Political communication strategies : Transport policy making and implementation in Manchester.

The research examines the nature of political communication and assesses how marketing strategies are used by transport policy practitioners, and their perceptions of the role played by communications and marketing methods in the policy making process. The research also evaluates the phenomena of the increased use of 'political marketing and communications strategies' within national and local transport policy frameworks, and evaluates whether these have become more widespread and sophisticated in order to better signal policy intentions, as well as to market and promote controversial policies to both the media and public.An area that remains under-researched is the extent to which public relations mechanisms are being developed within local government. And how these mechanisms are being used in order to strategically influence the media in order to shape or manipulate public opinion in pursuit of their policy goals. It is therefore necessary, to analyse media and transport planning discourse, in particular the increasing use of public relations strategies by transport policy practitioners as a system for communicating messages and symbols to a wider public through more sophisticated mechanisms in order to contest transport issues within the media. The Manchester Transport Innovation Fund (TIF) was used as the main case study because it provided an opportunity to look at a high profile and highly contested transport policy initiative.