This study does not adopt single data collection strategy of case study or content analysis as in the past. It adopts “content analysis”, “in-depth interview” and “survey”, to construct a more comprehensive evaluation of campaign strategy, and to obtain further understanding of the connection between “personal marketing” and “image management”. By analyzing the contents of the documentation mentioned above, observation, survey and in-depth interview, the connections between campaign strategy, personal marketing and image management of the top six candidates who focus on campaign of the third constituency (San-Ming District) of the seventh Kaohsiung City Councilor, will be studied. By adopting the method of triangulation (Patton, 1990), related data is collected to study the process and influence of campaign strategy, personal marketing and image management to avoid the possible shortfalls of single study of data collection. The study method of this report is as follows:
3.1 Content Analysis
According to the description of W. Schramm, the founder of the first Media Graduate School around the world on History of American Media in 1947, he mentioned four forerunners: Harold Lasswell, Kurt Lewin, Carl Hovland, Paul F. Lazarsfeld, as pioneers of media theory. However, it was W. Schramm who made the study of media an independent course of social science. The first founder is Harold Lasswell, a statesman who graduated from Chicago University and taught at Yale University until his retirement. His study method is neither survey, nor experiment, but analysis. He is the forerunner of the study on campaigns. In the doctoral theory written 1927, “The Campaign Skill in the WWI” not only served as the study of campaigns, but also became a classic work. He created content analysis and made great contribution to media research. An article written in 1948, “Structural Function of Media in the Society,” became a paradigm of media study.
Content analysis uses deductive method based on the features of system and objective inspection. From this point of view, photos, video tapes, and anything with themes, are fit for content analysis, a method to simplify content into numbers. It counts the number of units in the contents (translated by Shih Mei-ling, 1997).
Content analysis is called “documentary data analysis”, one of the “non-reactive research methods”, meaning analysis from government documentaries or data
collected from previous surveys. The source of the documentary is versatile:
government report, business research, paper data bank, business data, and books in library, theses, periodicals and newspapers. There are four steps of the analysis:
reading and organizing, description, classifying, and interpretation. In addition, the following data can be collected for research and analysis:
1. Campaign publications: including campaign posters, newspaper advertisement, pamphlet, DM and campaign flags.
2. Magazines, briefings, messages, blogs and emails of candidates: Collecting reports on the nomination process of various political parties, election, related issues and local news for Kaohsiung City Councilors, from September to December,
2006
3. Government publications: including previous records of election, election communiqués, statistics, publications and related information published by the election committee of Kaohsiung City.
This study mainly adopts content analysis, and questionnaire survey for cross-matching. That is, the researcher focuses on the campaign strategy of the top six candidates who stressed campaign strategy most in San-Ming District of Kaohsiung City to find its connection with personal marketing and image management. First of all, this research focuses on all campaign advertisements of the six candidates plus media advertisements to analyze the connections between personal marketing and image management.
3.2 Questionnaire Survey
Survey research can be divided into interview survey, observation survey and questionnaire survey, based on the method of collecting data. Questionnaire survey is a research method for finding truth and current situation. The main purpose is to collect and calculate various basic data of science education. It can be divided into descriptive research and analytical research. When considering whether or not to adopt questionnaire survey as a research tool, the goal can be obtained and the role of research sampling in questionnaire should be taken into consideration. In addition, questionnaire survey has its advantages. Only by reviewing its features to accommodate the research theme can the goal be obtained. There are seven procedures of questionnaire survey: 1. setting the issue of research; 2. collecting related documentation; 3. listing details for survey and research; 4. setting a theoretical framework and basic concept structure; 5. designing research procedure
and tools; 6. conducting questionnaire survey; and 7. processing analysis and explanation of information. During the seven procedures, the purpose, contents, subjects, and designing of format of questionnaire should be focused. In addition, how to increase the returning rate of questionnaires is also one of the considerations.
3.3 In-Depth Interview
To improve content analysis and questionnaire survey, in-depth interview is conducted to collect opinions of related parties for cross-matching information to focus on the issue. In addition, from the rich contents of respondents, the implications of their logic, language and deeds can be predicted to judge the accountability of their contents. The in-depth interview is conducted in “standardized half open-ended interview” with a certain questions and wordings. Every interviewee experiences the same procedures to answer these questions, to reduce variants. Some of the questions will be added or deleted depending on the interviewees (familiar interviewees will have more chats after in-depth interviews). Some questions are open for personal opinions to allow their replies to have more flexibility.
There are three categories of survey and interviewees. The first category is 6 City Councilor Candidates.
The second category is 150 voters selected randomly in San-Ming District. Comrey (1988) concluded that selecting 100 people to be the research sample size are “poor”, 200 people to be the sample size will be “fair”, 300 people to be the sample size will be “good”, 500 people to be the sample size will be “very good”, and 1000 people to be the sample size will be “excellent”. Comrey (1988)also brought up: if do the normal
“ordinary factor analysis” and the survey questionnaire is not exceed over 40 questions, then 200 people to be the sample size will be enough.
The third category is to interview 4 reporters locally.
3.4 Statistics Method
Cross-matching of the previous three research methods mentioned above are used to ensure the validity of this research, along with campaign data from primary elections within various political parties toward the end of the election of candidates of Kaohsiung City Councilors, plus conducting questionnaire of candidates, voters and reporters, to ensure the precision and efficiency of research results. In the end,
Scheffe of campaign strategy, personal marketing and image management will be conducted through SPSS10.0 to process data.