• Critically assess the impact of political marketing on democratic processes
• Reflect on the ethical implications of the use of marketing in politics and policy

References, bibliography, and recommended reading

The mandatory and suggested readings will be made available on the virtual campus.
Other relevant references:

• Scammell, M. (2014). Consumer Democracy: the marketing of politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Nai, A and Walter, A. (2014). New Perspectives on Negative Campaigning. Washington: Rowman and Littlefield
• Penney, J. (2017) The Citizen Marketer. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
• Perloff, R. M. (2014). The Dynamics of Political Communication: Media and Politics in a Digital Age. New York, NY: Routledge.
• Lee-Marshment, J., Conley, B., Elder, E., Pettitt, R., Raynauld, V. & Turcotte, A. (2019). Political Marketing: Principles and Applications. London and New York: Routledge
• Lee-Marshment, J. (ed) (2012). Routledge Handbook of Political Marketing. London and New York: Routledge
• Webster, J.G. (2014). The Marketplace of Attention: How Audiences Take Shape in a Digital Age. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
• Hersh, E.D. (2015). Hacking the Electorate: How Campaigns Perceive Voters. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.
• Soroka, S.N. (2014). Negativity in Democratic Politics: Causes and Consequences. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Lecheler, S. and De Vreese, C. (2019) News Framing Effects. London and New York: Routledge

Contacts

pietro.castelli@ulb.be

Campus

Solbosch

Method(s) of evaluation

• written examination
• Group work

written examination

Group work

Course evaluation and assignments

The course evaluation rests on 3 grades:

1. Participation (10%): students are expected to actively participate to the debate of each class, by asking questions and by trying to answer to, and comment on, the presentation and readings.
2. Group assignment (40%): student will animate discussion in class and prepare a written list of points for debate using the compulsory readings, class material and real-world cases. Important: Group assignments are given an identical mark for the entire group. The material is submitted under the responsibility of the entire group.
3. Final take-home essay (50%): each student will write an essay applying the concepts and theories discussed in class (maximum 5000 words, spaces, footnotes, and references included). The essays will describe the marketing or communication strategy used in one or more real world cases (election campaign, policy implementation, personality branding etc.), identify its strengths and weaknesses, and formulate suggestions to make it more effective. The essay must be submitted before 09/05/2022 at midnight (electronic format). Late submission will not be graded.

Final essays must include:

• Title: A good title quickly communicates the contents of the essay in a memorable way.
• Executive summary: A paragraph summarizing the case, problem & proposed solution/strategy.
• Presentation of the real-world case: This section shortly introduces the case study and aims to convince the reader of the necessity of making the marketing strategy more effective.
• Strategic alternatives: This section discusses the strength and weaknesses of the adopted marketing strategy and formulates alternative options. It should be fair and accurate while convincing the reader why the proposed marketing strategy is the most desirable.
• Recommendations: This section contains the most detailed explanation of the concrete steps to be taken to improve the marketing campaign.
• Appendices: If some readers might need further support in order to accept your argument but doing so in the essay itself might derail the conversation for other readers, you might include the extra information in an appendix. Having an appendix is not compulsory.
• Consulted or recommended sources: These should be reliable sources (including academic books, papers, surveys etc.) that you have used throughout your essay to guide your marketing recommendations.

Mark calculation method (including weighting of intermediary marks)

Participation : 10%
Group assignment : 40%
Final take-home essay : 50%

Retake sessions: Students can decide at their own risk to retake the final take-home exam. The grades for class participation and continuous evaluation remain the same for the retake sessions.
Plagiarism – or the direct copying without citation of others’ thoughts (written or not) – is a very serious issue and will not be tolerated: plagiarizing means failing the course. Note that a specialized software will be used systematically to detect eventual cases of plagiarism in students’ assignments.

Language(s) of evaluation

• english