Communication politique et séduction à travers la Déclaration de politique générale du Premier ministre Idrissa Seck à l'Assemblée nationale le 03 février 2003

2.1.2 The public opinion

The concept of public opinion is very complex. Some consider that it is only one « artefact » and that it « do not exist » (Bourdieu 1980 : 222-223). Others, like Habermas, to have theorized it, could not deny it. This last, of the public opinion says to us that it

revêt a different direction according to whether one asserts it as an authority criticizes vis-a-vis « publicity » imposed, correlative of the exercise of the political power and social, or according to whether one makes use of it to indicate the authority « receiving » of « publicity » of demonstration and handling, praising consumer goods, programs political, institutions or personalities (Habermas 1978 : 246),

and that it is « the single recognized base which makes it possible to legitimate the political domination » (op.cit. : 248). More practical, Patrick Champagne will be interested little in the existence or not of the public opinion, to insist on the belief in his existence at the majority of the individuals. On this subject, it notes :

The public opinion of the institutes of survey exists because the latter have, since, succeeded in making believe in the scientific value their investigations and transforming thus what was in the beginning, mainly, a simple technical, actually social artefact. (Champagne 1990 : 122)

2.1.2.1 Actors of the public opinion

The principal components of the public opinion are : the civil company, including/understanding the leaders of opinion and the ordinary citizens, the politicians, the men of the media, the professionals of the surveys and the specialists in marketing and political communication. Each one of these components has its modes of pressure, and expression.

ü The politicians :

The politicians and their structured apparatuses (political parties) constitute one of the most important components of L `public opinion. To the favor of democratization, Senegal passed from the single mode of party, with integral pluralism, while passing by the limited multi-party system.^7(*)

Thus in 2003, date of the Declaration of general policy being the subject of this present study, there was not less than 75 political parties. However, three main categories should be distinguished : the parts which we will describe as « inactive », parties « upholders » and parties « leaders ».

Parties « inactive »^8(*) which is those almost never take part in the elections and do not undertake regular activities. They constitute the majority of the recognized political structures.

Parties « upholders »^9(*) are those which, although driving more or less regular activities, take part in the elections only in the capacity as upholders, i.e. that they are seldom aligned with the elections under their own banner.

Lastly, we have the parties known as « leaders » which is, in general, those regularly represented with the French National Assembly. They do not exceed ten.^10(*) The Senegalese political parties are characterized by their tendency too marked with personalization. They have at their head of the irremovable leaders around which is articulated and is held the life of the political structures.

The political parties are described through various demonstrations : meeting, meetings, conferences press, congress, drilled, short speeches, conferences, press releases, interviews, posting, relations presses etc Certains political parties, or politicians, among best secured, as well within the opposition as within the capacity, even bodies of press and media set up to be used as relay with their messages and vision of the world.

Before Alternation, within the opposition of the time, the most notorious case was consisted creation, in 1998, of the Sopi newspaper^11(*), the PDS. After Alternation, the same newspaper will be used as relay to the PDS lately arrived at the capacity but will be supported by other newspapers close to the liberals like the daily newspaper the Messenger. When the socialist Party was with the capacity, it was pressed on the newspaper the Debate.

Apart from the bodies of press, the parties and politicians invest, more and more, in New Communication and Information Technologies, by the creation of Internet sites. It is the case of AFP, the PDS, the PS, AJPADS, the LDMPT.

Moreover, the importance of the communication is attested by the existence of in charge of the communication and spokesman.

However, a difference in size exists, being the resources and supports of communication, between the political parties. This difference is a function of financial means they have, but more especially of their position compared to the capacity.

Thus, the parties with the capacity are based, in particular, on the media known as of States, in particular Radio National Television (RTS). This one made the beautiful share with the activities of the Government and the parties members of presidential mobility and does not hesitate to make a blackout over the activities of the parties of opposition. ^12(*)

ü The civil company

The civil company actively gathers the whole of the noncommitted actors in logics of conquest or conservation of the capacity. It gathers organizations intervening in several fields (development, defense of the humans right, defense of the consumers), the apolitical citizens, the leaders of opinion (in the fields associative, intellectual, religious etc).

The modes of communication of these actors of the civil company various and are varied. The structured organizations (ONG, associations) develop a communication approach near, in terms of supports of communication, that of the political parties. Indeed, they use the media, the meetings, of the campaigns of information and sensitizing, of steps etc

The notable fact is the possibility offered to the ordinary citizen to be expressed and make share its opinion with the greatest number, by the means of new spaces of expression. On the level of the newspaper industry, it is the existence of pages reserved for the contribution of Senegalese on strategic questions or of topicality. ^13(*) It is the same for the radios^14(*), as well as Internet^15(*) which, notwithstanding its weak rate D `access, allows all the same an exchange between citizens around various political questions, social and economic.

ü Institutes of survey

In Senegal, there are institutes of survey whose role is, inter alia, to measure the opinion in the economic fields and policy. 

The institutes of survey have several spheres of activities whose investigations of audience of the media and surveys political will particularly hold our attention in this study.

With regard to the investigations tending to determine the rate of audience of the media, two principal steps exist.

The first, they are the surveys regularly carried out by Institutes of survey, in particular more known, institute BDA, every 6 months. These investigations determine the share of market occupied by two categories of media : the newspaper industry and the radio which constitute the majority types of media in Senegal.

The second step is the resultant of an order on behalf of a company of press on its notoriety, its assistantship or of the topical questions.

