Young Et Al-2007-Sociology Compass PDF

Sociology Compass 1/1 (2007): 41–59, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00023.
Blackwell
Oxford,
Sociology
SOCO
©
1751-9020
Journal
August
10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00023.x
023
4
0
Original
59???
1???
2007 2007
UK
The
Compilation
Articles
Publishing
Compass
Contemporary Author
Political©
Ltd
2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Communications
Contemporary Political Communications:

Audiences, Politicians and the Media in
International Research
Sally Young*, Saskia Bourne and Stephanie Younane
University of Melbourne
Abstract
Research into political communication has grown rapidly in the past three decades,
shifting from specific, quantitative and utilitarian studies to include a broad variety
of research questions, methods and theoretical frameworks. Interdisciplinary work
in political communication takes audiences, political actors (such as governments
and politicians), and media content and media institutions as central foci. Research
has traditionally focused on election campaign-specific studies within national
contexts. Emerging research, however, is now addressing broader questions about
media texts and organisations and also about representations and power. This
research is working to trace technological changes and developments in an era of
globalised media and political communication and developing new, complex
conceptions of audience agency and reception.
The field of political communication has grown rapidly in recent times

and particularly over the past three decades. Originally, research was often
focused on quite specific, utilitarian studies – including studies of how
media content influences voting behaviour. While studies of election
campaigns (as specific political communication events) remain popular, the
field has expanded to encompass a wide variety of research questions. This
has led to major changes in the research methods, theoretical frameworks
and analytical tools used.
To date, country-specific studies have been the norm. While there is
now more comparative work being done, this still tends towards either
collections of essays on separate countries (placed into the one book) or
specific two-country comparisons. This tradition of discrete country stud-
ies or studying only one or two comparatively is understandable given that
political communication is a fairly new area of study with many literature
gaps still to be explored in national contexts. Additionally, the field
requires an understanding of an array of political, social and economic
factors that can lead researchers to focus on their own backyards first
where they better understand the political culture, electoral system, media
© 2007 The Authors
Journal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
42 Contemporary Political Communications
systems and audiences involved. Differences between countries in these

regards, exacerbated by differences in language and translation problems,
can also make comparative work challenging.
But, as with all fields of study, this is changing. Globalisation is impact-
ing upon the practice of political communication and, therefore, upon
how it is studied. Politicians and their advisers swap media management
and electioneering techniques with their counterparts in other countries.
Media organisations are importing and exporting formats, taking up genres
created elsewhere and adapting specific programs for local consumption.
And, independently of what media organisations in their geographical
location offer, audiences are increasingly searching for content from
beyond their national borders via the Internet.
Changes in technology have always prompted greater sociological
inquiry into political communication. Radio was an original catalyst for
inquiry in this field, including an interest in how the Nazis used radio for
propaganda in the 1940s but also in Winston Churchill’s wartime radio
addresses and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s radio ‘fireside chats’. The introduc-
tion of television profoundly changed the way politicians communicate
with a mass audience and new technology continues to allow political
actors to experiment with innovative ways of speaking to an audience,
including electronic townhall meetings, Internet blogs, videoblogs,
podcasts and online political advertising. Accompanying all of these
technological developments have been both great expectations – that
democracy will be enhanced by better communication methods – but also
concerns that it might be eroded – for example, by the way television
tends to promote style over substance or image over issues (Postman
1985).
Aside from changing technology, another major challenge in this field
is the shifting context of democracy and citizenship. In studies of political
communication, much depends upon how the ‘political’ is defined. While
some researchers persevere with studying formal politics (parties, parlia-
ments, politicians), others constitute the field more broadly by examining
informal politics, including non-traditional political actors and a wide
range of issues revolving around political communication in everyday life.
The field of political communication sits at the apex of social science,
humanities and cultural studies and researchers are a mix of political
scientists, sociologists, historians and those with journalism or media and
communications backgrounds, to name but a few. The field therefore
includes sites of contestation – not only about how the ‘political’ should
be constituted but also in terms of where researchers feel the focus of
attention should lie. (For example, top down with formal politics, includ-
ing how media policies are made and the role and influence of media
moguls? Or bottom up with audiences and how they interpret media
content and representations?) The methods researchers use to study polit-
ical communication often flow on from this with some valuing positivist,
© 2007 The Authors Sociology Compass 1/1 (2007): 41–59, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00023.x
Contemporary Political Communications 43
empirical methods and others preferring constructivist interpretations and

