Selling Politics investigates the secret world of political consultants, the men who create an image of their clients for the public eye. Author Laurence Rees argues that the roots of political propaganda lie in Nazi Germany with Hitler's master of visual propaganda, Dr Josef Goebbels. Goebbels' passion for cinema led him to discover the 'Great Truth', namely that in order for film propaganda to persuade it must entertain rather than inform. Over the past thirty years the use of film and television propaganda had flourished, particularly in the United States where a candidate's ability to woo voters on the screen is fundamental to his success in a presidential election. Rees shows how television manipulates its viewers into making judgements based purely on the visual image and explains why propaganda works best when it engages the emotions rather than the intellect. We see clearly how these insidious techniques have also played a key role in contemporary British politics as consultants have followed the example of their American counterparts. Written in1992, a year that encompassed a general election in Britain and a presidential election in the United States, Selling Politics is a book for our times. It will fascinate readers who care about the practice of politics and the way democracy functions as the 21st century approaches.
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Excellent review of political advertising
30 May 2004
By Faisal A. Qureshi
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
Though published in 1992 (to accompany the BBC TV series, We Have Ways of Making You Think), the book is still relevant today. It looks at how political parties and advertising partnered and the effect this had on politics. The author arguement is that contempary political advertising can be traced back to the works of Nazi propagandist, Josef Goebbels, who believed that in order for good propaganda to work, it must entertain rather then inform.
Surprisingly the author doesn't look at the work of the Creel Commission, a body set up by Woodrow Wilson in 1917 to encourage the American population to support WW1. Another ommission is the work of the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, set up in 1937 to help the American public recognise various methods of propaganda.
The author reviews the years after WW2 and particulary how these techniques were used by American politicans and then picked up by their British counterparts. The most famous example being the Conservative Party partnership with Saatchi & Saatchi.
This book is reccomended to anyone seriously interested in political advertising, film making or jsut wanting to find out how the visual images can be used to change people's minds.
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