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COPYRIGHT 1994 M.E. Sharpe, Inc.
In Central Europe's first free election, Hungarian campaign architects created a genre of television advertising designed to communicate political party values by linking them with values of national importance. Using Rokeach's two-value typology, this culture-based study analyzes the political commercials produced by the nation's predominant parties in 1990 for their values-related content. Hungarian scholars, media experts and party officials contributed to this interpretive analysis of the campaign's visual images for their reflection of national and political values. Results suggest that political commercials are useful for identifying prevailing values and can contribute to an understanding of a nation's culture. The study has particular importance for advertisers in countries which are undergoing the transition to a free-market economy.
Political advertising is often criticized for ignoring substantive issues in favor of image-making (Patterson and McClure 1976). Imagery is used in most political advertising to refer to the character traits of a candidate (Cundy 1986; Shyles 1986 as cited by Richards and Caywood 1991, p. 234) and tends to project personal values rather than value-driven issues. While the perception of "image as villain" seems valid for American-style candidate-dominated elections, a different perspective on political advertising may be possible by examining an election conducted to promote a political party. To that end, this paper turns to a 1990 political campaign in Hungary to examine the television images used to present party values and ideology. Working without a previous track record with which to compare either party or candidate performances, promoters had to combat "brand parity" during the country's (and Eastern Europe's) first free election.
In this study, commercials are used as culture "windows" to examine the national and political values that predominated during a traumatic political transition as they were conceived by party promoters. A content analysis of video text was made to quantify values expressed as images. These images are discussed for their role in reflecting national priorities and in differentiating political parties.
Approaching Culture Through Commercial Content Analysis
The growing importance of international advertising, especially in counties entering free-market economies, warrants the study of election media messages as a method of cultural research. Campaign communications can be an active agent in a country emerging from communism because, as Wolton (1990) points out, it is at the level of political advertising that democracy is spread.
A number of researchers advocate a cultural approach to political advertising analysis. Suggesting the importance of a cultural approach, Biocca (1990) examined the role of communication codes, which are used to generate and circulate meanings in and for that culture (Fiske 1987, p.4) in political advertising. Roberts (1991) called for the study of political symbols used in campaign advertising to illuminate how and why particular emotional appeals work within a culture. Nimmo and Felsberg (1986) purported that new approaches to content analysis of political ads may suggest ways of addressing the question, "Is the overall impact of televised political advertising to reinforce and enhance an entire sociopolitical structure, political regime and/or system?" This research begins to address that question through an analysis of values-images.
By its nature, image advertising is value-expressive. American perfume advertisers use family values to promote Brand A and social values to promote Brand B, differentiating otherwise indistinguishable (without aromatic samples) products with consumeroriented values-images. Values-expressions, having been
deemed effective for product differentiation (Johar and Sirgy 1991), were adopted by Hungarians for party differentiation where multiple parties struggled to create separate identities for a constituency unfamiliar with election choices.
Because election media use vividly crafted images to reflect the needs and pre-occupations of the electorate, campaign analysis may be an important tool for understanding national values. What values were targeted by campaign architects as important for winning this election? How were those values communicated in visual images for presentation in television commercials?
In order to answer these questions, this study turns to the visual text of election broadcast advertising to develop an interpretive analysis of the commercials developed by Hungary's major parties for a two-stage (March and April) election of representatives to Parliament. Regional candidates who garnered a majority of votes in the March preliminary election were eligible for the April run-off. Candidates were identified by party affiliation rather than with personal characteristics, and constituent concerns were not directly addressed in election media. Party-oriented commercials were aired on national television prior to both elections at no cost.
This genre of campaign commercials, similar in structure to U.S. advertising that addresses policy or stance (such as the timber industry's campaign against limits on clear-cutting), provides insights into the cultural and political values of a country emerging from 43 years of Communist domination. First, values are discussed within a cultural perspective to ground the study in relevant theory. Next, Hungarian values are presented from four perspectives: as they were defined by academics; as they were conceptualized by the politicians who influenced media development; as they were portrayed visually in political commercials, and their role in election outcomes. Once grounded, values are operationalized as images, quantified by party, and interpreted for their significance in this campaign's communication.
Values Research
Values, as attributes of individuals and collectives, have been defined by Hofstede (1984) as "a broad tendency to prefer certain states of affairs over others" (p. 18). The first values research used for marketing purposes was presented by Rokeach (1973). His research generated a list of central values which, when further divided into terminal and instrumental values, provided a comprehensive consumer values system.
Cited by Pollay (1985) as the most important dimension of advertising, values become "images formulating positive or negative action commitments, a set of hierarchically ordered prescriptions and proscriptions" (Kluckhohn 1961, p. 20). Leymore (1975) noted that advertising effects a "transfer of value" through communicative connections between products and what a culture conceives of as desirable states of being. Advertising research has long concerned...
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