ABSTRACT
This chapter explores what constitutes political communication and outline a working definition. It examines some of the contexts of political communication, including a brief overview of the historical, technological, economic, legal, organisational, and cultural contexts. The chapter examines more directly how political communication is managed and how political actors communicate, through various techniques. Political parties, as political communicators, communicate in attempts to win and retain power, or influence decision making and public opinion through political campaigns and, in particular, election campaigns. Political parties and politicians want, indeed have, to communicate with the electorate or those they govern, and they need to get the message across about their policies, their ideas, and their plans. Theorists of the political economy of the media draw attention to the relationships between the economic organisation of a society and the organisation and workings of the media industries and the production of media content.
