UP Communication Research Shows Pre-campaigning Not Good For Politicians

Eager politicians who are into pre-campaigning should think otherwise, since they may find themselves losing the public’s votes in the upcoming elections.

According to the study by the Communication Research students of UP- Diliman, prolonged exposure to the media does not relate to a successful victory in the upcoming 2010 National Elections.

“In the last couple of months, certain public officials have appeared in daily newscasts and the front page more than they used to, while some have become endorsers of commercial products or spokesperson of public advertisements. Interestingly, this increased appearance of politicians in the media becomes even more suspicious as we draw closer to the 2010 national elections,” the study said.

According to their findings on the relationship between politicians and the media, majority of the public believes that the motivation behind the politician’s increase in media appearance was because of “name recall, publicity, popularity” or simply put as "pre-campaigning."

Most of the public are well aware of the pre-campaigning strategies by the politicians on using the media for publicity, and only a few believes that these politicians use the media for actual service, said the study.

Because of this, the public is more apprehensive with these politicians since they can suspect that corruption are more likely to happen with these pre-campaigning politicians than those who don’t do pre-campaigning.

“Kase very premature, nangunguna ka na [sa survey], mangunguna ka pa [sa kampanya]. ganyan ba ang gusto mong taong iboto? Ngayon palang nandadaya na ng kapwa (It’s very premature. You are already leading [in the survey]; you still want to lead [in the campaign]. Are these people the one you want to vote? Even before the election, they are already cheating their competitors),” claimed one of the study’s key respondents.

Studies also showed that not all media exposures are good for the candidates; some of them can be displayed in a bad light, especially during controversial issues where the politicians are caught up in scandalous matters.

“High visibility in the media does not necessarily equate to desirability of potential candidates. High media visibility was risky for those with political ambitions since media may emphasize the negative rather than the facets of political candidates,” they concluded.

The study was based on 681 face to face interviews with residents coming from the areas in Metro Manila and other parts of Central Luzon and the Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon) region.