The Value Basis of Political Communication in Serbian Election Campaigns from 1990 to 2017

The authors attempt to address the dominant value orientations in electoral communication, identifying theme frameworks of electoral campaigns in Serbia since the re-establishment of multipartism in 1990. They find it possible to identify two key value orientations: until 2000 the protection of the national and state interest was the key instrumental value for realization of the supreme goal - better living of citizens, affluence; while after 2000, the state's accession to the European Union was proclaimed the means for achieving this goal. In the longest part of the post-2000 period, the European integration topic was the subtext of electoral communication in a broader sense. Achievement of better living through the accession to the European Union as the dominant value orientation since 2000 has also been proclaimed as the basis for realization of the main instrumental value from political and electoral life of the 1990s - the protection of the national and state interest. The authors also find that the domination of value and the emotional over the rational during campaigns challenges their potential programme-wise character. Formation of voting decision is, then, "moved" to the realm of irrational determinants - value and emotional attitudes of voters towards leaders, whereas thematic campaigns are easily transformed into leadership ones, often accompanied with negative and disqualifying contents. The reason for this is that the parties are poorly profiled ideologically and programmatically, poorly socially based and are with underdeveloped infrastructure. This raises another important question: the issue of electoral motivation in the so-called to transitional societies such as Serbian. Namely, in these societies, thirty years after the first multiparty elections were held, there is no developed party identification as the most general and strongest factor of electoral motivation. That is why the second most important factor of electoral motivation emerges: the image of a party leader who can be trusted to deliver on election promises.

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