MEDIA, POWER AND POLITICAL CULTURE

There are four factors of change that have affected media, power and political culture:

1.       The changing character of political publicity and news management: Contemporary television systems with added visual performance have made television a ‘theatre of political performance’. It is not only a ‘theatre of voices’ but also one of faces, bodies and actions.  Politicians and their aides work to get their actions and  their views into the news frame in the most positive possible way and try to limit the impact of opposing views or the damage that follows from reporting of ‘bad events’ that reflect negatively upon their policies and decisions. Television has become a crucial space within which aspects of the political contest become visible and heard by the general public.

2.       The changing profile and tone of political journalism within a changed media economy: Political mediation, including that through journalism, is reflecting some of the broader changes in the media industry, as it becomes more market-driven, competitive and linked to the provision of entertainment. As there is increased emphasis on political personality, there is also increased scope for stories of scandal and flow of political gossip. Combinations of traditional ‘hard’ and new ‘soft’ stories and the extensive use of Internet-based sources, together with email linkage, greatly increases the number of informal routes through which a story can develop. Thus, the relationship between publicity and journalism is an interactive one involving uncertainty and struggle in contributing to relative power, benefit and concession.

3.       Shifts in the nature of ‘citizenship’, in the way that people relate to their rights and obligations within the political system and use the media in this relation: Due to economic development and shifts in social structure and popular culture, the relationship of ordinary people to the official political process has changed in many democratic countries. The increasing emphasis on consumer identity, purchase of goods and services, are significant. The ‘citizen’ role and the ‘consumer’ role have been brought into new kinds of alignment or convergence due to changes in the economic character of everyday life. This has led to a stronger emphasis on ‘consumer identity’.

4.       The consequences of new communications technology: New media technology like television, with its multi-channel system, the internet, etc, play a vital role in the propagation of politics. e.g. Today bloggers have wider independent use of information and commentary to their story building. The broad idea of ‘political culture’ is a useful one for relating different elements in the complex politics-media-people pattern. It gives emphasis to questions of value and meaning and to the baselines of popular experience that the activities of politics and of the media help form and from which they also take their cues and fashion their appeals.

Ref: Media, Power and Political Culture – John Corner in Media Studies – Eoin Devereux,  Sage Publication, 2007.