Public relations and the Northern Ireland peace process: Dissemination, reconciliation and the ‘Good Friday Agreement’ referendum campaign

Abstract

This study analyses the public relations strategies employed by the mainstream political parties during the ‘Good Friday Agreement’ referendum campaign in Northern Ireland in April/May 1998. Using data from elite interviews, triangulated with content analysis from campaign literature, we assess the communication strategies of the pro- and anti-Agreement parties who were attempting to persuade the people of Northern Ireland to vote Yes or No to the Agreement. Key findings of the research include: first, in comparison to the ‘normal’ political culture in Northern Ireland, there was a significant increase in the deployment of public relations expertise in the referendum campaign; indeed, for many of the political parties it represented their first major investment in political public relations. A second key finding pertains to the communicative model adopted by the key actors. All parties, in different ways, adopted a ‘dissemination’ model rather than a ‘dialogic’ one to communicate with allies, rivals and the general public. In our view this is an entirely appropriate approach to political public relations and we suggest that the communication model of the Social Democratic and Labour Party is particularly noteworthy because it was an approach underpinned, we argue, by dissemination and reconciliation. Moreover, we also suggest that public relations based on dissemination and reconciliation to difference offers a more realistic and appropriate approach, than the currently fashionable dialogic model, for the kinds of communication and information exchange required in contemporary democratic societies.