Making Sense of Mediatized Politics

Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives

Jesper Stromback, Frank Esser, Jesper Stromback, Frank Esser, Jesper Strömbäck

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138059726
• eBook ISBN: 9781317507031
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Over time and across Western democracies, the media has become increasingly influential, and a great deal more political processes have become altered, shaped or structured by the media and the perceived need of individuals, organizations and social systems to communicate with or through the media. The key theoretical perspective to understand this process is mediatization. As a long-term process which has increased the importance of the media and their spill-over effects on political processes, institutions, organizations and actors, mediatization is one of the most important processes reshaping politics and transforming democracies across the Western world.

While the theoretical perspective of mediatization has become increasingly popular in recent years, scholarly understanding of the mediatization process and its antecedents, consequences and contingencies are still hampered by unresolved questions and a lack of systematic empirical studies. This volume addresses this by bringing together contributions that analyze and investigate different facets of the mediatization of politics, making a significant contribution to our theoretical as well as empirical understanding of the mediatization of politics, and setting the agenda for further research on the mediatization of politics.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Journalism Studies.

INTRODUCTION
Making sense of the mediatization of politics

Jesper Strömbäck and Frank Esser

During the last decade, the concept of a mediatization of politics has become increasingly popular. A search in Google Scholar, for example, reveals that there were about 2000 citations in the years 2001–2006, while there were more than 6300 citations in the years 2007–2012. Much of this interest was sparked by Mazzoleni and Schulz’s (1999) seminal article “Mediatization of Politics: A Challenge for Democracy?”. To date, this is the most cited article on the mediatization of politics, followed by Schulz’s (2004) “Reconstructing Mediatization as an Analytical Concept”, Hjarvard’s (2008) “The Mediatization of Society” and Strömbäck’s (2008) “Four Phases of Mediatization: An Analysis of the Mediatization of Politics”. The year 2008 seems to mark a pivotal point in time with respect to analyses of and interest in the mediatization of politics: not only were two of the most cited articles on the subject published that year: the International Encyclopedia of Communication also included two entries on the “Mediatization of Society” and the “Mediatization of Politics” (Mazzoleni 2008a, 2008b). The same year, Sonia Livingstone titled her presidential address at the annual conference of the International Communication Association “On the Mediation of Everything”, analyzing and discussing the concepts of mediation and mediatization (Livingstone 2009).

The great interest in the mediatization of politics is also obvious from the response to the open call for papers—issued in the summer of 2012—for a special issue focusing on this theme. This call yielded an unprecedented 84 submitted abstracts, leading to a decision by Editor Bob Franklin to publish them as a double-volume, with one part appearing in Journalism Studies and the other appearing in Journalism Practice. After a rigorous selection process, 16 teams of authors were invited to submit full papers. After a traditional blind peer-review process, 12 articles were finally accepted. The final acceptance rate was thus approximately 14 percent. The special issue of Journalism Studies (Volume 15, Number 3) includes six of the selected articles, while the companion special issue of Journalism Practice (Volume 8, Number 3) includes the other six articles. As Guest Editors of both, we want to take this opportunity to thank both our contributors and the reviewers, as well as Editor Bob Franklin for his wholehearted support throughout this process.

Although both compilations address the overarching question of how the news media and their coverage of political affairs have changed under the conditions of mediatization, and which implications this may have for the audience and for politics, they take separate yet supplementary perspectives. This is why we have given the first special issue the title “Mediatization of Politics: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives” (Journalism Studies), and the second one the title “Mediatization of Politics: Facets of Media Logic” (Journalism Practice). Taken together, we feel confident that the end product will serve as an important springboard for further research in this area. It should be noted that the final selection of articles was not guided by our own conceptualization of mediatization, but based on a very competitive, double-blind review process and the recommendations of outside experts.

In the context of contributing to further research, the aim of this brief introduction is fivefold. First, to outline how we believe the mediatization of politics should be conceptualized; second, to highlight briefly some of the contributions of the concept of mediatization of politics to research on media, politics and democracy; third, to discuss briefly some of the problems in current theorizing and research on mediatization in general and the mediatization of politics; and fourth, to address and attempt to clarify what we consider to be some key misunderstandings about the mediatization of politics as a theoretical framework. Finally, we will sum up and introduce the 12 articles that were finally accepted.

