Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practices

This Third Edition of the classic text uses principles and practices of speech communication to examine election campaigns. It has been widely used as the only truly comprehensive textbook written from a campaign perspective, and this edition provides historical material as well as covers the most current campaign practices. The new edition is distinguished by fresh examples and information from the 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns and the 1994 congressional campaigns, including up-to-date analysis and discussion of: communicative styles and strategies; categories of advertising, advertising campaigns, mass media consumption, and research; political debates and public speaking practices; rhetorical strategies of announcements, addresses, news conferences, and other responses; the effects and influence of political consultants.

Practitioners and students alike will clearly understand the strategic and tactical communication choices candidates and their campaign managers must make in this increasingly important area of American life. This is the ideal text for courses in political campaign communication, campaigns, persuasion, and mass communication.

JUDITH S. TRENT is Professor of Communication and Associate Vice President for Research and Advanced Studies at the University of Cincinnati. She has written and spoken widely on the subject of political campaign communication and is a frequent commentator and analyst on political campaigns and candidates for the ABC, NBC, and CBS television affiliates in Cincinnati as well as Ohio/Cincinnati newspapers. She is currently the second vice president of the Speech Communication Association and will become the Association's president in 1997.

ROBERT V. FRIEDENBERG is Professor of Communication at Miami (Ohio) University. He is the editor of Rhetorical Studies of National Political Debates: 1960-1992, second edition (Praeger, 1994), and is the author of Theodore Roosevelt and the Rhetoric of Militant Decency (Greenwood Press, 1989). He received the Outstanding Book of the Year award in 1989 from the Religious Speech Communication Association for Hear O Israel: The History of American Jewish Preaching: 1654-1970. He has served as a communication consultant for the Republican National Committee and has been involved in over 70 political campaigns.