Mediatization" of Politics: A Challenge for Democracy?

Javnost the Public, 2001

The differences within and between Western and Eastern democracies are so significant that the concept of multiple democracies is proposed. To most of the developing world, democratisation is transculturation a process by which Western democracy is transformed for self-aggrandisement. In the age of globalisation, the media are potentially important sources of international and domestic referencing. Media and democratisation are mutually reinforcing, one being constituted by the other. The roles of the media in a society are very much defined by its mode of media control, which varies mainly with its power structure. With concentrated power, the media tend to demote democracy; the opposite is true when equity reigns. Based on a mixed use of inducements and constraints in media control, four modes of state-press relationships are identified: laissez faire, repression, incorporation and co-optation. Each ideal type entails certain media roles that have important implications for democratisation. Media can perform both positive and negative functions in regard to democracy, depending on the prevailing mode of power distribution and specific social and organisational contexts. Each mode of media control and the corresponding media roles may shift as power is restructured. Media usually assume a more emancipatory role as the power structure becomes more decentralised.

Isara solutions, 2023

Media and democracy have always been closely linked, with media playing a vital role in promoting democracy by providing citizens with access to information and the ability to participate in the democratic process. However, in recent years, the boundaries between media and democracy have started to blur, creating new challenges for policymakers and stakeholders. This literature review examines the relationship between media and democracy and explores the ways in which the boundaries between the two have become less distinct. The methodology involved a comprehensive review of relevant literature on the subject, including ten studies that were selected based on their relevance, publication date, and academic rigor. The results of this study highlight the importance of addressing the challenges posed by the fading boundaries between media and democracy.

Medijske Studije, 2015

This article seeks to compile an empirically-based understanding of the role of media in countries in transition. The study focuses on the processes of political socialization, behaviour and accountability, and gives examples from three regions: Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East/North Africa region. We draw on some of the major works relevant to the study of mass media in these transitional contexts with the aim of discerning emergent theories available to the study of media and democratisation. While aware of the limitations posed by the nature and scope of the sample of the studies reviewed, we do identify and discuss some of the potentially key obstacles to theory-building and propose some alternative paths of enquiry.

Journalism Studies

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

Based on reviews of communication literature, the present paper intends to analyze the functions of mass media from the theoretical points of view. It is established through the findings that mass media plays a significant role in modern society. They bring about a general diffusion of knowledge about life in the world today, thus influencing many aspects of our social, political and economic patterns. Mass media has certain important functions to perform which include influencing public opinion, determining the political agenda, providing a link between the government and the people, acting as a government watchdog, and affecting socialization, entertainment, educating the masses, and mobilization as well.

T he central theme of Mauro Porto's analysis is the political role of the media in contexts of democratic transition. His reflection is anchored in a case study of the Globo Television Network, a prominent nationwide network usually referred to as TV Globo. It is interesting to note that the history of theories on political communication runs jointly with the history of the rise of representative democracies. But lacunas still exist in the interface between communication and democracy, and the contributions of Porto's book are significant.

Two concepts that have been used to describe the changes with regards to media and politics during the last fifty years are the concepts of mediation and mediatiza-tion. However, both these concepts are used more often than they are properly defined. Moreover, there is a lack of analysis of the process of mediatization, although the concept as such denotes a process. Thus the purpose of this article is to analyze the concepts of mediated and mediatized politics from a process-oriented perspective. The article argues that mediatization is a multidimensional and inherently process-oriented concept and that it is possible to make a distinction between four phases of mediatization. Each of these phases is analyzed.The conclusion is that as politics becomes increasingly mediatized, the important question no longer is related to the independence of the media from politics and society.The important question becomes the independence of politics and society from the media.

Partecipazione E Conflitto, 2014

Work licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non commercial-Share alike 3.0 Italian License

This paper compares and analyses the impact of the media on voting behaviour and political agenda-setting in two different polities: (1) the two-party presidential system of the United States and (2) the multiparty system (MPS) of Belgium. The US has an open political system with a highly deregulated media whereas Belgium has a more closed system and its media is regulated. After comparing the two political systems, the expected differences do not hold up. First, media’s impact on voting behaviour seems to be relatively equally strong for both countries. Second, the role of media in political agenda-setting also shows similarities. These data are explained using an agenda-setting framework. However, the latter results are not clear-cut due to differences in data. Therefore, essay concludes that it is not possible to make clear statements on the different effects of media in the polities due to both limited information on media and the MPS and discrepancies in comparing the two polities

2012

The paper via discussing the political mediatization, which considers as the characteristic of relationship between media and politics power aims to highlight briefly the concepts of media-twisted and media logic that have been used in analysing of media development. It further probes the relationship between mediatization and society development that influence some other social institutions in society and makes them dependent on media. Through analysing the historical development of media and media development in the last decade, the paper discusses the factors that strengthening or weakening political institutions and political adoption of the news media's criteria, format demands and dramaturgy.

