Stewardship, credibility and political communications: A content analysis of the 2016 election

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2018.01.003Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Employs the concept of stewardship in the context of political communication.

  • Only relationship nurturing was commonly communicated by candidates for political office.

  • Compared source, content, and digital credibility measures in analysis of political communication.

  • Candidates’ communication primarily centered on source credibility over other credibility focuses.

  • Concurrently explores stewardship and credibility, opening new avenues for scholarly inquiry.

Abstract

Public participation in the democratic process and trust in elected leaders are both declining. Drawing on research from the fields of public relations and communications, this content analysis examines political communication through the lens of credibility and stewardship, both concepts central to predicting favorable relationship maintenance outcomes. In this analysis of all presidential, Senate and congressional candidates in the 2016 election, findings indicated that candidates more commonly communicate ways to provide support for the campaign (relationship nurturing), than demonstrating that they are worthy of being entrusted by the public. In addition, candidates’ communication primarily centered on the candidate being a credible source, neglecting other strategies for demonstrating credibility (digital and content). While there were no significant differences by party affiliation, incumbents and presidential candidates were more likely to communicate some forms of stewardship and credibility.

Introduction

Trust and participation in the American political process is eroding. According to the Pew Research Center, barely more than half of the voting-eligible population cast their ballots in 2016, a rate that is lower than typical levels in other developed democracies (Desilver, 2017). Further, research with registered voters indicated relatively low levels of trust in both candidates for president in 2016 (Shockley-Zalabak, Morreale, & Stavrositu, 2017). Additionally, only 37 percent of U.S. adults feel the presidential campaign was conducted in a way that made them feel the electoral process is working as it should (Gallup, 2016). After the election, less than half of American voters trust elected leadership to do what is right (Edelman Trust Barometer, 2017). Understanding that meaning-making in political affairs is largely mediated through public communication, a fundamental question arises: what are politicians and elected leaders communicating that might lead to this lack of political participation and overall distrust of the democratic process? To answer this question, this study goes upstream to examine the messages of political candidates in the 2016 election to better understand their approach to relationship management.

Ledingham and Brunig (1998) posit that effective relationship management focuses on building trust, participating in communities and communicating symmetrically (p. 61). Thus, the lens for this examination focuses on two concepts central to relationship management − credibility and stewardship. Stewardship is said to have biblical roots connecting those entrusted with resources that benefit the public good to their obligation to be good stewards of those resources (Jeavons, 1994). As Grace (1991) noted, “stewardship lets people know on a regular basis that you care about them, respect their support, appreciate their gifts, and want their interest and involvement” (p. 158). In fact, Greenfield (1991) suggests, stewardship is designed to “establish the means for continued communication that will help to preserve [stakeholder] interest and attention to the organization” (p. 148). Additionally, over 2500 years ago, Aristotle espoused that a source’s ethos (credibility) was the most potent means of persuasion (McCroskey & Young, 1981). Further, public relations scholars reference credibility as an important dimension in the organization-public relationship (e.g., Ledingham, 2003), and a key element to examine along the continuum of maintaining successful relationships (Toth, 2000).

Finally, in recent years, scholarly inquiry related to credibility and stewardship has demonstrated independently their power in predicting desirable relationship management outcomes. For instance, in corporate communication, CEO credibility led to increased employee engagement and evaluation of the organizational reputation (Men, 2012). In nonprofit communication, stewardship has been used to predict positive relationship evaluations (e.g., trust), supportive behavioral intentions and loyalty (Pressgrove & McKeever, 2016). Despite classic and contemporary support for the importance of communicating credibility and stewardship as functions of relationship management, scholarly inquiry has yet to investigate these variables in tandem. Further, while the demonstration of stewardship is relevant to political communication, this variable has never been explored in this context. Thus, this study seeks to fill these gaps in the literature and provide a framework for future research.

Section snippets

Stewardship

In 2001, Kelly proposed that stewardship should be incorporated into public relations models as a fifth step to foster relationship growth and make the communication process cyclical. In her conceptualization, stewardship is key for engaging and garnering continued support, providing obvious relevance for political candidates seeking to gain support from the electorate. Notwithstanding the relevance to political communication, research exploring stewardship has primarily been applied in the

Methods

To address the aims of this study, the authors conducted a content analysis of the website home pages for all candidates who were still in the running for their party’s presidential nomination (n = 17) as of January of 2016, as well as candidates for House (n = 739) or Senate (n = 105) seats in the 2016 election. It was assumed that this census of candidates running for the nation’s highest offices would represent regional, state-level, and national approaches to employing stewardship and

Findings

RQ1 asked about the extent to which political candidates communicate stewardship strategies on their campaign websites. Findings indicate that nearly all candidates (97%, n = 754) employ some form of relationship nurturing on the home page of their campaign website. The remaining strategies were infrequently found. More specifically, the responsibility strategy was only incorporated on 13 percent (n = 104) of websites, followed by recognition (8%, n = 62), reporting (7%, n = 56) and regard 2%

Discussion

The primary aims of this study were two-fold. First, the authors wanted to concurrently advance credibility and stewardship as distinct, yet important variables in relationship management. Both of these variables have proven to be important antecedents to desirable relational outcomes (Greenfield, 1991; McCroskey & Young, 1981), however, to date, they have never been simultaneously used in scholarship. Next, the authors sought to better understand the ways in which stewardship and credibility

Conclusion

In summary, communication scholars have found that all indicators of stewardship (responsibility, reporting, regard, recognition, relationship nurturing) are important to varying degrees in the relationship management paradigm. However, findings from this study indicate that relationship nurturing was the only commonly occurring stewardship strategy communicated by candidates for political office. Credibility was far more commonly evidenced on political candidates’ online communication, however

Limitations & future research

While this study contributed to the understanding of stewardship and credibility strategies used in political candidates’ communication, as with all research, there are limitations. First, this study employed a content analysis to the home pages of candidates websites. Future studies should explore these variable in other forms of candidate communication, such as social media, speeches and debates. In addition, as this was a content analysis, it does not provide analysis of key stakeholders’

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