La visibilidad mediática de actores políticos en la red

Mass media can, and often do, play a critical role in policymaking. The typical view of media is that they matter in the early stages of the policy process—that media can help to set an agenda, which is then adopted and dealt with by politicians, policymakers, and other actors. The impact of media is rarely so constrained, however. Our argument here, in short, is that media matter, not just at the beginning but throughout the policy process.

Based on national surveys and on international theoretical framework, this paper examines the relationship between the supply of information supplied by the national media and citizenship in Brazil. While numerous studies show contradictory results about the influence positive (mobilization) and negative (cynicism) of the media with respect to democracy and citizenship, this study applies the concepts of agenda setting and framing, concluding that the free marketplace of ideas and the free press, in fact, are strongly limited by a system of interdependence between the media business, audience, and political elite.

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.

[TO CITE THIS WORK: Baú, V. (2009) Media Relations and Democracy - An analysis of communication through media relations practice and its role in liberal democratic societies, eCivicus, No.456, http://www.civicus.org/media/Media-Relations-and-Democracy.pdf] Whilst most academic writing on media focuses on the role that the media play in influencing society, this paper explores how media content is itself shaped by the practice of media relations, and the impact this has on society. Through a theoretical discussion reviewing different approaches to the role of the media, the meaning and purpose of the media institutions within liberal democratic societies are examined. In particular, two models are analysed in order to understand its relationship with society. The first proposes a view of the media as constructors of our values; this makes clear their direct effect on our actions. They act as a mirror of society and can be used as a tool to understand its functioning. The second model suggests that the media do not directly affect society but they rather reflect its realities, values and norms (O’Shaughnessy and Stadler, 2008). After an introduction to the main ideas stemming from different communication models, media relations is then reviewed through a discussion of the main theories surrounding its practice. These mainly refer to the concepts of framing, information subsidies and agenda-building, which highlight the close relationship that links journalists to media relations agents. Finally, two case studies are discussed to illustrate the impact that media relations can have when effectively practiced. The first one highlights the requirement for the media to comply with the standards of news production, and describes how Greenpeace succeeded in bringing a complex environmental issue onto the media agenda. The second makes obvious the importance that the practice of media relations has in democracy building processes through its goal of conveying specific messages via the media. In particular, this example recounts how NGOs in post-conflict Bosnia have successfully engaged civil society in processes of reconstruction and reconciliation through the use of mass media as a communication channel.

Javnost - The Public, 2019

This article introduces a new approach aimed at capturing three essential action horizons of mediatised political action. The proposed approach focuses on how institutional, discursive and argumentative horizons come together to form a historically specific and issue-dependent publicity that influences how political actors communicate their power and aims. We argue that by studying the interplay of these three horizons in different times and contexts, we can better understand the media's changing role in politics than by focusing only on the alleged characteristics of media logic (e.g. personalisation and negativism), often proposed in the debates about mediatisation and media interventionism.

– Like other areas of violence against women, sex trafficking has become in the last decade increasingly politicized in Portuguese society, with the news media attaching important visibility to it, both for public awareness purposes and government reaction. This happened after the dismantling of a chain of striptease clubs, suspected of hosting trafficking activities. Known as the " Passerelle case " , this event attracted great media attention and brought to the public sphere the problem of trafficking in women for sexual purposes. This article looks at the Portuguese press to understand in what ways the news coverage of the case paved the way for the social and political acknowledgment of this issue, and to what extent it favored an understanding capable of making a real difference in the lives of women. It argues that, despite the news media's undeniable involvement in sociopolitical changes claimed by feminism, its emancipatory potential remained unexplored. RESUMO – Tal como outras áreas da violência contra as mulheres, o tráfico para exploração sexual tornou-se na última década crescentemente politizado na sociedade portuguesa, com os media de informação a concederem a esta prática uma importante visibilidade, tanto no domínio da conscientização pública como no plano da reação governamental. Isso aconteceu após o desmantelamento de uma cadeia de clubes de striptease, suspeita de atividades de tráfico. Conhecido como o caso Passerelle, este acontecimento atraiu elevada atenção mediática e fez aflorar no espaço público o tráfico para fins sexuais. Este artigo analisa a imprensa portuguesa para compreender de que forma a cobertura noticiosa do caso abriu caminho para o reconhecimento social e político deste problema e em que medida favoreceu uma compreensão capaz de fazer diferença na vida das mulheres. Defende-se que, apesar do inegável envolvimento dos meios de comunicação nas mudanças sociopolíticas reivindicadas pelo feminismo, o seu potencial emancipatório permaneceu inexplorado. Palavras-chave: Género. Tráfico de Mulheres. Prostituição. Portugal. Imprensa.

Mediatization(s) Studies, 2021

This text reflects on the ‘mediatization of politics’. The following hypothesis is proposed: the problem of ‘mediatization’ in relation to ‘politics’ is not that of the influence of ‘the media’ on political actors and institutions; instead it should be read as a series of successive transformations in the production of the public as a space, as an environment, as a horizon for discourse reception. From this point of view, the widespread association between the ‘media’ and ‘mediatization’ is a historical contingency. Thus, at present, the ‘mediatization of politics’ cannot be considered without incorporating SNS-specific digital platforms as a main determinant. Moreover, platforms also transform the circumstances in which the media themselves (as institutions) are linked to ‘politics’ (other institutions) and to their own audiences. So the advent of the Internet has changed our own understanding of what the ‘media’ is. Ultimately, this paper is an attempt to present a number of reasons why it is necessary to move away from the term ‘mediatization of’ and to argue for the analytical productivity of the concept of ‘public-ness’ in examining the relations between communication technologies, political practices and the media.

In Spain, the 2014 European Elections saw the unexpected rise of a new party Podemos, which obtained five European Parliament seats only three months after its formation. In the Spanish National Elections in December 2015, this party obtained 20.66 percent of the votes, which made it the third biggest party. Our objective was to analyze the old and new elements of Podemos’ communication and campaign strategies. The methodology followed here used this new party as a strategic case study by a qualitative approach. The analysis focused on three key fronts: (1) the role of communication, (2) mediatization of politics, and (3) use of digital media. The results suggested that Podemos’ 2014 electoral campaign combined presence on broadcast television and use of intense digital media to boost citizens’ engagement and self-mediation. Accordingly, it was established as a new transmedia party. This case also demonstrates that mediatization can also occur in two-way street dynamics, that is, from politics to the media, where the former generates an influence on the latter. This finding opens the door to help overcome the media-centric vision. Finally, we discussed future questions about the influence on other political actors’ communication strategies in different parts of the world from an international perspective.

Public Policy and Media Organizations, 2016

Preface; Part I: Theorizing Public Policy and News Media Representations >Introduction: some notes on public policy and media; Chapter 1: Political philosophy; Chapter 2: Public policy; Chapter 3: News media representations and discourse of public policy. Part II: Group Processes and the Media as a Referee in Public Policy Making >>Introduction: why group processes matter; >>Chapter 4: When the common good is not so common: group identity motives in public policy making; >>Chapter 5: Why and when media organizations referee public policy-making; >>Chapter 6: Group processes among media workers, faulty decision-making processes and effects on public opinion about policy; References; Index.