Elections and political advertising in Georgia

As in any field, PR (Public Relations) has an important place in politics. If we recall any political leader's pre-election programs and campaigns, or any government agency's activity, we will clearly see what PR is very important in political life.

The main function of political PR is to lead the information-communication process.

Today in Georgia Political parties and leaders use PR to establish a certain image in the society and organize pre-election campaigns. PR specialists create the image of leaders and political parties and transport it to the public. They learn the public opinion and then using marked opinions they build their own communication campaigns.

Political PR campaigns may be oriented on the external society, for example, the desire to change the country's image, reputation. The need for such PR campaigns is especially necessary after the change of administration regime, political orientation or priorities of the country. Also, PR campaigns are essential for creating a favourable investment climate in the country, the image of its tourist and cultural attractiveness.

As for political advertisements, it is one of the drastic elements of the campaign. These are traditional TV advertising clips, posters, transfers, sheets. Such advertisements are explained by experts as a market competition tool, the main tasks of which are: to transport the essence of political platforms of some political forces in the emotional, laconic, original and easy-to-remember form; To encourage the voter to support him, create a psychological mood that provides the direction of sympathy and then the actions of the human being.

The goal of political advertising is to simplify the difficult political programs and transfer it to the electorate in a clear language. Therefore, for the assistance of informed choice, it is essential, how it is regulated and how advertisements are available for political subjects.

Particularly important is the question of TV political advertising in countries such as Georgia where Telemedia remains the main source of information dissemination and more than 90% of the population receives the information from TV channels.

Two laws govern the rules of political advertising in Georgia: 1. Election Code of Georgia 2. The law about Broadcasting. Naturally, both identically define the rules of placement of free and paid political advertising on broadcasters. For example, “Public Broadcasting, the public broadcasting of television and radio of Adjara, as well as a community broadcaster are obligatory to place a pre-election advertisement for the qualified elective subjects no more than 60 seconds every hour without charge and discrimination during the current election campaign. Public Broadcasting and Adjara TV and Radio are obliged to allocate time for all other political parties and electoral blocs, besides the qualified elective subjects in order to dispose of the advertisements, equally distributed among these subjects.

It also explains that "the general broadcaster's national broadcaster is obliged to place pre-election advertisements presented by each qualified election subject in a no charged and non-discriminatory way for not less than 90 seconds in 3 hours per election campaign during a general election. The subsequent unused period cannot be added to its other time. "

Political advertising can be both paid and free. Each of them has its positive and negative sides. Political advertising is followed by the legislative article 28 of the Constitution of Georgia, which determines one of the principles - the right to vote.

In the former Soviet Union countries, paid political advertising is mainly due to two reasons: paid political advertising is bringing income for the information tools which are fighting for existence; In case of prohibition, the advertisement will still be aired by the mask of the editorial material.

Speaking about the positive aspect of the paid political advertising there appear two arguments: free political advertising is such an interference example, in which the latter receives a benefit and in the countries of young democracies, paid political advertising has a possibility, do not pick up in the air broadcaster the hidden advertising.

In conclusion, it can be said that when advertisers determine the content of political advertising, the advertiser must follow the following basic principles:

• •    Advertising should aim at promoting/hindering the electoral subject of choice;

• •    Advertisements should be shown in the advertisement and/or the serial number of participating in the elections;

• •    Advertising should contain signs of pre-election campaign.

Political advertising is mandatory to adhere to the principles set out in all three paragraphs, otherwise, the ad will not be considered as a political advertisement.