No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Political public relations and agenda building
... torie, 2017;Lee & Jun, 2013;Yang et al., 2012;Yun, 2006). This suggests that insights from public diplomacy scholarship that builds on disciplines other than public relations can also be potentially applicable to the latter. This paper builds on political communication scholarship, particularly, agenda building (Cobb & Elder, 1971;J. Tedesco, 2011;J.C. Tedesco, 2011) and the theory of mediated public diplomacy (Entman, 2008). The latter stresses the pre-existing conditions that can facilitate or hinder a sponsor's ability to build, maintain, and influence relationships with its target publics. This is particularly relevant in the context of international public relations. Of course, the idea that po ...
... Essentially, mediated public diplomacy is analogous to the media relations function of public relations as both involve the process of agenda building (Cobb & Elder, 1971;J. Tedesco, 2011;J.C. Tedesco, 2011) with one important distinction: international agenda building involves more gatekeeping. ...
... , but for Moscow and Warsaw in general. We found that strategic communication efforts initiated by the two governments had a significant influence on the coverage of the crash in all seven countries: China, the United Kingdom, the United States, Pakistan, Germany, France, and Thailand, as agenda building theory (Cobb & Elder, 1971;J. Tedesco, 2011;J.C. Tedesco, 2011) predicted. We also found evidence of intermedia agenda-setting effects in the international coverage of the event: in most cases, news media articles originated from Poland and Russia did explain variance in the foreign media content above and beyond the variance explained by the governments' public relations efforts. It is important to ...
The study explores Polish and Russian governments’ communication efforts to shape international news coverage of the 2010 airplane crash near Smolensk, Russia, which killed the Polish President Lech Kaczynski and most of his Cabinet. More specifically, the study attempts to assess the role of government communication in shaping the international agenda regarding the crash vis-à-vis the role of Polish and Russian media outlets which also served as information sources for international media. In addition, it examines politico-cultural proximity and economic relatedness as the factors influencing the outcomes of mediated public diplomacy efforts. The findings suggest that, in addition to the governments’ public relations messages, Polish and Russian news outlets played a significant role as their countries’ advocates in determining the international media agenda. Moreover, we found that it was economic relatedness rather than the similarity of culture or political systems that contributed to the success of governments in shaping the international agenda about the crash. Theoretical and practical implications for public relations and public diplomacy are discussed.
... In this section, I outline my understanding and application of the theoretical framework for this study, agenda building and intermedia agenda setting. Sources are essential components of the media's role as gatekeepers and agenda setters (McCombs, 2004;Tedesco, 2011;Singer, 2005). However, as Oscar Gandy (1982, p. 266) suggested already in 1982, we must "go beyond agenda-setting to determine who sets the media agenda, how and for what purpose it is set, and with what impact on the distribution of power and values in society." ...
... While classical agenda-setting studies explore the issue saliency between the media agenda and the public agenda, studies of agenda building explore how and which sources impact media's agenda. McCombs has identified five primary areas of agenda-setting research: basic agenda-setting effects, attribute agenda-setting effects, contingent conditions for agenda-setting effects, sources of the media agenda and consequences of agenda-setting effects (McCombs, 2004;Tedesco, 2011). Agenda building is thus the fourth of these areas. ...
... Agenda building research is conducted most extensively within public relations, particularly in terms of how public relations efforts build the media's agenda (Tedesco, 2011). Typically, research on agenda building explores how certain groups influence what issues journalists cover as well as how the public view these issues (Parmalee, 2013), i.e. in relation to business (Ragas, Kim &politics (Strömback &Lang & Lang, 1983). ...
Social media services such as Twitter and Facebook have revived the question of “Who sets the media’s agenda?” This question gained attention in the 1980s as scholars began exploring the various factors that shape the agenda presented by news media (McCombs, 2014). It has reemerged as journalists increasingly embrace and adopt social media services as part of their professional toolkit to connect and communicate with readers and potential sources. In a British study, nearly 50% of the surveyed journalists said they employed Twitter to source stories (Cision, 2011). This study engages with a growing field of research related to journalists’ adoption and usage of social media and how this impacts their sourcing practice. Specifically, this study examines political journalists’ and commentators’ social media usage and how political sources’ tweets influence the political news agenda.
