Page 88 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 67

5

THE MEDIA AS POLITICAL
ACTORS

This chapter:

• Describes the key ways in which media can seek to influence and
intervene in the political process
• Outlines the different forms of political journalism, such as
punditry, editorialising and access programming.

Chapter 1 included, in its list of political actors, media institutions and those
who work in them. This draws our attention to the fact that in contemporary
liberal democracies media institutions perform not only cognitive functions
of information dissemination but also interpretative functions of analysis,
assessment and comment. Not only do the media report politics; they are a
crucial part of the environment in which politics is pursued. They contribute
to policy discussion and resolution, not only in so far as they set public
agendas or provide platforms for politicians to make their views known
to the public, but also in judging and critiquing the variety of political
viewpoints in circulation. In this chapter we examine the many formats in
which the overtly interpretative work of the political media is done.

DEFINING POLITICAL REALITY

We begin at the most general level, noting that the media are active in
defining political ‘reality’. Through the processes of news-gathering and
production described in the previous chapter, the audience is finally
presented with a ‘finished’ articulation of what ‘really’ matters in political
affairs at any given time. Journalists communicate to us the ‘meaning’ of
politics (Gerstle et al., 1991). They insert the events of political life into
narrative frameworks which allow them to be told as news stories. These
frameworks do not spring fully formed from the journalistic pen, of course,

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