Page 199 - Comparing Political Communication Theories, Cases, and Challenge

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Local Political Communication

notable problem to opinion formation on the local level is the lack of
“competing information sources for local politics” (Graber 1997, 333),
competent civic actors and groups might contribute indeed to a broader
and more diverse news culture within local publics. We have to analyze,
therefore, how local governance processes have to be constituted in or-
der to open up ground for the participation of alternative political actors
such as NGOs in the area of housing, city development, homelessness,
and environmental or women’s issues.

State Devolution and Local Publics
The local communication arena “provides a framework for the ex-
ercise of individual and group participation, but it can do so only if
significant decisions are taken at the local level (Hill 1994, 238). There-
fore we need to connect communicative arenas to questions of power
and resource allocation in the local community. How is the institutional
place of the local government within the broader national and transna-
tional governance structure affecting the scope and intensity of local
publics?Canweassumethatingovernancesystemswheremorelegaland
decision-making power rests with the local state we can count on higher
levels of public communication and interaction? Or do recent trends of
neoliberal devolution policies turn public communication practices into
mere legitimizing exercises – depriving communities of the resources to
engage in more elaborate communication processes? Again, compara-
tive studies might be instructive. For the United Kingdom, we can estab-
lish a direct link between the massive abolishment of local governance
units under Heath and Thatcher and the decrease in local newspapers
(Franklin and Murphy 1991, 193). On the contrary, we might expect
that the revitalization of regional and local authorities in France in re-
cent years – largely due to meeting EU objectives – might result in more
complex and lively local publics.

REFERENCES
Bajomi-L´ az´ ar, P´ eter. 2001. Medien und Medienpolitik in Ungarn. In Barbara Thomass
and Michaela Tzankoff, eds. Medien und Transformation in Osteuropa.Opladen,
Germany: Westdeutscher Verlag, pp. 187–202.
Barber, Benjamin. 1984. Strong Democracy. Participatory Politics for a New Age.Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Berrigan, Frances J. 1977. Access and the Media: New Models in Europe. In Frances
J. Berrigan, ed. Access: Some Western Models of Community Media.Paris: Unesco,
pp. 145–212.

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