Page 176 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 155

PRESSURE-GROUP POLITICS
put an issue on the media’s and the public’s agenda, can maximise their
‘definitional power’ and pursue their political objectives? We must acknow-
ledge at the outset that access to the media for a particular source is never
completely open, but rather is dependent on such factors as the degree of
institutionalisation accruing to that source, its financial resources, its ‘cul-
tural capital’ or status, and the extent of its entrepreneurship and innovation
in media management. In 1978, Hall et al. argued that

if the tendency towards ideological closure [in news media] is
maintained by the way the different apparatuses are structurally
linked so as to promote the dominant definitions of events, then the
counter-tendency must also depend on the existence of organised and
articulate sources which generate counter-definitions of the situation.
This depends to some degree on whether the collectivity which
generates counter-ideologies and explanations is a powerful counter-
vailing force in society; whether it represents an organised majority
or substantial minority; and whether or not it has a degree of legiti-
macy within the system or can win such a position through struggle.
(1978, p. 64)

As already noted, such groups usually start from a ‘resource poor’
position, relatively deprived of material and cultural capital. To compensate
for their lack of institutional status and authority, strategies of media
management must be deployed in order to exploit the opportunities for
access which exist. Sources which cannot take media access for granted must
work to generate it, using skill, innovation and knowledge to enhance their
value for media organisations. Such groups can, for example, increase their
newsworthiness by careful attention to interacting with the media, culti-
vating contacts and responding to the organisational demands of media
production (for example, issuing news releases in time for last editions and
main evening news bulletins). As Edie Goldenberg suggests, ‘a skilful source
can build a relationship similar to that which often exists between resource
rich source and beat reporter, in which the reporter depends on the source
for news and, as a result, the reporter is willing to listen to and act on behalf
of the source’s interests’ (1984, p. 237).
In this sense, the group or source must cultivate dependence, through
generating newsworthiness, which requires an understanding of what con-
stitutes newsvalues. Goldenberg argues that newsworthiness is partly a
function of difference, and is increased ‘the more a group’s political goals
deviate from prevailing social norms’ (ibid., p. 234). Collins’ discussion of
counter-cultural religious movements notes how they have frequently gained
‘access to a public voice’ by cultivating and generating controversy (1992,
p. 116). A group’s newsworthiness, and thus access, is also increased if its
goals parallel a currently newsworthy issue, if they are specific and relatively

155