analysis.
This debate is ongoing in the field of political communication but also
in media research more generally and it mirrors the more traditional top
down–bottom up debates. These debates are concerned about whether
media organisations determine content that supports the dominant elite
and its interests and then distribute it to a largely dependent and passive
audience; or whether, instead, media production is viewed as far more
diverse, responding to audience demands and reflecting the competing
views and interests of different political, social and cultural groups.
One of the key issues for the field of political communication has been
how media representations are involved in the play of social power. This
includes asking searching questions about how media content (represen-
tations) relate to wider structures and systems of power. Today these
questions remain as relevant as ever. How exactly do media representations
construct, reproduce or challenge existing social identities and relationships
and how do these inform wider patterns and processes of social difference
and inequality? How are social interests and conflicts ‘mediated’ in and
through the media? Who are the principal actors who control or influence
media agendas and media representations and how exactly do they manage
this? Questions of power, control, censorship, access and influence remain
major preoccupations within much of the political communication
research and discussion.
While there are a wide range of interests within the field, political
communication researchers broadly tend to examine the interplay
between three key actors:
1. The audience – including ‘the public’, citizens and voters.
2. Political actors – especially governments, political parties, politicians and
their advisers but also other non-traditional actors, including non-
government organisations, activists, interest groups and unions.
3. The media – including media organisations, owners of media outlets,
journalists, reporters, editors and other media industry professionals.
The audience
Measuring the impact of media content on an audience is notoriously
complex and the results are often controversial. This is as true for political
communication effects research as it is for other, broader media effects
research. Within political communication, there have been three main
periods of effects research. During the first (especially prevalent during the
1920s and 1930s), researchers often assumed the media had a powerful
influence on public opinion and sometimes a massive and universal effect
on audiences (e.g. Lasswell 1927). These early assumptions about media
effects were often conceived at a time of great fear about the potential of
media. The use of political propaganda during World War I as well as the
use of ‘new’ media such as radio and cinema as propaganda tools in Nazi
Germany, in particular, had a major impact on how media effects were
understood. The potential for media content to act as a ‘hypodermic
needle’ or ‘magic bullet’ – sending content directly from sender to receiver
whole and unaltered – was sometimes assumed.
In the 1940s, a group of empirical researchers were keen to show the
folly of such assumptions and a great deal of significance was attached to
their research on voting behaviour during US elections. The famous
survey research conducted by Paul Lazarsfeld and others at Columbia
during the 1940, 1944 and 1948 American presidential campaigns found
that, contrary to earlier assumptions, media content had only minimal
effects on audiences and tended to only reinforce or strengthen existing
attitudes and behaviour (e.g. Lazarsfeld et al. 1944 [1968]).
This heralded the second period of political communications effects
research (broadly from the 1940s to 1970s), which saw the pendulum
swing the other way – to a model that suggested that media had only
limited effects on people and on political attitudes and behaviour. Accord-
ing to this strand of research, media content was unlikely to directly affect
the opinions, attitudes or behaviour of individual audience members. This
view was particularly prevalent after the Columbia research, although later
questions were raised about the pioneering studies and their context as
the studies were both situated within and helped to drive a paradigm of
research that continues to be popular in the USA today. This paradigm
emphasises quantitative, ‘scientific’, empirical study and, as with the election
studies, may be funded by commercial clients.
Surveys, questionnaires, panels and experiments were the methods of
choice in this quantitative strand of research. But less studied were ques-
tions of ownership and control, of audiences’ access to media and content
and questions about social relations, including who was able to speak in
the media and who was excluded. From the 1970s and 1980s, these
questions were looming as underexplored areas that required urgent
attention. At the same time, there was also a growing awareness about the
ability of audiences to construct their own meanings and interpretations
and an acknowledgement that audiences were made up of diverse indi-
viduals and should no longer be viewed as just a ‘mass’ (as in ‘mass media’
or ‘the TV viewing masses’).
Around this period, the pendulum began to swing back to consider
how media could influence audiences but the emphasis was on how this
could be done in specific ways and under particular circumstances. This
third stage, still prevalent now, is therefore often seen as a correction or
balancing out and it suggests a more cautious approach than either of the
two paradigms that preceded it. Several theories have emerged from these
later studies of more nuanced media effects. Three central ones were
theories of framing, agenda setting and priming.
To explain these theories in the most rudimentary terms, framing

suggests that how people think about an issue will depend upon how the
issue is framed by the media – by the way that issue is covered, including
the language and images used to describe it. The frame used may be
positive or negative, critical or supportive, or a whole range of other
emphases may be added by choice of words, images and sounds. Agenda
setting on the other hand, as Bernard Cohen summed it up, suggests that,
even with these frames: ‘The press may not be successful much of the
time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in
telling its readers what to think about’ (quoted in Iyengar and Kinder
1987, 2). In other words, the media is very effective in directing attention,
for example, by selecting particular topics for media coverage while ignor-
ing others or by placing some on the front page while many others are
granted less space or priority. Studies which have tended to support
agenda setting theory show, for example, that if you ask people which are
the most important issues at stake during an election campaign, the issues
they identify will generally match up with those accorded the most media
coverage. Priming extends this theory by suggesting that media content
does not only set the agenda (by telling us what to think about) but is
sometimes able to alter the criteria by which we make our judgements –
for example, judgements about leaders and governments. A key study on
priming by Iyengar and Kinder (1987), for example, found that voters
evaluated political leaders in terms of topics they had recently noticed in
the news.
These sorts of studies extended the repertoire of quantitative survey and
experiment-based research methods. Some focused not just on audience
reception but also on studying media content in more detail (as discussed
below). Others moved to not only examining media content and recep-
tion but also considering the processes of media production: that is, what
goes on ‘behind the scenes’ where media content is produced (see also
below). These latest phases of research accommodate far more eclectic,
broad-ranging interests than the earlier instrumentalist studies.
Within the area of audience research, there has been a move away from
a homogenised approach and a shift to identifying multiple audiences.
Media effects researchers who now conduct audience research are more
likely to do so by studying specific groups or specific topics. This helps
build up a picture of audiences, albeit a fragmented one. It also mirrors
the way in which politicians and political parties increasingly ‘narrowcast’
their message, no longer aiming at ‘mass’ audiences but instead segment-
ing audiences into specific categories (e.g. by gender, age, area of interest
or home location) in order to send out messages that are more targeted
towards their (perceived) interests or concerns. Two voters in the same
household, for example, may receive a different letter from the same
election candidate aimed at their (perceived) interests. The media industry
likewise segments and targets consumers. When a media outlet creates a
new TV show or magazine, for example, that product may be designed

to appeal specifically to a youth audience or even to an audience with
particular political sympathies or views (such as Fox News in the USA)
rather than a ‘mass’ audience.
From original assumptions about media content and its potential to
‘brainwash’ people in totalitarian systems, there developed a move to
empirical methods suited to quite instrumentalist questions about whether
media content determined how people voted. More recently, there has
been a shift to asking how audiences engage with and ‘read’ media texts
on politics. This has led to a greater concern with examining the rela-
tionship between content and audiences and has fostered a shift in research
methods, including a ‘discursive turn’ that examines media content in
detail as well as its reception to try to answer questions about what effects
political communication can have not only at an individual level but also
at a broader level (including its impact on society).
The quantitative approach has not died and is still extremely popular in
the USA in particular. But the ability of empirical studies to definitively
and conclusively unravel the puzzle of media effects once and for all is
now in serious doubt. Media effects studies reveal many different inter-
pretations and findings – some of which are extremely contradictory –
hence, after over 60 years of ultimately inconclusive media effects
research, there is unlikely to be any single, grand theory of media effects
discovered. Instead, the area of media effects studies is now quite frag-
mented. Arguably it is also less popular (especially in the UK, Canada,
Australia and New Zealand) than studies of the two other areas of research
addressed below. It has been abandoned altogether by some researchers
while others have chosen to focus on niche studies rather than grand
studies. However, even if fragmented, this area of research makes an
important contribution by reminding us to remember the role of the
audience, a key piece of the puzzle of political communication. Recent
studies that consider media effects more broadly – in terms of their impact
on democracy rather than just individual voters, for example – are recon-
figuring our understanding of the impact of media on politics and vice
versa. Ultimately, media effects research cannot come up with a singular
explanation because the picture is far too complex. Its greatest contribu-
tion to the study of political communication is instead to help us gain a
better understanding of how audiences interpret and interact with media
representations of politics and politicians.
Making the study of media effects a challenging area today is the way
in which audiences are morphing from audiences into simultaneous pro-
ducers of media content. For example, citizens post entries on newspaper
website blogs, they take videos of politicians in candid moments and post
these on YouTube, play games on political party websites or hack into
them and change content, create their own content through citizen jour-
nalism projects, contribute comments to radio talkback, report news on
their own websites and blogs and influence the content of their favourite
reality TV shows by SMS and phone voting. For some commentators,
user-generated content and social media suggest that the future of political
communication may be less controlled and less managed than it has been
in the past and that it is becoming a more complex process in which
ordinary people have a pivotal role – as creators or audience who need to
be followed and responded to. Yet, there is also a paradox here because
over the same period that audience interaction has seemed to grow, there
has also been much greater concentration in media ownership. A handful
of very powerful media owners now dominate including in countries such
as Australia but also at a more global level (Herman and McChesney
1997; McChesney 1999; McQueen 1977). This leads to questions about
where the research focus in the field should lie: with audiences and
analysing their use of media (which often includes cases studies that show
how ‘active’ audience members are rather than the passivity often assumed);
or with the production side and examining broader socio-economic–
political issues such as the manipulation of the media by political actors
or the immense political power of the big owners?
Political actors
A long-standing tradition of political communication research has taken
‘political actors’ as its central focus, complementing studies concerned
with the audience and those that analyse the media. Political actors or
‘political organisations’ (McNair 1995, 5) are the social groups that both
act in formal organised politics and, at a broader level, influence the
structure and politics of everyday life. They include ‘traditional’ political
actors such as politicians, political parties and governments, as well as
‘non-traditional’ groups such as non-government organisations, political
activists, interest groups and unions. More recently, attention has also been
paid to the role of political and media advisors, ‘spin doctors’, image
consultants and speechwriters as political actors.
Political communication research, in this area, has focused on two
interrelated questions: primarily, it has been concerned with what political
actors say (content), while more recent studies have also examined how
they say it (process). These questions have been studied in connection
with the main concerns of media- and audience-focused studies, which
ask how political messages are covered in the news media and might affect
audience members.
Studying the content of political communication has been the central
concern of research in this area, analysing messages in, or about, the
traditional realm of organised politics. Working from a primary assump-
tion that political rhetoric is powerful, researchers have focused on the
ability of political messages to influence citizens and guide them in their
role as informed members of a democracy. For political communication
researchers, politics can be seen as a battle about definitions, a struggle

over how to portray events, situations or people in society (Brett 1994,
150). This starting point has led to a rich tradition of research that takes
political language as its central concern (Corcoran 1979; Hahn 2003) and
operates as cross-disciplinary field at the nexus of political science and
media/communications. The influence of areas such as sociology and cultural
studies have, recently, allowed for more complex understandings of what
it means to be ‘political’ and opened new possibilities for research into
political language and communication.
Concern with ‘political language’ can be traced over more than 2000
years, as far back as Aristotle’s classical study on Rhetoric, but contempo-
rary political communication research has developed in two distinct tra-
ditions: the overwhelmingly empirical, micro level North American
approach; and more interpretative European work, which has studied
political language in its socio-economic context. The differing focus of
these two traditions has led to two distinct methodological approaches to
the study of political language. Quantitative methods are, overwhelmingly,
the most widely used in US studies of political language; here, content
analysis (either manual or computerised) and other quantitative and
predictive research methods have been applied to presidential rhetoric
(Gelderman 1997; Ryan 1988; Tulis 1987), election campaigns (Brady
and Johnston 2006; Campbell and Garand 2000; Fair 2002; Holbrook
1996), speeches (Benoit 2003; Kabanoff et al. 2001; McAllister and
Moore 1991) and televised debates (Coleman 2000; Jamieson 1988;
Schroeder 2000), studying language and its impact on election outcomes.
While this quantitative method continues to dominate research inter-
nationally, qualitative approaches, which draw on the more discursive European
tradition, have grown in popularity in recent decades (Chilton 2004;
Chilton and Schaffner 2002). Exploring issues of power and representation
in political messages, this emerging trend moves beyond counting word
occurrences to ask questions about political language in a broader
context (Brett 1994; Curran 2006). Studies of communication content
also draw on linguistics as a theoretical and methodological guide: for
example, research in the UK has studied issues of ‘face’, turn taking and
interaction in political speeches and interviews (Bull 1998, 2003; Bull
and Mayer 1993; Harris et al. 2006).
The ongoing preoccupation with election campaigns as the focus of
political communication research can be explained through the common-
sense notion that choosing public officials is one of the most important
democratic political processes. As a result, researchers have been con-
cerned with the ‘quality’ of political information communicated to citi-
zens to help them choose those officials. Also prevalent are ideas about
the ‘exciting’ nature of election campaigns as a political competition or
contest; and the regular occurrence of campaigns in the political cycle to
provide analytical material (Graber 2005, 482). Within electoral studies,
researchers have focused on how ‘traditional’ political actors have com-