... The strategic and purposeful nature of agenda building highlights the role of public relations in the social process of salience formation around issues in the media and public agendas while providing an empirically viable structure with which the effectiveness of political public relations is best understood (Lan et al., 2020;Schweickart et al., 2016;Sweetser & Brown, 2008;Tedesco, 2011). Information subsidies as important manifestations of public relations' agendabuilding efforts are an ideal medium for measuring how messages are strategically constructed and how priorities are communicated to influence media content and, in turn, public opinion (Grimmer, 2010;Kiousis et al., 2016). ...
... The results revealed solid support for all three levels of agenda-building linkages (i.e., object salience, attribute salience, and network associations among objects or attributes) of Ardern's crisis communication to news content and to public discussion. The results of this study underscore the value in further extending the political public relations and agenda-building model Tedesco, 2011) to a political crisis communication context. Specifically, the study found that the issues raised in the government's correspondence were those prioritized in the media. ...
Care is not a word generally associated with political crises. However, following the mosques massacre in New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was found to have used care and a feminist approach to political communication that served to unite rather than divide her country following this racially motivated terrorist attack. There is much literature on corporate crises, but this paper adds to the dearth of literature on political crises in a public interest context. Grounded in a consideration of care and agenda building theories, it reveals that a caring approach to political communication (both verbal and nonverbal) following an act of terrorism can influence the media agenda and by extension public opinion.
... Essentially, mediated public diplomacy is analogous to the media relations function of public relations as both involve the process of agenda building (Cobb & Elder, 1971;Tedesco, 2011). Even though some governments have established or have been sponsoring international outlets broadcasting outside their national borders (such as Al Jazeera, RT, Xinhua News, BBC World or France 24), their ability to reach foreign citizens through these "owned" media outlets is quite limited (Rawnsley, 2015;Smith, 2014;Zhang, 2011). ...
... The ability of mass media to shape public opinion is well established (Iyengar & Kinder, 1987;McCombs & Shaw, 1972;McCombs, Llamas, Lopez-Escobar, & Rey, 1997); however, mass media content does not appear out of the blue. Individuals, governments, and organizations can shape a media agenda by providing information to journalists (Cheng, Golan, & Kiousis, 2016;Kiousis et al., 2016;Kiousis & Strömbäck, 2010;Tedesco, 2011). This information can come in nicely packaged, ready-to-use forms such as news releases, media kits, or white papers; in addition, it also may be provided through official statements, interviews, commentaries, press conferences, or media tours. ...
The study examines leader effects in the context of public diplomacy. More specifically, it focuses on the role that leaders’ personalities and policies play in shaping the images of the countries they lead. In a 2x2 experiment, participants were exposed to media articles that focused on a leader’s personality (competence, leadership skills, integrity, and physical attractiveness, positively vs. negatively framed) and the leader’s policy initiatives (positively vs. negatively framed). Results suggest that both personality characteristics and policies impact country image. Personality characteristics influenced the cognitive aspect of country image (beliefs about the country’s governance and values), whereas policies had an impact on both cognitive and evaluative aspects (likeability, admiration). Moreover, when policies were viewed positively, the leader’s personality traits were viewed more positively, suggesting both a direct and a mediated impact of policies on country image. Finally, the study found that physical attractiveness of a leader had an indirect impact on country image – a more attractive leader was seen as possessing superior personality traits that were important for political performance thus providing the evidence of the halo effect of attractiveness in the context of international relations.
... Personal affinities act on the relationship's media sources, providing politicians access to the agenda and media frame (Delli Carpini, 1994). Thus, the affinity acts as a lubricating factor for news management (Tedesco, 2011). ...
... Meanwhile, for political actors, informal relationships allow increasing and improving the type of media coverage received to improve politicians' communication management from a strategic perspective. These findings support previous studies, such as that by Tedesco (2011). ...
