How Political Actors Use the Media

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxi

   PDF

2. Information and Arena: The Dual Function of the News Media for Political Elites

   • Peter Van Aelst, Stefaan Walgrave

   Pages 1-17

3. Conceptualizing Media Influence in Politics

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 19-19

      PDF

   2. An Intervening Intermediary: Making Political Sense of Media Influence

      • Gunnar Thesen

      Pages 21-37

   3. Celebrities as Political Actors and Entertainment as Political Media

      • Regina G. Lawrence, Amber E. Boydstun

      Pages 39-61

   4. Political Public Relations and Mediatization: The Strategies of News Management

      • Jesper Strömbäck, Frank Esser

      Pages 63-83

   5. Too Powerful or Just Doing Their Job? Explaining Differences in Conceptions of Media Power Among Politicians and Journalists

      • Rens Vliegenthart, Morten Skovsgaard

      Pages 85-103

4. The Media as a Source of Information

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 105-105

      PDF

   2. What Politicians Learn from the Mass Media and Why They React to It: Evidence from Elite Interviews

      • Julie Sevenans

      Pages 107-125

   3. The Media Independency of Political Elites

      • Stefaan Walgrave, Julie Sevenans, Alon Zoizner, Matthew Ayling

      Pages 127-145

   4. When Politicians React to the Media: How the Attitudes and Goals of Political Elites Moderate the Effect of the Media on the Political Agenda

      • Alon Zoizner, Yair Fogel-Dror, Tamir Sheafer

      Pages 147-163

5. The Media as a Political Arena

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 165-165

      PDF

   2. Moving Beyond the Single Mediated Arena Model: Media Uses and Influences Across Three Arena’s

      • Aeron Davis

      Pages 167-186

   3. The Charm of Salient Issues? Parties’ Strategic Behavior in Press Releases

      • Caroline Dalmus, Regula Hänggli, Laurent Bernhard

      Pages 187-205

   4. News Tone and the Government in the News: When and Why Do Government Actors Appear in the News?

      • Christoffer Green-Pedersen, Peter B. Mortensen, Gunnar Thesen

      Pages 207-223

6. Combining Information and Arena

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 225-225

      PDF

   2. Why Do Politicians Use the Media When Making Laws? A Study On the Functional Use of Mass Media During Legislative Processes

      • Lotte Melenhorst, Peter Van Aelst

      Pages 227-243

   3. Information Source and Political Arena: How Actors from Inside and Outside Politics Use the Media

      • Nayla Fawzi

      Pages 245-263

   4. Elaborating and Specifying the Information & Arena Framework

      • Stefaan Walgrave, Peter Van Aelst

      Pages 265-279

7. Back Matter

   Pages 281-282

   PDF

This book investigates how individual politicians and political parties strategically make use of the media to reach their political goals. