Political & Public Policy Communications

Public relations has been involved in politics for decades, but as trends in public relations often do, has taken a slightly different approach in recent years. As our textbook states, 'Young people don't have an explicitly negative view of government, but they tend to feel it is remote. There has been a huge shift in the past generation toward voluntary sector work, the fact that you can control who receives your services.' As a result of this trend, many candidates have focused their attention toward older, more reliable voters. This is why groups such as Rock the Vote work hard to engage younger voters in the political process." (Guth 275). It's no secret that the most successful political campaigns reach out to younger demographics through their own channels of communications. This could be seen on a National level with Obama's Presidential campaign for Change, and also on a more local level more recently with the 2012 election for the Mayor of Burlington.

Miro Weinberger won the 2012 election by a landslide, and some say this was largely due to a massive social media push. According to this Seven Days article, "Friends with Benefits: How Miro Weinberger's Social Media Network Helped Him Win the Burlington Mayor's Race", " a powerful social-networking presence helped the previously unknown Weinberger build name recognition and compete with his opponents’ more established, traditional networks" (Machado).

Social media is a direct channel for personalized and individual communication. With regards to politics, it can help establish a connection with a candidate and humanize them, especially if the candidate is composing their own updates, which occured during the Miro campaign. "Weinberger jumped into Twitter early, blasting out tweets from his @MiroBTV account even before declaring his candidacy. Wisely, Weinberger did his own tweeting for much of the campaign, although “Team Miro” took over some Twitter duties late in the game." (Machado).

The danger associated with using social media during a political campaign is losing control of the message - or more accurately, not having control of the public response. "The viral nature of social media means a candidate is never wholly in control of his or her online presence. Weinberger’s “Mirocialite” team of campaign staffers and supporters boosted his visibility daily by tweeting links to his much-vaunted plans or key endorsement statements, while rushing to the campaign’s defense when others criticized him."(Machado).

Public opinion/ politics and public relations will always go hand in hand. A political candidate wants to build good will among the constituents and voting community, and public relations helps facilitate just that.