Informal relationships between journalists and politicians have a strategic function in the process of news-making. The aim of this article is to analyse the role of personal affinity between the media and politicians in Spain. This study focuses on the following three specific issues: self-definition of their interactions, degree of influence, and main professional risks and benefits detected. The methodology is based on 45 in-depth interviews (22 journalists, 16 politicians and 7 spin-doctors). The novelty of this article is the analysis of not only the views of journalists but also the perceptions of the political actors. The results demonstrate the relevance and influence of affinity relationships between journalists and politicians. The two types of actors are highlighted as main beneficiaries of direct access to high-quality information sources or the ability to achieve positive news coverage. However, certain risks are also linked to these informal relationships.
... A chief conceptual perspective used to understand news management and media relations in political public relations is agenda-building (Tedesco 2011;Zoch and Molleda 2006). In contrast to the traditional focus of agenda-setting on associations between media coverage and public opinion, the construct of agenda-building focuses on the reciprocal influence of policymakers, news media, and public opinion in the process of salience formation and transfer. ...
... It would be interesting to explore in future studies whether there has been a growing trend of news stories produced only from statements made by political actors in their own accounts on social media, especially Twitter. Big data analysis, online audience tracking or in-depth interviews could be extremely useful to further explain how media agenda building is changing in the social media age, focusing on diverse aspects and following different authors' trails (e.g., Tedesco 2011;Parmelee 2013;Harder, Sevenanas, and Van Aelst 2017). ...
This article analyses news media agenda building before, during and after 2008, when the global financial crisis converged with the rise of the Internet, leading to a worldwide failure of the media business model. In particular, the current research examines and quantifies the origin of the news stories included in the media agenda to observe its degree of dependence on external sources. In this regard, the study observes the front pages of three major Spanish newspapers – El País, ABC and El Mundo – over three years: 1998, 2008, and 2018. The findings reveal that the economic recession and the increasingly digital environment due to the spread of the Internet had a perverse effect on the construction of the media agenda. The volume of internally originated contents of public interest decreased, while there was an increase in contents emanating from diverse external sources – especially political and governmental – that attend to their own particular interests. This rising external dependence, which may be extrapolated to other countries or media (digital, television and radio), leads to media’s loss of control of their own agenda, favours the prevalence of desktop or passive journalism, and finally affects the necessary surveillance of power by the media.
... Before proceeding, it is necessary to comprehend the application of hypothetical and theoretical foundations of inter-media agenda setting and agenda building. The sources, as agenda setters and doorkeepers, are critical components of the media's role (McCombs, 2004;Tedesco, 2011;Singer, 2005). However, Gandy, Oscar H. (1982) already suggested that "we must take into account who sets the agenda for which medium; this is only possible by going beyond agenda-traditional setting's concepts. ...
... Interestingly, an embracing dependency on news organizations has impelled campaign organizations to develop strategies designed to bypass the news media (Lieber & Golan, 2011;Tedesco, 2011). Strategies to circumvent journalistic interference still rely on mediation but do not require campaign organizations to relinquish control to journalists. ...
If mediatization, like globalization and modernization, is a meta-process of societal change (Krotz, 2008) whereby “the media have become integrated into the operations of other social institutions [and] acquired the status of social institutions in their own right” (Hjarvard, 2008, p. 113), then, arguably, this is nowhere more evident than in contemporary election campaigns. In most Western democracies, there are reciprocal dependencies - mutual need but different goals - between media organizations and the political parties and campaign organizations that vie for votes during elections (Gurevitch & Blumler, 1990). To be sure, the nature of these interdependencies is shaped by structural and cultural features of the media and political institutions within a country (Blumler & Gurevitch, 2001; see Strömbäck & Esser, 2009, pp. 217–218 for a useful summary). However, on the whole, mediatization theorists and researchers are interested in the processes and mechanisms through which these interdependencies typically tilt over time towards the media (Strömbäck, 2008). News organizations lie at the center of interest in work on the mediatization of politics (Esser, 2013). Accordingly, in election settings, the concern is with how the media logic of commercial imperatives, professional routines and message formats not only comes to dominate the content of campaign news, but also how it gets integrated into the political logic of political rules, organizational structures and routines, and self-presentational strategies that political parties and campaign organizations must follow in order to campaign effectively (Strömbäck, 2008; Strömbäck & Esser, 2009).
