Page 91 - An Introduction to Political Communication Third Edition

POLITICS IN THE AGE OF MEDIATION

is the consequence of the expansion of media outlets made possible
by cable, satellite and digital technologies. The expansion has
included journalism, in the form of Sky News, with its 24-hour
‘rolling’ service, and CNN, which is slowly increasing its reach in
Europe and the UK (although it may be too US-focused in its news
agenda ever to be a mass news provider in the British market).
Partly in response to these new providers of journalism, the BBC
has expanded its journalistic output, both on television and radio,
including a 24-hour rolling news service on Radio 5, BBC News 24
on television, and a rapidly developing global television news
service. ITN has also launched a rolling news channel on cable. All
of this means that there is an increasing demand for news material,
which politicians are exceptionally well-placed to serve.
For a news-hungry media, the political arena is the potential
source of an unending flow of stories, some of them unwelcome to
the politicians, as we have seen, but others attractive in so far as
they provide publicity and promotion for a party, government or
leader. This source becomes more important as the demand for
news increases. Thus develops a relationship of mutual inter-
dependence between politicians and journalists, in which each can
benefit the other (Blumler and Gurevitch, 1981). Rodney Tiffen
observes that ‘news is a parasitic institution. It is dependent on
the information-generating activities of other institutions’ (1989,
p. 51). One researcher writes of coverage of political affairs in
Germany that

approximately two out of every three [news] items are,
on the basis of their respective primary sources . . . the
outcome of press releases and conferences, whereas the
rest may be traced back to public events, journalistic
investigations, or non-public events to which journalists
were invited. . . . [H]ence, the shaping of reality as
presented by the news media may thus, on the basis of
empirical evidence, be attributed primarily to this sector,
and not the autonomous activities of journalists.
(Baerns, 1987, p. 101)

While some observers complain about what they see as the
media’s uncritical, non-discriminating use of public relations
material (Bagdikian, 1984; Michie, 1998), for the political actor in
such circumstances there is much to be gained by learning how the
media work – their news values, professional practices and routines

70