British Party Election Broadcasts

Abstract

This article presents a content analysis of the British party election broadcasts (PEBs) aired by the Conservative and Labour Parties during the 1992 and 1997 general elections. Using “videostyle,” a content analysis catagorical framework that measures components of verbal, nonverbal, and production techniques, several revealing findings are presented in this article. Among the more interesting findings is the increased tendency for the British electoral advertising to follow the American example in terms of negativity and heightened personalization. In addition, the trend during the period was toward greater use of commercial advertising techniques in PEBs as part of a more concerted communication strategy. As a result, PEBs are now the subject of news and are part of a wider debate on the role of media in electoral politics. The 1997 PEBs placed greater focus on the party leaders than the 1992 PEBs, particularly in the case of Tony Blair's role in the 1997 Labour PEBs. The dominant negative nature of the PEB, while on the rise, also appears to present more direct, hard-hitting, personal attacks at the opposing party and party leaders. Furthermore, like their U.S. counterparts, PEBs are dominated by discussion of policy issues. However, despite the greater length of the PEBs, there were many missed opportunities for specific policy proposal presentation.