... However, news is not created in a vacuum, and is often influenced by multiple, often competing, stakeholders. When this influence is a result of planned strategic communication efforts of an organization, and the organization becomes the source or subsidy of news content, the efforts are referred to in the literature as agenda building (Cobb et al., 1976;Gandy, 1991;Tedesco, 2011). While agenda setting focuses on transfer of object salience from the media to public opinion, agenda building looks at the transfer of object salience from public relations messages to news media as well as other stakeholders (Lieber and Golan, 2011). ...
This study aims to advance the theoretical and practical knowledge of political public relations, and influence that political profile of the media can have on the agenda-building process. The influences of agenda indexing are also discussed with regard to different media profiles. A quantitative content analysis was conducted to examine the influence of Polish and Russian government messages from presidents and prime ministers regarding the Smolensk plane crash on media coverage in both counties. Newspapers were categorized by political profile representing pro-government, mainstream, or opposition profile. Nearly all of the hypotheses were fully supported for the first, second, and third level of agenda building. Results of this study demonstrate that political public relations’ success and agenda indexing can be affected by a medium’s political profile, particularly in the case of opposition media. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed along with areas of future research.
... The study seeks to examine whether the rising nationalism in the EU countries hinders the ability of EU institutions to promote their agenda through national media outlets to public opinion. While agenda-setting theory explains the transfer of agendas from the news media to the public (McCombs et al., 1997;McCombs & Shaw, 1972), and agenda-building theory illuminates the role of information subsidies in shaping the media agenda (Cobb & Elder, 1971;Gandy, 1982;Tedesco, 2011), the agenda-indexing hypothesis (Bennett, 1990) and the gatekeeping theory (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996) shed light on why information subsidies coming from certain sources have a greater chance to be used by the journalists. Despite clear conceptual linkages between agenda setting, agenda building, and agenda indexing, the literature largely neglects to examine the role of power differentials in the agenda-building, and subsequently, agenda-setting processes within a single analysis. ...
This study explores relationships between agenda building, agenda indexing (reflected through share of voice as the key variable), and agenda-setting effects, measured through the combination of public opinion survey data and quantitative content analysis. It conceptually distinguishes between the three metrics often used interchangeably in the professional discourse by advertising and media practitioners – share of voice, share of influence, and share of conversation – and explores how they could be applied in political communication research to become useful tools for agenda-setting researchers. The results of the study indicate that an increased level of nationalism serves as a significant predictor for EU policy support through the pathway of decreased pro-EU sentiment, which, on the agenda level, is reflective of pro-nationals being less supportive of the EU policies and the idea of European integration.
... Los medios inciden directa e indirectamente sobre los políticos (politics), las políticas públicas (policies) y la política en general (polity). En un nivel meso y micro, sin embargo, las instituciones y los actores políticos tienen la chance de influir a los medios de comunicación y acrecentar o disminuir su capacidad de acción, ya sea a través de procesos de agenda-building como de frame-building (Lieber y Golan, 2011;Tedesco, 2011;Zoch y Molleda, 2006). No obstante, tal como señalan Esser y Strömbäck (2014), la llave para el éxito de todo ese proceso es que los actores políticos acomoden su accionar a la lógica de los medios. ...
El presente artículo tiene por objetivo realizar un análisis bibliográfico sobre el concepto de mediatización en el campo de la comunicación política. Como una explicación alternativa a la incidencia de los medios sobre la opinión pública, la mediatización hace hincapié en analizar cómo los actores políticos y sociales se apropian de las reglas del juego de los medios de comunicación. Esta teoría ha sido desarrollada ampliamente en la literatura anglosajona y en este artículo se realiza una revisión completa en español, a través del diseño de cinco ejes que muestran el desarrollo teórico del concepto desde sus orígenes a la actualidad (1979-2017). De este análisis bibliográfico, y a la luz del contexto actual de los estudios de comunicación política en América Latina, surge el cuestionamiento sobre la validez de utilizar el concepto de mediatización de forma aislada, sin integrarlo a lógicas transmediáticas o de una construcción de agenda pública compartida entre diversos actores.
