Page 33 - An Introduction to Political Communication Third Edition

POLITICS IN THE AGE OF MEDIATION

The media
Which brings us to the third element in the political communication
process – media organisations. In democratic political systems the
media function both as transmitters of political communication
which originates outside the media organisation itself, and as
senders of political messages constructed by journalists. As
Figure 1.1 indicates, the role of the media in both respects is crucial.
First, and most obviously, political actors must use the media in
order to have their messages communicated to the desired audience.
Political programmes, policy statements, electoral appeals, pressure
group campaigns, and acts of terrorism have a political existence –
and potential for communicative effectiveness – only to the extent
that they are reported and received as messages by the media
audience. Consequently, all political communicators must gain
access to the media by some means, whether legislative, as in
the rules of political balance and impartiality which govern
British public service broadcasting, or by an appreciation of the
workings of the media sufficient to ensure that a message is
reported.
In Chapter 4 we examine the regulations and conventions which
typically govern access to the media for political actors. We also
describe the organisational features of media production which may
work for or against political communicators in their efforts
to obtain coverage. This will lead us into a discussion of the
constraints and pressures within which news is selected and
produced, and the implications of these for the choices routinely
made by media workers.
The media, of course, do not simply report, in a neutral and
impartial way, what is going on in the political arena around
them. Despite protestations to the contrary by some journalists,
there are more than enough analyses of the media in the com-
munication studies literature to show that their accounts of
political events (as of any other category of ‘reality’) are laden with
value judgments, subjectivities and biases. Kaid et al. suggest that
we may view political ‘reality’ as comprising three categories
(1991):

• First, we may speak of an objective political reality, comprising
political events as they actually occur
• There is then a subjective reality – the ‘reality’ of political events
as they are perceived by actors and citizens

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