America's Political Market

Nicholas J. O'Saughnessy

This article seeks to describe the ways in which American politics has been transformed by the zealous marketing of candidates and parties, and further examines the principal agency for political promotions, television advertising.

America's Political Market

Nicholas J.O'ShaughnessyLoughborough University of Technology

Many aspects of the political process from the very earliest times could be described as primeval forms of marketing under its most broad-brush definition. We could say, indeed, that all politics was marketing, but this would be tautologous; speech-making and advocacy is promotion of a kind, and so are the venerable political skills of packaging a programme to appeal to a strategic coalition of constituencies. Yet this would be to nag the term to its furthest limits, rendering the concept bereft of meaning and pragmatic usefulness. For the definition to...

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