... Agenda building is an appropriate framework guiding the research and practice of mediated public diplomacy (Gilboa, 2008;Golan, 2014;Nisbet, Scheufele, & Shanahan, 2004;Sheafer & Gabay, 2009). To advance agenda-building theory, Tedesco (2011) called upon scholars to examine the relative effectiveness of agenda builders and information subsidies, as well as contingent conditions for agenda building success. Thus, this study aimed to examine the effectiveness of state-owned media as a form of information subsidy and to test the role of social systems as moderators of agenda building success in the context of the 2014 Hong Kong protest. ...
This study aimed to advance theoretical and practical knowledge of political public relations and mediated public diplomacy through analyzing the agenda-building relationships between state-owned media and foreign news coverage in 16 countries during the 2014 Hong Kong protest. The results indicated significant correlations of issues and stakeholders between the Chinese state-owned media and the English language media outlets of 16 foreign countries, thereby supporting the international agenda-building role of Chinese state-owned media. An exploratory analysis was conducted to test the role of intercultural or international relations variables in the agenda-building process.
... a key site for political legitimation is the news media, which connects European decision-makers to European citizens and creates a space for the spreading of popular crisis narratives. providing rationalisations for chosen policy measures, shaping public perceptions of the crisis and controlling the news agenda so as to prevent competing policy alternatives from gaining ground are key elements in public legitimation (louw 2010;Tedesco 2011). ...
The German Government has played a leading role in the Eurozone crisis management, largely characterised by a commitment to fiscal austerity and supply-side structural reforms. The legitimation of these measures in the European policy arenas as well as in the public domain has partly rested on an ordoliberal economic policy framing, which has presented the Eurozone crisis as one of public indebtedness and loss of competitiveness. To study the public legitimation of the crisis management, we analyse the press coverage of the crisis in 8 Eurozone member states, with a total of 7986 newspaper articles included in the sample. Focusing on ‘problem definitions’ and ‘treatment recommendations’ as two key elements of issue framing, we find that an ordoliberal framing of the crisis prevails in all the studied countries, while a competing Keynesian policy frame is mostly undermined. Significant variation between the countries emerges, however, on the question of EU federalisation and on the framing of the sovereign bailout loans. We discuss the implications of these findings for the success of the German Government to maintain the austerity orthodoxy across the Eurozone and crowd out economic policy alternatives.
... This is relevant for understanding the process of mediatization beyond the level of professional political campaigning (Plasser and Plasser, 2000; Strömbäck and Kiousis, 2011) and beyond actual developments such as the 'online deliberation on twitter' (Thimm et al., 2014). As 'president-press relations are a critical dynamic in the success of the presidency' (Tedesco, 2011: 83), this article focuses primarily on the person in power – a gap in communication research so far, as access to heads of government is quite complicated. ...
Mediatization is one of the modern buzzwords in communication science. Despite this, empirical research faces enormous problems, both intellectual and methodological. As mediatization is a process, it has to be analysed from a historical perspective. The case of the former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt gives us the opportunity to research nearly the whole history of the Federal Republic of Germany from its beginnings in the late 1940s until today, following Strömbäck’s four phases of mediatization. After World War II, Schmidt, chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1974 to 1982, started to write newspaper articles. Since 1983, he is copublisher of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit. The analysis of one special politician over six decades offers new insights into the interactions between media and politics on the micro-level. Under certain historical circumstances, media-conscious politicians initiate the mediatization of politics, without submitting politics to the logic of the mass media.
