Page 14 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

government (McNair, 1988, 1989, 1991) and the media coverage
received by them. These discussions were marginal, however, in the
context of work concerned chiefly with how journalists thought and
behaved. This study of political communication will concentrate to
a much greater extent on the nature of the interface between
politicians and the media, the extent of their interaction, and the
dialectic of their relationship. It will probe the limits on the actions
of politicians on the one hand and journalists on the other, and the
influence of both on what citizens think and do.
Such an emphasis owes much to those who, over the last two
decades, have developed what has become known in
communication studies as the source-centred approach
(Goldenberg, 1984; Tiffen, 1989; Schlesinger and Tumber, 1994).
The term focusses attention on the active role in shaping media
content played by those who provide the source material, rather
than the producers of journalistic output themselves. The shift is
one of emphasis, and this book does not seek to replace the notion
of an all-powerful media with that of the all-powerful ‘spin doctor’
or media manipulator. It will, however, add to a growing literature
in communication and political studies concerned with locating
the media’s agency and effectivity in a wider social—in this case
political—environment, characterised by greater levels of
uncertainty, risk and arbitrariness than some perspectives within
communication studies have acknowledged.
Structurally, the book is organised into two parts. In Part I, we
examine what is meant by the term ‘political communication’, and
who precisely are the communicators. We describe the normative
principles of liberal democracy and consider how political
communication relates, in theory, to the democratic process. A
complete chapter is devoted to outlining the contexts in which
modern mass media communicate politically, and another to the
‘effects’ of political communication on behaviour, attitudes and
social processes.
Part II places this introductory and theoretical material in the
context of the political communication practices of a variety of actors,
including governments and party politicians, both domestically and
in the international arena; business and trade union leaders; and
marginalised political actors such as pressure groups and terrorist
organisations.
A short conclusion makes a tentative effort to answer the question:
is the increasing role of mass communication in the political process
a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’ thing for democracy?

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