Podcasting services provide a convenient means of listening to information.
You are a politician, a leader, aspirant or a thinker on political matters and you wish to convince the public. How do you communicate effectively? What method will you deploy for maximum impact?
You can write your communication or use a written medium like newspapers or books. You can also use an audio medium like radio, audio visual channels like television or social media platforms that broadcast videos like Tiktok or Facebook. You also opt for face to face modes like rallies, door to door meetings and town halls. Most of the time it is a mix of these methods.
Written communication is the least effective method of political communication. We are referring to using newspapers and books seeking to influence political conversations.
It has the narrowest audience as compared with the other methods. Anyone reading this article is among a very tiny cohort of the population that has the time and adequate motivation to buy a newspaper. Generally, not too many people globally read things.
Newspapers, for instance, are read mainly by civil servants, politicians, professionals, diplomats and such persons with an elitist bend. Compare that with radio which is a "mass" communication medium.
But written communication has its own strengths. First, those that read things tend to be the most influential social class in any society. Some political revolutions have happened by capturing the imagination of the elitist intelligentsia through writing.
The best example is Karl Marx. This was a German philosopher and political theorist who wrote things that some people considered weird. These included the 1848 Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital.
And he died without occasioning much drama — only for some intellectuals to dig up his writings after his death and deploy those ideas with devastating effect. His written words went on to influence diverse subjects like law, economics and sociology.
Various deadly wars and fights were inspired by his written works and to this day China, North Korea and Cuba remain officially states guided by Karl Marx’s written thoughts.
Karl’s story is one instance when mere written communication can have such an impact to the ordinary life. It appears that in written communication, what matters is the depth and cogency of the write up.
But there are creative ways one can deploy to expand the reach of written communication. For example, it helps to strategically communicate through newspapers on days when there are review segments on radio and television that give your written article a more impactful audio-visual platform.
Audio mediums like radio have huge political impact. This is because they have the widest audiences compared with other forms of communication. If one picks 10 Kenyans randomly, probably 9 out of 10 listen to the radio in one way or another each day.
That includes "involuntary" listenership — like passengers in a matatu or patients in a hospital lounge where the radio is on. However, the power to convince or persuade the public using an audio medium like radio is lesser compared to television or face-to-face meetings.
The reason radio communication is less effective when compared to television is simple: listeners are not seeing the communicator, but are only hearing the voice.
That is why audio-visual modes like TV are so powerful. In the art of convincing people, visualisation supersedes vocalisation. More emotions are displayed by a video which goes towards any persuasion.
Of course fewer Kenyans have access to television as compared to those that have radio. But a TV appearance is more impactful to its audience.
But nothing beats face-to-face interaction between leaders and voters. This is a combination of all the above: audio, audiovisual plus body language. That explains the political cogency of town halls, door-to-door engagements and rallies.
The downside of face-to-face political interaction is its limited audience. A politician can only meet face-to -face with a fraction of his electorate. Of course members of the county assemblies have higher chances of achieving almost a universal face-to-face interaction with an electorate on account of the small political unit they are involved in.
And a Presidential candidate has the lowest chances of reaching a better percentage of voters face-to-face for obvious reasons that he or she covers the entire country.
A smart political strategy should, therefore, aim to combine all the above communication mediums in a neat and impactful manner for maximum effect.
You should know when to deploy persuasion using writing, audio, audiovisual and face-to-face while giving each adequate persuasion weight.
Dr Kangata is the Governor of Murang’a County; [email protected]