... Media owners decide budgets, set editorial guidelines and policies, and appoint editors and staff, and thus influence the news production processes albeit not necessarily individual news stories. Politicians and interest groups both make consistent efforts to influence and manage the news, through various news management and agenda-building strategies and tactics (Franklin, 2004;Lieber and Golan, 2011;Tedesco, 2011;Zoch and Molleda, 2006). Advertisers may threaten to pull their ads if they do not like particular stories, but the more common form of influence may be their demands for greater audiences in segments they find particularly attractive (Hamilton, 2004;McManus, 2009). ...
Over the last decades, media environments have become radically transformed. Among the most significant changes is the rise of interactive media technologies, which raise new questions about how influence over media content has changed. At the same time, changes in media technologies and how they may change the influence over the news should not be understood in isolation from other changes in media environments. Against this background, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how much influence journalists ascribe to different sets of actors; how they perceive changes over time; and whether journalists working with online publishing differ in these respects from other journalists. Among other things, the study shows that the most influential group is perceived to be journalists, followed by the audience and media owners. The group that is perceived to have increased their influence the most is media owners. All investigated groups—except journalists—are perceived to have increased their influence at least somewhat. The results are discussed in the light of research on how interactive media technologies may reshape the influence over the news.
... Interestingly, an embracing dependency on news organizations has impelled campaign organizations to develop strategies designed to bypass the news media (Lieber & Golan, 2011;Tedesco, 2011). Strategies to circumvent journalistic interference still rely on mediation but do not require campaign organizations to relinquish control to journalists. ...
If mediatization, like globalization and modernization, is a meta-process of societal change (Krotz, 2008) whereby “the media have become integrated into the operations of other social institutions [and] acquired the status of social institutions in their own right” (Hjarvard, 2008, p. 113), then, arguably, this is nowhere more evident than in contemporary election campaigns. In most Western democracies, there are reciprocal dependencies - mutual need but different goals - between media organizations and the political parties and campaign organizations that vie for votes during elections (Gurevitch & Blumler, 1990). To be sure, the nature of these interdependencies is shaped by structural and cultural features of the media and political institutions within a country (Blumler & Gurevitch, 2001; see Strömbäck & Esser, 2009, pp. 217–218 for a useful summary). However, on the whole, mediatization theorists and researchers are interested in the processes and mechanisms through which these interdependencies typically tilt over time towards the media (Strömbäck, 2008). News organizations lie at the center of interest in work on the mediatization of politics (Esser, 2013). Accordingly, in election settings, the concern is with how the media logic of commercial imperatives, professional routines and message formats not only comes to dominate the content of campaign news, but also how it gets integrated into the political logic of political rules, organizational structures and routines, and self-presentational strategies that political parties and campaign organizations must follow in order to campaign effectively (Strömbäck, 2008; Strömbäck & Esser, 2009).
... 10–11). Interestingly, an embracing dependency on news organizations has impelled campaign organizations to develop strategies designed to bypass the news media (Lieber & Golan, 2011; Tedesco, 2011 ). Strategies to circumvent journalistic interference still rely on mediation but do not require campaign organizations to relinquish control to journalists. ...
This article develops a theoretical model consisting of three mechanisms that link metacoverage, a type of election campaign news, to mediatization, a meta-process in which media organizations influence politics. The mechanisms hinge on the point that metacoverage—consisting of both topics and frames—constitutes a rich set of process-oriented cues that influence how campaign organizations adjust to the media logic in the course of performing functions associated with the office-seeking political campaign logic. A case study of 2012 US presidential election news was conducted to illustrate how metacoverage influences campaign strategies.
... In a reactive situation , it may involve being available for interviews to journalists or providing them access to information they might need for stories. A chief conceptual perspective used to understand news management and media relations in political public relations is agenda-building (Tedesco 2011; Zoch and Molleda 2006 ...
This chapter reflects on political public relations. It first characterizes political public relations as a central component of political communication by political actors. Moreover, the chapter argues that political public relations are not only about communication and involve a wider group of stakeholders such as lobby groups, think tanks, and party donors. The chapter then gives an overview of the literature on political public relations and defines it by suggesting a continuum of stakeholder engagement. Furthermore, several domains of political public relations are discussed in detail, i.e. news management and agenda building, issues management, event management, crisis management, assessment in political public relations, and digital communication. Finally, the authors call for a more systematic application of public relations theories and concepts that have seldom or never been applied in the context of political public relations.