2007

Agents of participatory democracy or purveyors of consumer capitalism? Guardians of the public sphere or lap dogs of the power elite? Much of the debate about media's role in the "democratization" of various societies around the world demands an examination of the implications of such questions. For starters we might consider if mass media engender, as Marshall McLuhan once envisioned, a "global village" where democracy is encouraged along with universal understanding and the cultivation of a cosmic consciousness. Or is media transformation within new democracies nothing more than a tool of global economic powers to colonize previously "untapped" social domains via information, entertainment, and new technology? While perhaps seeming to be artificially oppositional in the face of today's complex political and cultural landscapes across the globe, these questions are nevertheless useful points of departure in that they suggest how media might serve to alter, enable, or disrupt the cultural sovereignty of nations and political potency of communities. Indeed, variations of these themes have been at the heart of controversies regarding the scope and legitimacy of regional trade agreements (Galperin, 1999a, 1999b), and within them resides the core issue of in whose interest and benefit are media and new communication technologies being used to reshape nations and "democratize" the flow of information and capital. In short, what "kind" of democratic reform is taking place, and how are media involved?

PATHOLOGIES AND DYSFUNCTIONS OF DEMOCRACY IN THE MEDIA CONTEXT - 2ND VOLUME by João Carlos Correia, Anabela Gradim and Ricardo Morais Collection: LabCom Books Year of edition: 2020 ISBN: 978-989-654-648-9, 2020

Democracy and political practices are suffering a major shift. Political participation and deliberation take place in the context of strategically manipulated information. Opportunities to mobilize data, in order to reinforce manifestations of panic or alarm, are becoming more evident. Concepts such as "information", "agenda-setting " and "participation" are being challenged today by an almost belligerent mobilization of media resources. Recent developments on the recognition of women’s rights and promotion of new affirmative policies intended to improve gender equality coincides with an ever-increasing controversy around the concept of "political correctness". At the same time, while affirmations concerning human dignity appears to be progressively incorporated in political discourse, phenomena such as xenophobia, misogyny, racism, cultural, racial and ethnic confrontation, and, at the limit, the proliferation of genocides, rise to a previously unimaginable proportion and extent. Emphasis was placed on empirical and theoretical works involving relatively recent political debates, such as the creation of the "left majority" (or "geringonça") in Portugal; the Brexit; the Brazilian process; the American elections; the debates on the political correctness, the emergence of illiberal democracies and the political impact of migratory fluxes. Index Part 2 - Leadership, transgression, manipulation and new political campaigns - 9 Deliberative framings and the constitution of “Geringonça”: from media frames to readers’ comments. The case of “Observador” - 11 João Carlos Correia & Ricardo Morais Political communication and electoral strategy in Donald Trump´s Campaign - 37 José Antonio Abreu Colombri The Performance of Power and Citizenship: David Cameron meets the people in the 2016 Brexit campaign - 61 Peter Lunt Hungarian media policy 2010 – 2018: the illiberal shift - 81 Monika Metykova The agri is tech, the agri is pop, the agri is politics: the “rural world” and the rise of the agripolitician in Brazil - 97 Pedro Pinto Oliveira Part 3 - Identities and life politics in a hyper-mediated society - 113 Dystopian fiction as a means of impacting reality and initiating civic commitment among fans: “The Handmaid’s Tale” series case - 115 Marine Malet Australia’s immigration policy and the scapegoating of Lebanese migrants - 127 Mehal Krayem & Judith Betts The construction of feminine, technofeminism and technological paradox - 145 Êmili Adami Rossetti & Renata Loureiro Frade Educational Superavit: Human rights versus Education Policies - 159 Ana S. Moura, João Seixas, M. Natália D. S. Cordeiro & João Barreiros Aylan Kurdi as the awakening image of the refugee crisis:the framework of the Iberian press - 173 Rafael Mangana