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met with severe criticism. At the moment standing policy is that public information
campaigns for yet-to-be accepted policy are allowed, provided it is made clear where it
stands in the policy process and that the importance of the issue and the intensity of
the debate merit the means of an information campaign.

In communicating with the press, the division between accepted and yet-to-be
accepted policy is fairly blurred, especially regarding the informal contacts with
journalists. The professional role perception here differs between the practitioners, but
many an information officer actively engages in framing and influencing the media
agenda. Research among the thirteen departmental communication directors
indicates, however, that there is little sympathy for the strong political interpretation
prevalent among Anglo-Saxon ‘spin doctors’. They see themselves first and foremost as
ministerial advisors; only very few consider themselves primarily as communication
strategists,selectively informing and,if need be,manipulating journalists (Smits,2001,p.
327).Though spin doctoring is an issue discussed enthusiastically by political journalists
(and more hesitantly by politicians), this covert form of political communication has
hardly led to the same public debate as we have seen with the more overtly persuasive
public campaigns.

Transparency and access
Though free publicity is still considered more important than paid publicity in most forms
of political communication, the political decision makers have not been sitting back
passively while the logic changed from partisan to media. Already in 1998, Prime Minister
Wim Kok advocated a stronger collaboration between ministries, in order to ‘soon enough
sense upcoming waves of publicity and to come up with an adequate and early response’
(Bakker & Scholten, 2004). While a state commission in 2001 implicitly chose a media
The Professionalisation of Political Communication
bypass strategy by focusing more on the Internet as an alternative channel for reaching
the audience (Wallage, 2001), two years later another advisory commission had been
caught up by a media-logic inspired, sombre mood and propagated a stronger
professionalisation of government communication, the setting up of its own newspaper,
buying air time, and more image-focused personalisation in party political communication
buying air time and more image focused personalisation in party political communication
(ROB 2003,pp.44ff).The government,however,does not intend to go this far.

At the same time, it begins to emphasise the importance of new media as instruments
in informing and involving the public. The Internet especially is used for this. All
ministries cooperate with the RVD in the central government site, www.regering.nl.
Each of them also have their own web site and editorial board, usually allowing a
limited form of interaction (consultation or response) and sometimes a more extensive
form of virtual deliberation. Most ministries, however, do not yet know how to
adequately deal with and respond to digitally active citizens.

One way or the other, governments and ministries do take stock of and respond to
public and publicised opinion.As to the first,the RVD has introduced a public sensitivity
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