Hear no evil—see no evil: political advertising in Ireland

Abstract

This article examines the regulation of political advertising on television and radio in Ireland where a restrictive set of rules prevent political parties and lobby groups from using the broadcast medium to communicate directly with the public. The current regime does provide qualifying political parties with access to a system of broadcasts during election and referendum campaigns, a system that is not available to lobby groups and other representative bodies. Evidence is presented to suggest that subject to certain defined rules, there is a public openness to some modification of the current outright prohibition on political advertising in Ireland.

Investigating political marketing using mixed method: the case for campaign spending data

“…More significantly, the data convincingly indicate that in Canada an election campaign is foremost about communications rather than marketing, per se. This is comparable to findings in the Irish 2007 elections where very little was spent on marketing and research (Sudulich & Wall, : Table ; see also Rafter, ). This is to be expected given the intensity of campaigning and the limited time to respond to research.…”

“…Among the countries that we looked at, as of June 2013, only Australia, Canada, France, USA, UK, and Mexico required that political parties disclose polling and research spending. Countries that we did not consider may have different requirements; on this point, it is notable that Ireland bans paid political advertising (Rafter, ). We must also be mindful that the truthfulness of information can be subject to question and that the ability to compare marketing decisions is complicated by practitioners responding to their surroundings and regulations (Winther Nielsen, ).…”

Political advertising — a research overview

“…Every so oft en, total bans of political advertising have been criticized on the grounds of infringement of freedom of expression (e.g., Jones, 2004;Raft er, 2011). In fact, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) had to deal with several complaints claiming a breach of Article 10 (Freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights by bans on political advertising (cf.…”