municated with the public during national election campaigns.
As media technology has developed and changed, political communi-
cation research has also investigated the influence of mediated politics and
the modern election campaign on political language. The last few decades
have seen a shift away from studying classical notions of ‘rhetoric’ towards
research which acknowledges the central role of broadcast media (mainly
television) in providing citizens in Western democracies with much of
their information about politics (Blumler and McQuail 1969; Hart 1994).
As a result, contemporary research has started to combine studies of
transcripts and print media with ‘audiovisual coding’ and other visual and
semiotic analysis methods. This has allowed televised speeches or election
campaign debates, for example, to be studied taking style, format, tone,
image and genre into account and acknowledging that modern political
and election campaign language is designed to be seen and heard through
mass media, rather than read or experienced ‘live’. Broader contemporary
research is analysing material such as campaign and government advertise-
ments (Schultz 2004; Young 2004), flyers, posters and televised political
appearances as examples of ‘political communication’.
In many ways, this shift has been made possible by the same techno-
logical changes that have moved the mass broadcast media into a central
role in public life. Political communication researchers are now able to
pre-program and record broadcast material straight into digital formats,
access archival material and transcripts through online databases, scan and
enter vast tracts of printed material into computerised textual analysis
programs, and use newspaper databases to make research more efficient.
This has extended the limits of what is feasible in a study of political
communication and makes possible the broad, cross-national or historical
comparative research that is currently neglected in the field.
Technological changes in political communication have been analysed
both as heralding new opportunities for political actors to communicate
with the public and each other, and as representing a decline in standards
of public discourse. On the one hand, political communication researchers
have lamented the death of ‘face-to-face’ political engagement, looking
back to an idealised golden age where politics – and political campaigns
– were conducted by commanding public speakers who debated ‘real
issues’ that the public could engage with first-hand. Research lamenting
the supposed malaise in political communication links the ‘mediatisation’
of politics with growing political cynicism and disengagement on the part
of citizens, and often equates modern politics with image, style and ster-
eotypes (Burchell and Leigh 2002).
On the other hand, some contemporary research has pointed to the
potential of the mass media to extend the ‘audience’ for political commu-
nication to include more viewers and listeners, potentially taking in the
entire electorate or nation as the audience for a speech, statement or
interview. Research has asked what opportunities new technologies open

up for interactivity and democratic citizen engagement (and whether
these opportunities are realised) by studying the complex, dynamic rela-
tionship between focus groups, opinion polls and surveys and political
message formation.
While the effect of technological developments on election campaign
communications has been the central concern of research in this area,
some researchers are looking more broadly at how these changes might
facilitate non-traditional political actors in gaining access and coverage in
the news media – or, indeed, might allow them to bypass it in commu-
nicating with supporters and the public. Anti-globalisation protestors have
used media technologies to coordinate their actions (Street 2001, 226);
political activist groups such as GetUp! or MoveOn have conducted
pressure campaigns through online petitions; and anti-poverty movements
such as Make Poverty History have used SMS campaigns to raise the
profile of their work. Following the initiative of groups such as Green-
peace and Amnesty International these groups are taking advantage of
new technologies to direct and focus their activities (Barr 2002, 253).
Research has noted both the successes non-traditional actors have had in
embracing these new media forms, and the continuing financial, access
and ‘accountability’ challenges that hamper their ability to take advantage
of these opportunities (Maddison 2007).
This research into the political language and communication strategies
of non-traditional political actors highlights the second central strand of
analysis in this area, which asks how political actors communicate. Tech-
nological developments are again central here and are seen to be driving
changes in the strategies and techniques political actors use to communi-
cate. This interest in the behind-the-scenes of political communication
shifts focus from asking what kind of content political actors produce to
studying how they produce it including what financial and staff resources
are dedicated to communications and media management and how
political actors deliberately position themselves as ‘media sources’ to
ensure coverage.
In this contemporary research, attention has been paid to the techniques
that characterise modern politics and the media campaign as indicators of
the ‘professionalisation’ of politics. Changes in political communication
strategies have been linked to advances in media technology, the advent
of 24-hour news and the globalisation of media institutions. These are
variously seen as driving the packaging of politics (Franklin 1994), the
growth of designer politics (Scammell 1995), or the ‘Americanisation’ or
modernisation of politics (Swanson and Mancini 1996). These terms
describe, with different emphases, the increasing prevalence of ‘spin’,
political marketing (O’Shaugnessy 1996) and media management in the
communications strategies of both traditional and non-traditional political
actors, which have been linked to the growth of public relations and
marketing in other industries. Here, it is argued that the number and

influence of media consultants and political professionals has exploded in
recent decades; that public discourse is increasingly dominated by image
and soundbites rather than substance; and that political communication
and advertising budgets for political parties and governments have
increased dramatically in the past three decades (Norris 2000; Norris et al.
1999).
Interest in how modern election campaigns are run has increased dra-
matically in the last 10 years with political communication researchers in
different countries analysing campaign management strategies and tactics
(Johnson-Cartee and Copeland 1997; McNair 2003; Trent and Friedenberg
2004; Stockwell 2005). These studies stress how dramatically the modern
media campaign differs from earlier examples (Nimmo 1978; Nimmo 1970;
Scammell 1995), highlighting the degree of stage-management and input
from consultants and professionals (Kavanagh 1995; Shea 1996). Research
in this area traces changes in election campaign communications, provides
advice for students of campaign management or contemporary politics, and
contributes to a broader understanding of how political campaigns function
‘behind-the-scenes’.
The media
Political communication research that is concerned with the media can be
divided into two broad areas: studies of media output and studies of media
organisations. More specifically, political communication research has usu-
ally been concerned with news and current affairs media. This is because
news and current affairs are the media genres in which formal political
messages are customarily conveyed to an audience. These genres have an
implied responsibility in democracies to act as the ‘fourth estate’: that is,
to act as an independent political executive in society. The fourth estate
ideal was developed during the enlightenment of the 18th century and
became an established media value by the mid-19th century. This ideal
is inextricably bound to the public interest prerogatives of the media. It
remains the dominant influence on perceptions of the role of the political
media both within and beyond scholarly research today. And this expected
democratic function of the media has formed the basis for much norma-
tive criticism, the majority of which contends that the media does not
adequately perform its role as an independent fourth estate.
Studies of media output

