Page 67 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 46

POLITICS IN THE AGE OF MEDIATION
The 1990 Broadcasting Act requires broadcasters to observe ‘due
impartiality’ in their coverage of political issues, ensuring ‘adequate or
appropriate’ balance during and between election campaigns, for party and
non-party political actors (McNair, 2009b). This requirement does not extend
to political organisations which, like the Provisional IRA and loyalist
paramilitaries in Northern Ireland before the conclusion of the 1998 Good
Friday agreement, adopt unconstitutional campaigning methods. Since the
establishment of Ofcom in 2003 UK impartiality rules have been set out in
its Programme Code. These are similar to those applied by Ofcom’s
predecessor as regulator, the ITC.
National regulations on the political content of broadcasting do not of
course apply to online media, nor to the growing number of transnational
TV channels such as Al Jazeera and Fox, which are produced beyond the
boundaries of the nation states whose audiences may watch them. Neither
can these media outlets be censored in the manner possible with traditional
print and broadcast outlets. While the relative uncensorability of new
internet and satellite media may be regarded as welcome in so far as it
enhances their capacity to freely scrutinise and comment on politics, it has
also produced the criticism that the globalised political public sphere of the
twenty-first century is becoming too unruly and anarchic (McNair, 2006).
There is more information out there, but the traditional gate keeping and
quality control procedures adopted by established print and broadcast media
are often ignored or evaded by online sources of political news.

DEMOCRACY AND THE MEDIA

We have already referred in general terms to the important role assigned the
media by liberal democratic theory. As Nimmo and Combs put it,
‘historically, the mass media were heralded as the ultimate instruments of
democracy. . . . [They] were destined to unite, educate, and, as a result,
improve the actions and decisions of the polity’ (1992, p. xv). Of broad-
casting, Scannell and Cardiff observe that the BBC’s role, from its very
earliest years, was to create ‘an informed and reasoning public opinion as an
essential part of the political process in a mass democratic society’ (1991,
p. 8). Public service broadcasters in other countries, such as ABC in
Australia, took on a similiar role.
The media’s democratic role would be fulfilled, on the one hand, by
journalists’ adherence to the professional ethic of objectivity in reporting the
facts of public affairs. Objectivity implied a clear journalistic distancing from
the opinions expressed in political debates, and a determination not to
confuse the expression of opinion with the reporting of fact. The BBC’s
guiding principle of impartiality went further in seeking to ensure, from as
early as 1923, ‘that on every occasion when political issues were touched on

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