Page 87 - An Introduction to Political Communication Third Edition

POLITICS IN THE AGE OF MEDIATION

in which the US media were filled with full and explicit coverage of
a president’s sexual habits, did not threaten American capitalism,
although allegations of cover-up and lying under oath did evoke
memories of Watergate and the implications of presidential
impeachment. What it did do, unquestionably, like Watergate
twenty-five years before, was to demystify and undermine the
institutional power of the American presidency.
However we choose to interpret the significance of media criticism
of the establishment, it is clear that assertions of a ‘hegemonic
role’ for the media must be able to accommodate those frequent
examples of the ‘breakdown of consensus’ and the splitting of elite
groups. To that end we may usefully distinguish between the work
of Chomsky and others, who stress the ‘propagandistic’ nature (if
not necessarily always intent) of the media, and others such as
Hallin, who prefer to emphasise the media’s flexibility and adapt-
ability in the context of a fluid, dynamic political system, governed
not by a single ruling class but by rotating elites drawn from
different parties and factions within parties. In the latter perspective,
the adaptability of the media to shifting lines of debate is essential
to the retention of their legitimacy as facilitators of political
discourse in the public sphere and hence, ultimately, to their
‘hegemonic’ role.

POLITICS AND MEDIA PRODUCTION

Many of the features of media output discussed in the previous
section can be better understood by an analysis of the media
production process: the conventions, practices and constraints
which shape the output of political journalism, in ways which
sometimes favour the politician, and at other times subvert him or
her. These can be grouped into three categories: ‘commercial’,
‘organisational’ and ‘professional’.

Commercialisation

On commercial constraints Greg Philo notes that ‘a simple truth
underpins the everyday practices of the media institutions and
the journalists who work within them – that they are all at some
level in competition with each other to sell stories and maximise
audiences. . . . They must do this at a given cost and at a set level of
resources’ (1993a, p. 111).

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