Until the mid-20th century, when McLuhan (1964) shone the research
spotlight on the media by declaring that ‘the medium is the message’,
little media research had gone beyond the idea that a media message
moves undistorted directly from sender to receiver. By this phrase,
McLuhan has highlighted the concept that the medium has a significant
impact on the message that it conveys; that the media has a role in
constructing the message. This has been an enduring theory in studies of
the media and it remains the basis for how ‘the media’ is commonly
understood. Consequently, this concept has informed much research of
the media in studies of political communication.
As noted, the speed by which media technology has changed over
recent years has had a significant impact on political communication stud-
ies of the media. Previously ‘the media’ was conceived of as consisting of
three media: print, radio and television. It now encompasses almost any
technology that acts as a mediator between a sender and a receiver, and
political messages can now be communicated in many different ways.
Digital technology, in particular, has caused an explosion in the number
of media types. It has also caused media convergence where the bounda-
ries between types of media are not rigidly defined. For example, a
mobile telephone can send sounds but also text, images and video while
newspapers, radio and television can all be accessed over the Internet.
Therefore, it is no longer appropriate to conceive of the media as a small
number of discrete technologies. A current debate concerns whether
these changes will have a positive or negative effect on media output
(e.g. Ursell 2001).
Despite these changes, most political communication studies of the
media are still confined to one particular technology such as television or
the Internet. Meta-analyses that encompass or compare multiple media are
extremely rare. It is possible that this is the result of practical research
limitations although the previous section discussed how some researchers
are now addressing these challenges.
Another enduring concept in political communication studies of the
media is Habermas’s (1989) ‘public sphere’ theory that builds on the
concept of the media as the fourth estate. Habermas’s theory was first
published in German in 1962 but only became widely influential after
1989 when it was translated into English. Habermas’s (1996, 92) public
sphere refers to a ‘domain of our social life in which such a thing as public
opinion can be formed’. Habermas believed that public opinion was best
formed through rational discussion. He theorised that this rational discus-
sion had once taken place in the coffee houses of 18th-century London;
however, as societies became larger, the media became the dominant
vehicle for the formation of public opinion. In this way, public sphere
theory contends that the role of the media is to act as a forum for the
rational discussion of ideas with the aim of forming public opinion. In
this way, the media’s role is to aid in a well-functioning democracy.
Habermas’s public sphere theory is framed as a criticism of a contem-
porary media that does not live up to the public sphere ideal. He, like
other researchers, reflects wistfully on an idealised golden age when
politics could be debated rationally and without distortion. Habermas’s
public sphere has been widely debated and criticised (Thompson 1995),
which is a testament to its enormous influence on media research. Much
political communication research continues to be concerned with the
media’s failure to achieve its pubic sphere ideal. As with many normative
theories, there is no quantitative measure for what constitutes an ideal
public sphere, and so consensus is difficult to achieve.
Habermas’s theory became widely discussed at a similar time as the
release of Herman and Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent (1988). This text
complemented Habermas’s theory as it also showed how the media did
not achieve an allocated democratic role. The authors argued that a
number of media ‘filters’, such as ownership and news sources, filter the
news that is deemed ‘fit to print’. This process results in the mass media
being essentially a vehicle of propaganda that serves as a means for
government and private interests to covey their messages to the public.
Although, like Habermas’s theory, Manufacturing Consent has been widely
critiqued, it influentially discussed a range of factors that influence news
output.
‘Representation’ has become another key research concern of political
communication and broader media studies. The idea behind media
representation is that the media does not transmit undistorted reality
to your lounge room; reality, rather, is constructed in a particular way
according to certain political, social and economic influences. How the
media represents the world impacts on its role as the fourth estate and the
public sphere. Much research into the representations that the media
convey is centred on ‘bias’ (and related concepts such as objectivity, balance
and editorialising) as these have long been among the most commonly
studied topics in political communion studies of the media (e.g. Hofstetter
and Buss 1978; McQuail, 1992; Schiffer, 2006). The concern with bias
relates to the perceived democratic function of the media. A biased media
cannot perform its expected democratic obligations and be an inde-
pendent political estate or a forum for informed rational debate. However,
relativists have argued that objectivity is impossible and that all jour-
nalistic accounts of events are subjective constructions of ‘reality’. Other
theorists have conceived of objectivity in the media as an ideology that
serves to uphold the prevailing order (Hackett and Zhao 1998); and as a
professional practice that serves to counter accusations of bias (Tuchman
1972).
As media representations do not simply reflect identity but can also play
a role in shaping perceptions of identity, the representation of social
identities in the media, such as race, ethnicity, class, religion and gender
have become key research areas in political communication (e.g. van Dijk
1991, 2000). This includes examining how the media maintains or sub-
verts existing power structures in a society and how representations of
national identity can have particular implications for the formal political
sphere.
Studies of media organisations
Traditionally, much of the blame for biased or inadequate media represen-

