In this election year, and as part of Leeds Lit Fest 2024, we welcome the University of York’s Peter Bull and Maurice Waddle to discuss their recent book The Psychology of Political Communication: Politicians Under the Microscope (Routledge, 2023).
Contemporary politics is mass-communication politics. Politicians are not only seen and heard, they are seen and heard in close-up through television and on social media. In this book, the authors analyse the ways in which politicians communicate with each other, the media, and the electorate; they also discuss the implications of this for democracy and the democratic process.
Their research was conducted through what is termed ‘microanalysis’, the detailed examination of both speech and nonverbal communication. Political discourse is examined in a range of contexts – with particular focus on Prime Minister’s Questions – to highlight the means of communication, and what may lie behind politicians’ words. In politics, what matters is not just what politicians say but how they say it, and how this is perceived by the public. For example, in interviews, politicians are often castigated for their apparent evasiveness. The authors believe that through such research light can be shed on how and why politicians may side-step questions.
However, the authors don’t just concentrate on politicians’ performances and how they attempt to influences the audience, but also audience reactions and the role of political journalism – comparing speaker and audience responses in the UK to those in the USA and some European and East Asian nations.
So, what can putting politicians under the microscope tell us about them, the media, ourselves, and the state of democracy?