... A chief conceptual perspective used to understand news management and media relations in political public relations is agenda-building (Tedesco 2011;Zoch and Molleda 2006). In contrast to the traditional focus of agenda-setting on associations between media coverage and public opinion, the construct of agenda-building focuses on the reciprocal influence of policymakers, news media, and public opinion in the process of salience formation and transfer. ...
This chapter reflects on political public relations. It first characterizes political public relations as a central component of political communication by political actors. Moreover, the chapter argues that political public relations are not only about communication and involve a wider group of stakeholders such as lobby groups, think tanks, and party donors. The chapter then gives an overview of the literature on political public relations and defines it by suggesting a continuum of stakeholder engagement. Furthermore, several domains of political public relations are discussed in detail, i.e. news management and agenda building, issues management, event management, crisis management, assessment in political public relations, and digital communication. Finally, the authors call for a more systematic application of public relations theories and concepts that have seldom or never been applied in the context of political public relations.
... First, media influence is greater with respect to politics than policies and polity. Second, and at the meso and micro level, political institutions and actors can try to increase their influence over the media by, for example, increasing the resources devoted to and skills in news management, agenda- building and frame-building ( Lieber & Golan, 2011;Tedesco, 2011;Zoch & Molleda, 2006). The key to success in such efforts, however, is to adjust to the media and news media logic, which entails both anticipating how the media will act or react and adapting to the (presumed) influence of the media. ...
The first book-long analysis of the 'mediatization of politics', this volume aims to understand the transformations of the relationship between media and politics in recent decades, and explores how growing media autonomy, journalistic framing, media populism and new media technologies affect democratic processes. © Frank Esser and Jesper Strömbäck 2014. All rights reserved.
Im Rahmen von Public Affairs spielen Medien als Vermittler zwischen Politik und Unternehmen eine entscheidende Rolle. Im Zentrum dieses Kapitels steht die sich mediatisierende und medialisierende Politik als Rahmenbedingung von Unternehmenskommunikation. Der Beitrag unterscheidet Medialisierung und Mediatisierung, betont aber auch die Notwendigkeit der Verbindung beider Ansätze in Bezug auf die Politik und versucht darüber hinaus, Rückschlüsse für Unternehmen und Organisationen zu ziehen, die sich aus der Medialisierung und Mediatisierung der Politik für sie ergeben.
During the 2017 Austrian national election campaign, political parties that had traditionally focused on press releases and conferences to influence the media’s agenda made extensive use of Twitter for the very first time. This study examines the impact of the parties’ Twitter campaigns on the substantive issue agendas of five leading legacy media outlets. Compared with the impact of parties’ news releases, the results show that, on an aggregated level, Twitter feeds significantly increase the parties’ agenda-building power, but are not influenced by the media agenda – with the exception of the personal accounts of the top candidates (particularly the new leader of the winning conservative party), who follow the media agenda to a significant extent. On an individual level, incumbent parties are the most successful in using Twitter, while small parties suffer from interactions with other parties in communicating their issue priorities (which is in line with the ‘normalisation thesis’).
The free press performs essential democratic functions, but widespread negative attitudes toward the press threaten its legitimacy and effectiveness as a check on formal institutions. In order to combat these attitudes, media organizations must understand who holds them and why. A survey-based study of U.S. adults (N = 2052) focuses on associations between perceptions of the news media industry as a threat to political performance and a range of politically oriented behaviors (i.e. news media exposure, political talk, political participation). Analyses reveal a series of non-monotonic relationships. Group differences between those who hold the most extreme views concerning news-media-as-threat are also explored. The opposing groups are distinct in some important ways (e.g. ideology, race), but are also found to be surprisingly similar (e.g. income, education, gender, news media exposure). The results suggest new strategies for maintaining and restoring confidence in media organizations.