The political surveys are, as for them, more complex. Indeed, of their practice to their use, draw up constraints legal, technical and administrative quasi-insurmountable. ^16(*)

Apart from the traditional surveys, there also exists of different « surveys » which is done primarily through New Communication and Information Technologies, in particular Internet.

ü The leaders D `opinion

The leaders D `opinion are consisted the intellectuals, the persons in charge for associative organizations, monks etc

ü Media

The media constitute a strategic link in the process of constitution of the public opinion. We will be interested here mainly in the media known as of « mass » with an opening towards New Communication and Information Technologies. At the time of the Declaration of general policy, one noted the existence of a flowering of bodies of information distributed between the newspaper industry, the radio, the television and the resources of the Net.

The newspaper industry is characterized by its instability related to difficulties financial, legal, ethical, and technical. All things which justify this « misery » (Kassé 2002) that it would live. However, in spite of these difficulties, we could count, in 2003, not less than one score of bodies of newspaper industry, as well private as public, appearing regularly, of which the three quarter are consisted daily newspapers « nationals » and the remainder by weekly magazines.

As for the newspaper industry, the radio is characterized by its diversity, with a coexistence between private and public chains. All in all, apart from this distinction private/public, the universe of the radio is crossed by three main categories : radios of general information to more or less national vocation, the radios sets of themes, and radios of proximity or radios Community.

Television, as for it, was characterized, at the national level, by a situation of monopoly exerted by the RTS. However, this situation is undervalued by an access to foreign chains of television.

ü Citizens

The citizens are in the center of the concept and the stakes related to the public opinion. Paradoxically, they are those which reach the influence and means of expression less in the field of public space. Apart from the elections, which are modes of indirect expression, the citizens expressed themselves mainly in Senegalese public space through various mode of demonstration, protest or support bound, generally, with events as that which is the subject of this present study, namely the Declaration of general policy.

But with the democratic and media changes occurred, of new channels of expression and participation in public space are born.

On the legislative level, the new Constitution guarantees the right of expression widened to the freedom of walk and demonstration. ^17(*)

On the media level, three new elements increase the possibilities of expression of the citizens : the development and the diversification of average D `information, installation, in the media existing, of emissions, programs or headings reserved to the citizens, and the development of the applications related to the NTIC, in particular the sites of information on Internet.

* ⁷ At the time of independence, Senegal was directed by a single party, the Union Senegalese Progressist (UPS). From 1974, a democratic opening is noted, with the authorization of four political parties on ideological bases (Communism, liberalism, the conservatives and the Socialists. One spoke then about limited multi-party system. In 1983, President Abdou Diouf is at the origin of the integral multi-party system which allowed the free creation of political parties without limitation.

* ⁸ The word is not too strong insofar as in fact parties exist only in a purely administrative way.

* ⁹ If we take example on the CAPE 21, structure gathering forty parties around the majority party and of which less than 10 can prevail itself of specific activities.

* ¹⁰ They are the Socialist Party, the Senegalese Democratic Party, the Alliance of the Forces of Progress, the Union for the Democratic Revival, And Jeff Parti African for the Democracy and Socialism, the Democratic League/Mouvement for Work, the National Gathering for the Democracy, Alliance Jëf-Jël, the Convention of the Democrat and the Patriots, the Party of Independence and work, the Democratic National Gathering.

* ¹¹ Sopi means change in wolof. It is the slogan, the rallying cry of the Senegalese democratic Party then in the opposition in its will to then change the socialist capacity into place and to transform lived of Senegalese. This name will be given, at the end of the Eighties, with the body of press of the PDS. In the same way, the political coalition which left plain to legislative 2001 behind the PDS bears this name.

* ¹² The monopoly of the State on the audio-visual media, on the one hand, and the inequitable treatment of political information by Television constitutes one of the limits of the Senegalese democratic system. This situation is regularly denounced by the High Council of the Audio-visual one.

* ¹³ It is the case of the Walfadjri daily newspapers, the Sun, the Daily newspaper and the weekly magazine the Duty.

* ¹⁴ On the level of the radios, interactive emissions «  the question of the day  » in South Fm, Walf Fm and RFM.

* ¹⁵ Several Internet sites lay out, beside the headings of information, forum of discussions devoted inter alia, to the topicality, policy etc

* ¹⁶ In 1986, the newspaper «  Freedom  » diffused a survey which placed the opponent Abdoulaye Wade at the head of the intentions of vote. The reaction of the capacity in place was to make Draconian the conditions of realization and diffusion of the political surveys. Indeed, the law n° on 86-16 voted April 14, 1986 is at the origin of the national commission of the surveys whose mission is of «  to give approvals to the organizations and to the people  » wishing to carry out surveys intended to be published. It checks moreover existence of «  financial means and technical essential to carry out opinion polls. Lastly, it is it which delivers the authorization of publication or diffusion of the results, «  after control of the conditions of their realization  ».

Thus, even if the political surveys are not prohibited in oneself, it does not remain about it less than the conditions of realization are not to support them. However, it is less the realization of surveys than their diffusion which is aimed. Indeed, the law lays out that «  the publication or the diffusion of the surveys having a common bond direct or indirect with a referendum or an election organized by the electoral code is prohibited as from the date of publication in the Official Journal of the bearing decree convocation of the electorate and until the proclamation of the results of the poll ".

* ¹⁷ Precisely in its article 8.