Page 33 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 12

POLITICS IN THE AGE OF MEDIATION
This is true of all media, and in all societies. Some ‘biases’ may be attributed,
as Chapter 4 shows, to constraints and limitations on the newsgathering
process. Others are the product of choices made to support this or that
political party or idea. Newspapers in most capitalist societies are relatively
open about which political parties they support (though some seek to maintain
the appearance of neutrality). Broadcasters are generally more reticent, 2
although, in the US Fox News has adopted an aggressively pro-Rupublican,
anti-Democratic approach to issues such as the Iraq war and health care
reform. The biases of online media are determined by their institutional links,
and status as blogs, ‘tweets’ or other forms of individualised internet publi-
cation. Opinion and polemics are commonplace online, to an extent regarded
by some observers as problematic (see Chapter 5).
While the extent and direction of media bias will vary in a modern democ-
racy, the fact that it exists entitles us to view the media organisations as impor-
tant actors in the political process. Between the sending of a political message
and its reception by an audience, something happens to it. It gets altered in
various ways, consciously or as a consequence of the media production
process, so that its meaning and hence impact on an audience may change.
The media are important to the political process in more direct ways. All
newspapers take pride, for example, in their ‘public voice’ – the editorials in
which they articulate political opinions. Sometimes these are presented as the
‘voice of the reader’, and directed at policy-makers. Alternatively, they may be
constructed as the calm, authoritative voice of the editor, viewing the political
scene from a detached distance. In both cases, the editorial is intended as a
political intervention, and is often read as such by a government or a party.
Commentaries, analyses, and other forms of ‘authored’ journalism are also
interventionist in intention. A striking feature of the evolution of the internet
has been the growth of the ‘blogosphere’, or web logs – regularly updated,
individual websites on which authors place commentary and opinion about
events of the day. Some of these authors, such as Andrew Sullivan, are pro-
fessional journalists who have set up blogs to supplement their print
journalism. Others such as Norman Geras are academics, while some, such as
Salam Pax, the Baghdad Blogger, are merely individuals who happen to have
something to say and have found the internet a useful tool with which to say
it. Often described as ‘the new commentariat’, the expanding global network
of bloggers is characterised by its often fiercely opinionated contributions to
political debate, which have frequently influenced the content of more
traditional political journalism. The Guardian newspaper, for example,
publishes a selection of comments by bloggers in its print edition, while pro-
viding a platform for hundreds of thousands more on its internet site. Barely
registering on the landscape of political communication a few years ago, blogs
and other forms of online commentary such as the posting of video messages
on YouTube have become an important element of the political media. In 2005
one observer noted that ‘what has emerged is a fully fledged alternative wing

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