Conceptualizing the Mediatization of Politics

At heart, mediatization refers to a social change process in which media have become increasingly influential in and deeply integrated into different spheres of society (Asp 1986; Hjarvard 2013; Mazzoleni 2008a; Strömbäck and Esser 2009). Mediatization should thus be distinguished from the related concept of mediation, which refers to the more neutral act of transmitting messages and communicating through media (Mazzoleni 2008b; Strömbäck 2008). The undisputed fact that more messages and experiences than ever are transmitted and experienced through media—that is, mediated—is important and a key part of mediatization, but mediatization is a broader and more dynamic and process-oriented process and concept (Couldry and Hepp 2013; Esser 2013; Hjarvard 2013; Strömbäck and Esser 2009). With ramifications for most parts of modern society, mediatization has also been conceptualized as on par with other large-scale transformative processes such as globalization (Kriesi et al. 2013).

In terms of theory, despite the broad consensus that mediatization refers to a process of increasing media importance and influence, thus far mediatization has the character of a theoretical perspective or framework rather than a proper theory. This holds true both for mediatization in general and the mediatization of politics. Although great progress has been made during the last few years, much work remains before it can be considered a full-blown, elaborated theory. To note this is not to diminish its value, only to say the obvious that much work remains to be done and caution against overstating our understanding of this process.

In terms of politics, the mediatization of politics has been defined as a long-term process through which the importance of the media and their spill-over effects on political processes, institutions, organizations and actors has increased (Strömbäck and Esser 2014). This definition highlights four essential features of the mediatization of politics. First, it is a long-term and dynamic process. Second, the essence of mediatization is increasing importance and influence of media. Third, mediatization affects all parts of politics, including the processes as well as the political institutions, organizations and actors. Fourth, many of the media-related influences may be indirect rather than direct, and result from how political institutions, organizations and actors more or less reactively or proactively adapt to the media and their own needs to communicate through the media.

Following Strömbäck (2008), the mediatization of politics is a process where four distinct albeit highly related dimensions could be identified. The first dimension refers to the degree to which media constitute the most important source of information about politics and society. This dimension thus deals with the extent to which politics is mediated. The second dimension refers to the degree to which media have become differentiated and independent from other social and political institutions. Although all institutions, from a social systems perspective, should be perceived of as interdependent, for the media to have an independent influence in politics, they have to form an institution in their own right. The third dimension refers to the degree to which media and the coverage of politics and current affairs is guided by media logic or political logic. Thus, this dimension deals with the extent to which the media’s own needs and standards of newsworthiness, rather than those of political actors, organizations or institutions, are decisive for what the media cover and how they cover it. The fourth dimension refers to the extent to which political institutions, organizations and actors are guided by media logic or political logic. It thus deals with the interaction between media and politics and the very essence of the mediatization of politics, that is, the direct as well as indirect and ripple effects of media in political processes and over political actors, organizations and institutions (see also Strömbäck 2011a; Strömbäck and Esser 2009, 2014).

Important to note is that mediatization along each of the dimensions is a matter of degree. Media can, for example, be more or less independent from political institutions, and media content as well as political institutions, organizations and actors can be more or less guided by media logic as opposed to political logic. There might consequently be variations across different media and different political actors, organizations and actors, both within and across countries. Ultimately, the mediatization of politics is always shaped by the practices of different media and different political institutions, organizations and actors, and should not be perceived as an exogenous factor influencing all institutions, organizations and actors in an equal or uniform fashion.

Within this framework, the media that matter most are news media conceived of as socio-technological organizations and institutions. In essence, this means organized journalism at newspapers, radio, television and news magazines in either their traditional or digital formats or, to the extent that they are organized and operate as institutional news media, purely digital news providers. While technology matters, what is most important here is not the particular technology, but whether these different news media are organized as institutional actors, which pursue certain goals and act in the interest of reaching these goals, whether it is to make a profit or provide high-quality journalism (Allern and Blach-Ørsten 2011; Cook 2005; Esser 2013; Sparrow 1999).

Not only do single news media organizations constitute institutional actors. Because of the great similarities across news media in terms of how they operate and their rules, routines, norms and news values—what Cook (2005, 64) defined as the media’s “transorganizational agreement on news processes and content”—different news media can also be grouped together as an interorganizational field and be conceived of as a singular news media institution (Cook 2005; Esser 2013; Sparrow 1999). Different news media constitute the building blocks of the news media as an institution, but the rules and norms that govern the news media as a whole are considered more important than what distinguishes one news media company, outlet, type, etc., from another (Altheide and Snow 1979; Cook 2005; Esser 2013; Hjarvard 2013; Strömbäck 2008).

This notion of the news media as a single institution is important, as it highlights the relative autonomy and differentiation of the news media from political institutions and as the idea of increasing media importance and influence presumes that the news media are not subordinate to other institutions. In essence, it is through the functional and structural differentiation of the news media from other institutions that they have come to form an institution in their own right, and it is through becoming an institution in their own right that the news media have come to increase their importance and influence (Hjarvard 2008, 2013; Esser 2013; Strömbäck 2008, 2011a).

