Introduction. Making Sense of the Mediatization of Politics

Mediatization of Politics, 2014

When we want to learn about the world around us, there are basically three perceptual sources of information: personal experiences, interpersonal communication and the media (Asp, 1986). We can learn things firsthand, by communicating with other people, or by taking part of different media. For the most part, however, the media are the most important source of information. The reach of our own experiences is very limited, and the same holds true for most people we talk to. Particularly when it comes to politics and society, most of what we know-or think we know-we have learned from the media. Even in cases when we have some experiences on our own to base our knowledge on, without information from the media we do not know whether our experiences are representative of how things are or whether they are atypical (Mutz, 1998). For example, while we might have experiences of the local hospital, that does not tell us much about the quality of health care in general, and even less about factors influencing the health care system or what proposals there are to improve healthcare. Consequently, it has become a truism that modern politics is largely mediated politics (Bennett & Entman, 2000; Kaid et al., 1991; Nimmo & Combs, 1983). The extent to which the media constitute the most important source of information about politics and society has also been labeled the first dimension of mediatization and singled out as a necessary prerequisite for further processes of mediatization (Strömbäck, 2008, 2011). There might, however, be several reasons to revisit the notion that politics has become mediated and the evidence that the media are the most important source of information about politics and society. First and conceptually speaking, there is a need to distinguish between mediated and mediatized politics. Second, the media is a broad and heterogeneous category-including everything from books to newspapers, radio, television and increasingly digital media-and the relative importance of different media might vary across time as well as countries. Hence, there is a need 93 F. Esser et al. (eds.

isara solutions, 2022

The advent of the Internet has generated enormous interest about whether and how digital platforms, including Social Media, have any impact on the political sphere. As a result, today we can rely on an increasing body of research addressing the multiple relations between Social Media and politics from different perspectives. The increasing influence of the media on society in general and on the behavior of politicians and the functioning of political and administrative institutions specifically, is defined as a process of ‘medialization’.

This article suggests a conceptual framework for the mediatization of politics. It critically discusses the concepts of ''media logic'' and ''political logic'' emanating from the political communication literature and argues that ''normative logic'' and ''market logic'' are more appropriate concepts for the theoretical understanding and empirical analysis of the behavior of mass media and political actors. These two logics guide media and political actors' issue selection and presentation to different degrees. The mediatization of politics in this account takes place when both media and political actors adapt their behavior to the audienceoriented market logic. This process works in parallel with the economic integration and technological progress comprised by the term globalization, thereby challenging established institutional mechanisms in advanced democracies.

2005

The paper is novel in bringing political science literature into an examination of trends in news media as technological change causes audience fragmentation. A new threat to the democratic process is identified, where public space is lost. The paper discusses the importance of a public space in which opposing views can be fairly aired, and some balanced consensus view of events can be formed. Historically broadcast mass-media had the potential to moderate the intensity of political disputes in a way which is now being threatened.

2010

The exercise of political power in a democracy is primarily made through communication with institutions, civil society and individuals. What happens if governments have to deal with an enormous increase of mass, personal and interactive communication like the latest "explosion of communication"? The new media landscape arises issues in the relation of democratic governments with society, specially when it comes to the exercise of its power. In the past, media influenced not only the way government spoke with citizens but the political process and the media-politics relationship. Now it seems governments all over the world are successfully changing the media and the news. New attacks on the freedom of the press and journalists happen all over the world in either liberal or conservative regimes. This article with look for examples from several countries, as France, Italy, Portugal, Venezuela, Argentina, the United States and Russia, and will try to draw a picture and not just to gather a sum of anecdotical evidence. Can these strains and limitations result from the "excess" of nongovernment communications, leading governments to overtake the media, by legal procedures, exerting economic pressure, interfering in the media or upgrading their own marketing, propaganda and misinformation? The present day governmental hyperpropaganda and the constraints on journalists activity hint at the emergence of a new paradigma in the governments-media relation: severe constraints within a formal democracy. It is widely accepted that "attempts by governments to control and manipulate the media are universal because public officials everywhere believe that media are important political forces" and that, in consequence, nowhere are the media totally free from formal and informal government and social controls, even in times of peace. On the whole, authoritarian governments control more extensively and more rigidly than nonauthoritarian ones, but all control systems represent a point of continuum. There are also gradations of control within nations, depending on the current regime and political setting, regional and local variations, and then nature of news. The specifics of control systems vary from country to country, but the overall patterns are similar (Graber, 2010: 16). Hallin and Mancini (2004) theorised media systems with a mutual dependency between political and media institutions and practices, avoiding the paradigma of media always being the dependent variable on relation to the system of social control which it reflects: "media institutions have an impact of their own on other social structures" (Hallin and Mancini, 2004: 8). Considering that mutual dependency, they proposed three models of media systems: the Mediterranean or Polarized Pluralist (including Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain), the North and Central European or 1 Please do not quote without consulting the author.