tations was attributed to the personal intentions of journalists, but, more
recently, researchers have sought to look beyond individual journalistic
intent to other explanations for the particular framing of media represen-
tations, including examining a number of economic, social and political
reasons that influence media output. The effect of media policy and
regulation is one research concern in this area because how a government
regulates and monitors media outlets plays an important role in the dis-
tribution of information in a society. The role of government-owned or
government-controlled media outlets has drawn attention (e.g. Bromely
2005; Zhao 1998) along with issues of censorship, secrecy and intimida-
tion of journalists. But more routine policy matters, including licensing,
commercial and public broadcasting and the allocation of bandwidth, have
also been studied as these impact upon the way media organisations
operate in particular policy climates.
Media ownership is suspected to have a significant effect on media
output. This has become a concern particularly in countries that have
ownership oligopolies or near monopolies such as Australia and Italy.
This is due to the perception that diversity of representation in the media
is limited by concentrated ownership. This, in turn, has implications
for the media’s role in the public sphere. These concerns have led to a
number of studies that analyse media from an ownership specific per-
spective (e.g. Campus 2006; Marjoribanks 2000; McKnight 2003; Statham
1996).
The concepts of the media as a ‘profit or audience seeking business’
has resulted in other research concerns. The tension between the
media’s commercial imperatives and its public interest role have lead to a
debate about the ‘tabloidisation’, ‘infotainment’ or ‘dumbing down’ of
news media. There is a concern that, again, this may affect the ability of
the media to perform its public sphere role. However, it has also been
argued that a populist media is less elitist and more accessible to a
wider audience (Barnett 1998). Further to this, Temple (2005) has argued
that a media that fails to ‘dumb down’ and make its political messages
more accessible may risk contributing to political apathy among its
audience.
The everyday practice of news production has also become a research
area that seeks to explain news output beyond the personal biases or
worldviews of journalists. This area of research seeks to examine the
complexities of the sociology of news production and further account for
explanations of why the news is like it is (e.g. McNair 1998; Schudson
2003). However, sociology of news production has, until recently, been a
regularly neglected aspect in the analysis of the news media. This is
despite its discussion at least 30 years ago in Hall and colleagues’ (1978)
definition of ‘primary definers’ of the news. This theory proposes that

powerful groups, such as police and the government, are able to shape the
content of news stories as journalists commonly use them as sources. The
reason that journalists privilege these groups as sources is due to practical
demands placed on them such as pressure to meet deadlines and the
maintenance of objective reporting. In this way, powerful groups are able
to be the ‘primary definers’ of the news.
The ‘primary definers’ theory has been criticised for its failure to
account for the perspective of the news sources themselves (Schlesinger
1990) and its relevance may be questioned in the changing 24-hour
news media environment where the concept of deadlines has altered
significantly. However, it serves as a reminder of the importance of
accounting for the sociology of news production when considering
news output.
The fourth estate and public sphere media ideals have been the over-
whelmingly dominant frameworks for analysing the media in studies of
political communication. More recently, this has been developed into
theories of ‘deliberative democracy’ (Benhabib 1996; Dryzek 2000) but
the democratic focus remains the same. Critical political communication
studies of the media are usually concerned with how the media does not
achieve its democratic responsibilities. However, more recently research
has begun to acknowledge that some forms of media representation can
have positive effects on democracy (Cottle 2005).
Conclusion
Political communication studies need to take into account various
contexts (such as the historical, economic, political, social, cultural and
technological contexts) as well as closely interrelated aspects of media
production, media messages and media audiences. As a result, the field is
highly interdisciplinary in nature and draws productively on many
different disciplines, including history, political science, economics,
sociology, law, media studies, journalism and public policy, to name but
a few.
In terms of the impact of mediated politics on society, there are many
questions that are now being explored and in much broader terms than
the early instrumentalist studies allowed. The large quantity of media
research in the field of political communication indicates the significance
that is attributed to the political media and an implied acceptance that
media output can affect its audience. But, as with other fields, there is also
a lack of consensus on many issues and this is one of the area’s strengths
– the ability with which it can incorporate a range of topics, theories and
methods. As media formats and media outputs are expanding greatly in
contemporary society, political communication is set to become a more,
rather than less, complex field of research.
Short Biography
Sally Young is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications at the
University of Melbourne. She researches election campaigns, political/
government advertising and media reporting of politics. Sally is the author
of The Persuaders: Inside the Hidden Machine of Political Advertising (Pluto
Press, 2004), From Banners to Broadcasts (National Library of Australia,
2005) and the editor of Government Communication in Australia (Cambridge
University Press, 2007).
Saskia Bourne is a PhD candidate, research assistant and tutor in the
Media and Communications Program at the University of Melbourne.
Her doctoral thesis will discuss how the Australian commentariat report
recent federal election campaigns. Her research interests include news
media representations of political issues, particularly in contemporary
Australia.
Stephanie Younane is a PhD candidate, research assistant and tutor in
the Media and Communications Program at the University of Melbourne.
Her doctoral thesis will examine conceptions of belonging and national
identity in Australian political rhetoric, focusing on federal election cam-
paigns. She has co-authored a chapter in Government Communication in
Australia (Cambridge University Press, 2007), undertaking a comparative
analysis of government anti-terrorism advertising in Australia, the USA
and UK. Her research interests include political communications, rheto-
ric, identity formation, Australian multiculturalism and nationalism.
Note
* Correspondence address: Media and Communications Program, University of Melbourne,
Victoria, Australia. Email: s.young@unimelb.edu.au.
References
Aristotle 1991. The Art of Rhetoric. Trans. by Lawson-Tancred, H. C. London: Penguin Books.
Barnett, Steven 1998. ‘Dumbing Down or Reaching Out: Is It Tabloidisation Wot Done It?’
Pp. 75 – 90 in Politics and the Media: Harlots and Prerogatives at the Turn of the Millennium, edited
by Jean Seaton. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers.
Barr, Trevor 2002. ‘The Internet and Online Communication.’ Pp. 244– 57 in The Media and
Communications in Australia, edited by Stuart Cunningham and Graeme Turner. Crows Nest,
NSW: Allen and Unwin.
Benhabib, Seyla (ed.) 1996. Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Benoit, William L. 2003. ‘Topics of Presidential Campaign Discourse and Election Outcome’.
Western Journal of Communication 67: 97–112.
Blumler Jay G. and Dennis McQuail 1969. Television in Politics: Its Uses and Influence. Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press.
Brady, Henry E. and Richard Johnston (eds) 2006. Capturing Campaign Effects. Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan Press.
Brett, Judith 1994. ‘Words Fail Us – Political Language in the 1990s.’ Pp. 150– 55 in The
Abundant Culture: Meaning and Significance in Everyday Australia, edited by David Headon, Joy
Hooton and Donald Horne. St. Leonards, NSW: Allen and Unwin.

