Election marketing and communication management in the local public sphere

This paper is an analysis of communication management during local elections campaigns in Poland in 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018. The 2002 was chosen as the starting point of the analysis because of the following facts: 1) those were the first direct local elections for mayors/municipality heads; 2) the number of council members was reduced by law all of which heralded an interesting competition. The high turnover rate of candidates for councillors across different regions of Poland in 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2018 local government elections has been attributed in part to the volatility caused by greater media and public interest in council issues. The paper is based on: the theory analysis, qualitative and quantitative research (questionnaires), statistical analysis (questionnaires and reports) and content analysis (selected papers; radio/TV stations; web pages). Surveys were carried out in: 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2018. The survey was followed at the region of Lower Silesia. In this paper there is presented detailed data from the study of Dzierżoniów county. There were chosen varied types of communes: periphery and centre of the region. The group of around 2500 respondents was analysed.