In their effort to attain legitimacy, corporations are tempted to resolve ethical dilemmas that arise from conflicting stakeholder expectations by ambiguous and misleading communication. Such processes of organizational decoupling may in turn threaten corporate legitimacy. Therefore this article explores public acceptance of deceptive corporate practices that range between the poles of veracity and lying: They involve half-truths and concealment but no blatant lies and they neglect veracity only to conform to conflicting ethical values. The analysis builds on the assumption that specific types of corporate deception fulfill protective functions, such as privacy protection, self-defense, and social cohesion, and are therefore socially accepted. Results from an experimental online survey (n = 1,417) indicate that protective functions are ascribed to corporate deception, yet participants show only moderate levels of acceptance and advocacy on behalf of the corporation. Corporate deception is most likely to be perceived as legitimate when it serves privacy protection and when it involves altruistic intentions. These findings point out limits of organizational decoupling and emphasize the need for pluralistic ethics in strategic communication that provide a framework for the resolution of ethical dilemmas under consideration of situational conditions.
Previous research shows how powerful interests outside the media have the upper hand in the relationship between journalists and sources. This conclusion is sometimes challenged by the fact that journalists might control framing, follow-ups, and the packaging of stories. This article seeks to contribute to the field of journalist–source studies by focusing on aspects of the digital media environment, with a focus on the breakthrough of online media and social media. The purpose of the article is to analyze how external sources, such as public authorities, perceive the power relation to the news media in crisis communication. The empirical data used is semi-structured interviews conducted with 26 communication managers, communication staff, and crisis managers at authorities and nationally owned companies during four societal crises in Sweden in 2012–2014. The public authorities perceive that the digital media environment gives them control of the information flow in relation to journalists. Even if there is a requirement for updated information, the use of channels like the website and social media gives a sense of having the upper hand in relation to journalists. The perception of the journalist–source relation is, however, to some extent varying between different public authorities and types of crisis.
Nowadays, media and media logic have become important and inherent elements in everyday practices of public administration and policy making. However, the logic of the media is often very different from, and conflicting with, the logic of political and administrative life. So the question of how public managers experience and deal with media attention is more relevant than ever. An analytical sketch of the literature on the relationship between public managers and media provides three main categories of literature (public relations, agenda, and mediatization tradition). These three categories are used to develop statements (so-called Q-sort statements) to capture the way public managers experience their relationship with the media. A group of managers involved in oversight then sorted these statements into order of preference. The research reveals three different groups of managers who show different attitudes to media attention and whom we have labeled as adaptors, great communicators, and fatalists.
During the last few decades, the world has witnessed a dual democratic transformation. On the one hand and beginning with the fall of communism, the number of electoral democracies worldwide almost doubled between 1989 and 2011 (Freedom House, 2012). The victory of democracy and capitalism may not have marked the “end of history” (Fukuyama, 1992), but today there is no alternative political system that enjoys the same worldwide support and legitimacy as democracy (Inglehart & Welzel, 2005; Inglehart, 2003). On the other hand, many established democracies have witnessed a transformation towards increasing complexity, less deferential and increasingly critical and dissatisfied citizens (Norris, 2011), lower electoral turnout and trust in politicians and political institutions (Franklin, 2004; Norris, 1999), and increasingly autonomous, market-driven and critical media (Hallin & Mancini, 2004; Hamilton, 2004; Patterson, 1993). National political institutions and actors thus find themselves under increasing pressure from both citizens and the media, while the need to find solutions to major challenges such as global warming, rising inequalities, weak growth and increasing deficits appears both more urgent and more difficult to tackle.
The relationship between opinion polls and political leadership is both complex and multifaceted. The same holds true for the relationship between published opinion polls, news management and political leadership. While having acknowledged support by public opinion is a great asset for any political party or politician, signs of weak or declining support are a great liability. The key term here is acknowledged support: it matters less if a political party or politician has actual support if nobody knows about it. In many respects, published opinion polls thus matter more than opinion polls in general.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.