Bromely, Michael 2005. Journalism and Democracy in Asia. New York, NY: Routledge.
Bull, Peter 1998. ‘Political Interviews: Television Interviews in Great Britain.’ Pp. 149 – 60 in
Politically Speaking: A Worldwide Examination of Language Used in the Public Sphere, edited by
Ofer Feldman and Christ’l de Landtsheer. Westpoint, CT: Praeger.
Bull, Peter 2003. The Microanalysis of Political Communication: Ambiguity and Claptrap. London:
Routledge.
Bull, Peter and Kate Mayer 1993. ‘How Not to Answer Questions in Political Interviews.’
Political Psychology 14: 651– 66.
Burchell, David and Andrew Leigh (eds) 2002. The Prince’s New Clothes: Why Do Australians
Dislike Their Politicians? Sydney, NSW: University of New South Wales Press.
Campbell, James E. and James C. Garand (eds) 2000. Before the Vote: Forecasting American
National Elections. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Campus, Donatella 2006. ‘The 2006 Election: More than Ever, a Burlusconi-centred Cam-
paign.’ Journal of Modern Italian Studies 11: 516 –31.
Chilton, Paul 2004. Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge.
Chilton, Paul and Christina Schaffner (eds) 2006. Politics as Text and Talk: Analytic Approaches to
Political Discourse. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. Co.
Coleman, Stephen (ed.) 2000. Televised Election Debates: International Perspectives. New York, NY:
St Martins Press.
Corcoran, Paul 1979. Political Language and Rhetoric. St. Lucia, Qld: University of Queensland
Press.
Cottle, Simon 2005. ‘In Defence of “Thick” Journalism; or How Television Journalism Can
Be Good for Us.’ Pp. 109 – 24 in Journalism: Critical Issues, edited by Stuart Allan. Berkshire,
UK: Open University Press.
Curran, James 2006. The Power of Speech: Australian Prime Ministers Defining the National Image.
Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press.
Dryzek, John S. 2000. Deliberative Democracy and Beyond: Liberals, Critics, Contestations. New
York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Fair, Ray C. 2002. Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press.
Franklin, Bob 1994. Packaging Politics: Political Communications in Britain’s Media Democracy. New
York: Edward Arnold.
Gelderman, Carol W. 1997. All the Presidents’ Words: The Bully Pulpit and the Creation of the
Virtual Presidency. New York, NY: Walker and Co.
Graber, Doris 2005. ‘Political Communication Faces the 21st Century.’ Journal of Communication
55: 479– 507.
Habermas, Jürgen 1989. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a
Category of Bourgeois Society, translated by Thomas Burger with the assistance of Frederick
Lawrence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Habermas, Jürgen 1996. ‘The Public Sphere.’ Pp. 92–7 in Media Studies: A Reader, edited by
Paul Marris and Sue Thornham. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press.
Hackett, Robert and Yuezhi Zhao 1998. Sustaining Democracy?: Journalism and the Politics of
Objectivity. Toronto, ON: Garamond Press.
Hahn, Dan F. 2003. Political Communication: Rhetoric, Government and Citizens. State College,
PA: Strata Publishing.
Hall, Stuart, Charles Critcher, Tony Jefferson, John Clarke and Brian Roberts 1978. Policing the
Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order. London: Macmillan.
Harris, Sandra, Karen Grainger and Louise Mullany 2006. ‘The Pragmatics of Political Apolo-
gies.’ Discourse and Society 17: 715–37.
Hart, Roderick P. 1994. Seducing America: How Television Charms the Modern Voter. New York,
NY: Oxford University Press.
Herman, Edward S. and Noam Chomsky 1988. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of
the Mass Media. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
Herman, Edward S. and Robert W. McChesney 1997. The Global Media: The New Missionaries
of Global Capitalism. London: Cassell.
Hofstetter, C. Richard and Terry F. Buss 1978. ‘Bias in Television News Coverage of Political
Events: A Methodological Analysis.’ Journal of Broadcasting 22: 517–30.

