A political consultant emphasize on the campaigns that are related to the political figures (Trent, Friedenberg, & Denton, 2011). A political consultant can be regarded as the executive dealing with advertising, who has the responsibility of selling an individual’s idea as a candidate. A political consultant, however, exert his/her influence on the voters, candidates, election outcome, on the political party, and on governance.
A political lobbyist exerts its impact on the policy making at the state, local, and federal levels. The political lobbyist, however, have special interests in the process of the decision making in the legislative as well as executive branches of the government (Birkland, 2001). They also play their role in influencing the decisions that are made by the legislators, and also impact the particular legislation, which exert the influence on their personal cause.
There are many ethical communication issues associated with political consultant and political lobbyist. An ethical issue associated with political consultant is that they emphasize on the creation of such ads that convey inaccurate information to the voter, and this is done in order to create vote appeal (Denton, 2000). Another ethical communication issue linked to the political consultants is that they provide wrong advices to people, and are involved in circulating the printing material that contains false information (Thurber & Nelson, 2001).
The ethical communication issues regarding political lobbyists is that sometimes they mobilize, and circulate the wrong public opinion with the help of the media, so that they can influence the priorities as well as the policies of the government. Moreover, another issue is that sometimes the lobbyists even fail to express or communicate the policy positions effectively to the public officers as a result of which the work remains pending. The groups, however, employ the lobbyists in order to convey their opinion regarding policy to the public or government officials (Maxwell, Crain, & Santos, 2013).
References
Birkland, Thomas A. (2001). Introduction to the Policy Process. M.E. Sharpe, Inc., New York
Denton, Robert E. (2000). Political Communication Ethics: An Oxymoron? Greenwood Publishing Group, New York
Maxwell, W., Crain, E., & Santos, A. (2013). Texas Politics Today. Nelson Education Limited, Canada
Thurber, James A., & Nelson, Candice J. (2001). Campaign Warriors: The Role of Political Consultants in Elections. Brookings Institution Press, Washington
Trent, Judith S., Friedenberg, Robert V., & Denton, Robert E. (2011). Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practices. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Maryland
