Page 83 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 62

POLITICS IN THE AGE OF MEDIATION
social and political problems, while avoiding the discussion of solutions. The
viewer is shocked, or entertained, or outraged, but not necessarily any wiser
about the underlying causes of the problem being covered. The entertainment
value of events begins to take precedence over their political importance.
Others welcome the confrontational, subversive style of much of this
material, stressing that much of it is not only more watchable, but more
politically useful than long, detailed and, for many, boring analyses of health
or education policy.
Arguments about tabloidisation aside, commercialisation has also
enhanced the media’s long-standing tendency to pursue ‘pack’ journalism,
whereby individual organisations pursue a shared agenda. When a story is
deemed to have become ‘news’ by one organisation, the others feel compelled
to follow suit. This is not necessarily because the story has ‘objective’
importance, but will often be the product of editorial assumptions that to be
left behind by the pack is dangerous for an organisation’s commercial
position and legitimacy as a news provider.
In an intensifying competitive environment, therefore, the political
process comes to be seen by journalists as the raw material of a commodity –
news or current affairs – which must eventually be sold to the maximum
number of consumers. Inevitably, those aspects of the process which are the
most sellable are those with the most spectacular and dramatic features, and
which can be told in those terms. In some cases, such as the cash-for-
questions affair, the bizarre death of Conservative MP Stephen Milligan in
early 1994 and the Monica Lewinsky scandal in the US, it might be thought
that the commercial interests of the media in pursuing a ‘sexy’ news agenda,
and the public interest of citizens in finding out the truth about their political
representatives, coincides. The Stalker affair, as David Murphy asserts, is
another example of the media uncovering uncomfortable truths which any
political establishment would rather leave hidden. This case, and many
others arising from the conflict in Northern Ireland, demonstrates that ‘the
process of media production is an arena of contest and negotiation in which
official sources cannot always take it for granted that they will be able to set
the agenda’ (Miller and Williams, 1993, p. 129).
The important (politically speaking) and the entertaining are not mutually
exclusive. In many instances, however, when commercial considerations
drive both print and broadcast media, pack-like, after philandering ministers
and bishops, sexually deviant MPs, or celebrities with eating disorders, it is
not always clear what public interest is being served. We may in such cases
be enthralled at how the mighty are fallen, while remaining ignorant as to
the less glamorous but more important details of how political power really
works and is exercised.
The commercialisation of the media may with some reason be viewed by
politicians as a threat to traditional loyalties and alliances. When in 1992 the
Sun, having been widely criticised for yet another intrusion into someone’s

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