Holbrook, Thomas 1996. Do Campaigns Matter? Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Iyengar, Shanto and Donald R. Kinder 1987. The News that Matters. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Jamieson, Kathleen Hall 1988. Presidential Debates: The Challenge of Creating an Informed Elector-
ate. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Johnson-Cartee, Karen S. and Gary A. Copeland 1997. Inside Political Campaigns: Theory and
Practice. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
Kabanoff, Boris, Wayne Murphy, Shane Brown and Denise Conroy 2001. ‘The DICTION
of Howard and Beazley: What Can Computerised Content Analysis Tell Us About the
Language of Our Political Leaders?’ Australian Journal of Communication 28: 85– 101.
Kavanagh, Dennis 1995. Election Campaigning: The New Marketing of Politics. Oxford, UK:
Blackwell.
Lasswell, Harolde D. 1927. Propaganda Techniques in the World War. London: Kegan, Paul, Trench
and Trubner.
Lazarsfeld, Paul, Bernard Berelson and Hazel Gaudet 1944 [1968]. The People’s Choice: How the
Voter Makes Up His Mind in a Presidential Campaign. New York, NY: Columbia University
Press.
Maddison, Sarah 2007 in press for May. ‘Lobbying Government.’ Pp. 423– 50 in Government
Communication in Australia (working title), edited by Sally Young. Melbourne, Vic.: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Marjoribanks, Timothy 2000. News Corporation, Technology and the Workplace: Global Strategies,
Local Change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
McAllister, Ian and Rhonda Moore 1991. ‘Introduction: The Issues that Divided the Parties,
1946–90.’ Pp. 1–20 in Party Strategy and Change: Australian Political Leaders’ Policy Speeches
Since 1946. Melbourne, Vic.: Longman Cheshire.
McChesney, Robert 1999. ‘US Media At the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century.’ Pp. 16– 29
in Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times, edited by Robert
McChesney. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
McKnight, David 2003. ‘ “A World Hungry for a New Philosophy”: Rupert Murdoch and the
Rise of Neo-liberalism.’ Journalism Studies 4: 347–58.
McLuhan, Marshall 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York, NY:
McGraw Hill.
McNair, Brian 1995. An Introduction to Political Communication. London: Routledge.
McNair, Brian 1998. The Sociology of Journalism. London: Edward Arnold.
McNair, Brian 2003. An Introduction to Political Communication. London: Routledge.
McQuail, Denis 1992. ‘Measuring Objectivity: The Evaluative Dimension of News.’ Pp.
99–111 in Media Performance: Mass Communication and the Public Interest. London: Sage
Publications.
McQueen, Humphrey 1977. Australia’s Media Monopolies. Camberwell, Vic.: Widescope.
Nimmo, Dan 1970. The Political Persuaders: The Techniques of Modern Election Campaigns.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Nimmo, Dan 1978. Political Communication and Public Opinion in America. Palo Alto, CA:
Goodyear.
Norris, Pippa 2000. A Virtuous Circle: Political Communication in Postindustrial Societies.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Norris, Pippa, John Curtice, David Sanders, Margaret Scammell and Holli Semetko 1999. On
Message: Communicating the Campaign. London: Sage Publications.
O’Shaugnessy, Nicholas 1996. The Phenomenon of Political Marketing. Basingstoke, UK:
Macmillan.
Postman, Neil 1985. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.
New York, NY: Viking.
Ryan, Halford R. 1988. Franklin D Roosevelt’s Rhetorical Presidency. New York, NY: Greenwood
Press.
Scammell, Margaret 1995. Designer Politics: How Elections are Won. New York, NY: St. Martins
Press.
Schiffer, Adam J. 2006. ‘Assessing Partisan Bias in Political News: The Case(s) of Local Senate
Election Coverage.’ Political Communication 23: 23–39.

Schlesinger, Philip 1990. ‘Rethinking the Sociology of Journalism: Source Strategies and the
Limits of Media Centrism.’ Pp. 61– 83 in Public Communication: The New Imperatives: Future
Directions for Media Research, edited by Marjorie Ferguson. London: Sage Publications.
Schroeder, Alan 2000. Presidential Debates: Forty Years of High-Risk TV. New York, NY:
Columbia University Press.
Schudson, Michael 2003. The Sociology of News. New York, NY: Norton.
Schultz, David A. (ed.) 2004. Lights, Camera, Campaign! Media, Politics and Political Advertising.
New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing.
Shea, David 1996. Campaign Craft: The Strategies, Tactics and Art of Political Campaign Management.
Westport, CT: Praeger.
Statham, Paul 1996. ‘Burlusconi, the Media, and the New Right in Italy.’ Harvard International
Journal of Press/Politics 1: 87–105.
Stockwell, Stephen 2005. Political Campaign Strategy: Doing Democracy in the 21st Century. Melbourne,
Vic.: Australian Scholarly Publishing.
Street, John 2001. Mass Media, Politics and Democracy. New York, NY: Palgrave.
Swanson, David L. and Paolo Mancini (eds) 1996. Politics, Media, and Modern Democracy: An
International Study of Innovations in Electoral Campaigning and Their Consequences. Westport:
Praeger.
Temple, Michael 2005. ‘Carry on Campaigning: The Case for “Dumbing Down” in the Fight
against Local Electoral Apathy.’ Local Government Studies 31(4): 415–31.
Thompson, John 1995. ‘The Theory of the Public Sphere.’ Pp. 252–9 in Approaches to Media:
A Reader, edited by Olivia Boyd-Barrett and Chris Newbold. London: Edward Arnold.
Trent, Judith S. and Robert V. Friedenberg 2004. Political Campaign Communications: Principles
and Practices. Oxford, UK: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Tuchman, Gaye 1972. ‘Objectivity as a Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen’s
Notions of Objectivity.’ American Journal of Sociology 77: 660–79.
Tulis, Jeffrey K. 1987. The Rhetorical Presidency. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Ursell, Gillian D. M. 2001. ‘Dumbing Down or Shaping Up? New Technologies, New Media,
New Journalism.’ Journalism 2: 175– 96.
van Dijk, Teun A. 1991. Racism and the Press. London: Routledge.
van Dijk, Teun A. 2000. ‘New(s) Racism: A Discourse Analytical Approach.’ Pp. 33– 49 in
Media and Ethnic Minorities: Changing Cultural Boundaries, edited by Simon Cottle. Bucking-
ham, UK: Open University Press
Young, Sally 2004. The Persuaders: Inside the Hidden Machine of Political Advertising. Sydney,
NSW: Pluto Press.
Zhao, Yuezhi 1998. Media, Market and Democracy in China. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois
Press.


Young Et Al-2007-Sociology Compass PDF

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originaltitel

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Young Et Al-2007-Sociology Compass PDF

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Sociology Compass 1/1 (2007): 41–59, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00023.

Contemporary Political Communications:

The field of political communication has grown rapidly in recent times

systems and audiences involved. Differences between countries in these

empirical methods and others preferring constructivist interpretations and

To explain these theories in the most rudimentary terms, framing

new TV show or magazine, for example, that product may be designed

researchers, politics can be seen as a battle about definitions, a struggle

researchers have focused on how ‘traditional’ political actors have com-

interview. Research has asked what opportunities new technologies open

marketing in other industries. Here, it is argued that the number and

Studies of media output

Studies of media organisations

Traditionally, much of the blame for biased or inadequate media represen-

definition of ‘primary definers’ of the news. This theory proposes that

© 2007 The Authors Sociology Compass 1/1 (2007): 41–59, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00023.x

© 2007 The Authors Sociology Compass 1/1 (2007): 41–59, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00023.x

© 2007 The Authors Sociology Compass 1/1 (2007): 41–59, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00023.x

© 2007 The Authors Sociology Compass 1/1 (2007): 41–59, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00023.x

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen