This editon will be a guest piece by Dr Graham Cairns on contemporary visual literacies.
The world of political communication is a realm of controversy, creativity and inevitably at times, a realm of public manipulation. It is a sub category of political science which has given rise to an almost infinite number of publications, studies and research projects aiming at understanding and improving the ability of politicians and political parties to “get their message across”. Given the mediated nature of contemporary culture these studies have primarily focused on visual methods of mediated communication; the TV photo opportunity, the political broadcast and the campaign advert generally being considered the most important.
Given the similarities between political communication in these formats and other more commercially orientated forms of communication, such as advertising, it is perhaps inevitable that a certain cross fertilization has occurred. What this paper intends to do is draw out this parallel through a brief overview of the development of this relationship, followed by a direct comparison between a standard commercial advert and a recent political image.
It will use a standard advertising methodology of analysis with the aim of underlining its central argument; that that during the past 50 years the techniques used in politics to “communicate” with the public have become, to all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from the techniques used in standard commercial advertising. The images concerned are a typical semiotic advert promoting a branded car and an image of Barack Obama manufactured during the 2008 Presidential campaign. In both examples special attention will be paid to the role of architecture, thus setting up a tripartite analysis of advertising, politics and architecture.
Advertising as Political Promotion
In the first of the images we will discuss we have an advert for an Audi 8 series car placed in an architectural context resonant of Santiago Calatrava’s Lisbon railway station. The car is simply placed in the centre of the image so as to become the focus of the eye and sits in front of the emotive architectural backdrop. In this case we have one referent and one product. Figure 1. According to standard semiotic analysis, the values associated with the referent will simply be transferred to the product in question.
figure 1 (click to enlarge)
In reading the advert the first thing to identify are the anticipated values associated with its architectural referent backdrop; modernity, strength, power and agility etc. (its connoted signifieds) These then are the values directly transferred to the product which, in turn, becomes associated with those same values. In theory, this process occurs automatically whenever a referent is placed next to a product. However, as identified by Judith Williamson back in the 1970s, the process is much more fluid if the product and the referent have some connotative and aesthetic similarity.
In this case this is manufactured in two principal ways. Firstly the colour combinations of the image are coherent; the black car blends naturally with the grey background and secondly, the referent and the product are made to be perfect compositional fits; the organic forms of the architecture wrap around the curvilinear form of the car. Thus, what we have is a standard semiotic advert which uses an appropriately connotative background and reinforces or facilitates the transference of the values associated with that background by ensuring aesthetic equivalence through a combination of colour and form.
However, there is also one more thing the image does; it introduces text which, in this case, invites us “to take a test drive”. This use of text corresponds to what Roland Barthes called anchorage; the introduction of a phrase that adds a layer of meaning or makes a connection that would not be made through reading the image alone; in this case, that we can own the car. The advert thus becomes a classic example of semiotic advertising techniques on a whole series of different but related levels.
These techniques are clearly repeated in the image we will examine next; an iconic photograph of Barak Obama on the campaign trail in the months leading up to his 2008 election victory. Figure 2. In this image the product, in this case Barak Obama himself, is again placed in the centre of the image. Here however, he is positioned in front of two referents; a backdrop of classical architecture and a number of United States flags. At the simplest connotative level he is placed in an architectural setting resonant of values of power, authority and tradition.
figure 2 (click to enlarge)
Following a standard semiotic reading, these values are directly transferred to Obama through a process of association. However, there is more to it than such a one dimensional semiotic reading would suggest and, to truly understand the logic behind the image, it is necessary to comment on the cultural-political context around it. This image was produced in the aggressive political climate of the race for the White House. Obama was a newcomer to the political scene and whilst this was seen as his greatest asset, his relative inexperience was identified as his Achilles’ heal. It thus formed the basis of most attacks upon him from his rivals, firstly Senator Clinton and later Senator McCain.
This image is a direct attempt by the “marketing team” of the Obama camp to counter these criticisms. By placing him in a backdrop resonant of tradition, power and longevity, they are using the most basic semiotic advertising technique in the cannon to promote their man. However, the architecture chosen is not an abstract representation of power, it also functions as a direct representation of the White House itself. Thus, one can also say that in the context of this image, architecture functions at a denotative level; it refers directly to the seat of US political power and, as a result, places Obama in that seat long before the electorate have made their decision. The image is intended not only to transfer abstract values of power and authority, it is intended to transfer values directly associated with the US presidency.
Following the standard semiotic template however, the marketing team have further reinforced this transference through the typical aesthetic trope of aesthetic coherence. Here it revolves around the colour coherence maintained across all elements of the image. The podium design is a combination of red, white and blue. This is linked to Obama’s blue suit and red and white striped tie which, in turn, aesthetically link him to the US national flag behind. Obama becomes associated with an image of political authority but also the most obvious symbol of US patriotism. Another knot is neatly tied in this strictly controlled promotional image.
Again, to understand the relevance of this it is necessary to understand the political context in which the image was produced; the election campaign of first serious Afro-American candidate who, in addition, was brought up for long periods outside the US and has what for some for some, is an “Islamic sounding name”. All these issues led to his patriotism being constantly brought into question by the political right during the “War Election” of 2008.
In bringing together the final parts of this promotional image however, the organisers of the convention have done one more thing. In the foreground are members of the public holding placards with the campaign slogan “Change”. Positioning these people so that they appear in the shot ensures a textual insertion into the image which functions as a form of anchorage. It thus ensures a perfect balance in the “product image” which is presented as resonant of tradition, experience and authority on the one hand, but does not lose sight of its freshness and presentation as “new” on the other.
What we have then is an “advertising image” that primarily uses architecture to cleverly and skilfully navigate the multifarious issues of the political maelstrom of election campaigning. It is a highly sophisticated semiotic construct that not only uses standard commercial advertising techniques but does so with a level of astuteness that the best advertising executives would be proud of. It is a perfect example of how integrally interwoven advertising techniques now are with political campaigning.