Media Influence and the Concepts of Media Logic and Political Logic

Another key part of this understanding of the mediatization of politics is related to how media influence is conceptualized. As noted by Schulz (2004, 88–90), at least four processes of social change arising from media-driven transformations can be identified: extension, substitution, amalgamation and accommodation. All these processes follow from the combination of the characteristics of different media technologies, what social, cultural or political needs these media technologies might serve, and the increasing presence and importance of media in all parts of social and political life. Media influence in the context of mediatization is thus a broader concept than media effects and “both transcends and includes media effects” (Schulz 2004, 90). For example, most media effect theories assume that media effects follow from content, whereas mediatization also includes how media through their very existence and semi-structural properties exert influence. Traditional media effects theories also cannot account for anticipatory effects, for example when political actors behave in a certain way or abstain from certain behaviors because of how they anticipate the news media’s reactions. Rather than restricted to traditional media effects, media influence in the context of the mediatization of politics refers to all activities and processes that are altered, shaped or structured by media or the perceived need of individuals, organizations or institutions to communicate with or through the media (Strömbäck and Esser 2014). These changes need not be imposed upon politics, but might as well be self-initiated in the face of a media environment that is perceived as omnipresent and influential. How influential media are perceived to be may thus have significant consequences for how politics is affected by the media (Cohen, Tsfati, and Sheafer 2008; Strömbäck 2011b).

Two key concepts in this context are media logic and political logic, as mediatization along the third and fourth dimension deals with the extent to which media content and political institutions, organizations and actors, respectively, are guided by media logic as opposed to political logic. The more media content or political institutions, organizations and actors are guided by media logic, the more influential the news media are, and the further mediatization has progressed.

Both these concepts, and in particular media logic, have been criticized. Among the most common criticisms of the concept of media logic are that it is too elusive and vague, that it suggests a linearity and singularity that is not there, that it lends itself to technological determinism, or that it may hide important patterns of social interactions (see e.g. Couldry 2008; Lundby 2009; Landerer 2013). Some of this criticism may be justified—but it also depends on how media logic and political logic are understood.

From our perspective and focusing on news media logic rather than a general media logic (Strömbäck 2011a), the basic idea behind the concepts of news media logic and political logic is that media and politics constitute two different institutional systems that serve different purposes and that each has its own set of actors, organizations and institutions, rules and procedures, and needs and interests. These institutional rules and procedures can be formal as well as informal, and together form a certain “logic of appropriateness” (March and Olsen 1989) within each sphere. Neither media logic nor political logic is thus set in stone, and may evolve in accordance with institutional as well as significant contextual changes, but neither is arbitrary. Both have evolved to serve as guidelines for appropriate behavior and thinking within each institutional sphere and based on each sphere’s purposes, interests, needs and institutional structures (Strömbäck and Esser 2014).

Both news media logic and political logic should, furthermore, be conceptualized as formed by three dimensions, respectively (Esser 2013). With respect to political logic, these are polity, policy and politics. Polity refers to the system of rules regulating the political process in any given country, including the institutional structure. Policy refers to the processes of defining problems and forming and implementing policies within a certain institutional framework. Politics refers to the processes of garnering support for one’s candidacy, party or political ideas, including the self-presentational side of politics (Esser 2013; see also Meyer 2002; Pennings, Keman, and Kleinnijenhuis 2006). With respect to news media logic, the three dimensions are professionalism, commercialism and media technology (Esser 2013; see also Strömbäck and Esser 2014). Professionalism refers to the extent to which journalism is differentiated as an institution and set of professional practic...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Series
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• 1. Introduction: Making sense of the mediatization of politics
• 2. News Media Logic in a New Institutional Perspective
• 3. Mass Media Logic and the Mediatization of Politics: A theoretical framework
• 4. Mediatization and Political Leadership: Perspectives of the Finnish newspapers and party leaders
• 5. Opposing the Government but Governing the Audience? Exploring the differential mediatization of parliamentary actors in Switzerland
• 6. The Mediatization of Political Accountability: Politics, the news media logic and industrial crises in the 1980s and 2000s
• 7. News Coverage of Politics and Conflict Levels: A cross-national study of journalists’ and politicians’ perceptions of two elements of mediatization
• 8. Phases of Mediatization: Empirical evidence from Austrian election campaigns since 1970
• 9. Jumping the Shark: Mediatization of Canadian party leadership contests, 1975–2012
• 10. Metacoverage and Mediatization in US Presidential Elections: A theoretical model and qualitative case study
• 11. Mediatization, Legal Logic and the Coverage of Israeli Politicians on Trial
• 12. Media Logic and Political Logic Online and Offline: The case of climate change communication
• 13. Passive Accomplice or Active Disruptor: The role of audiences in the mediatization of politics
• Index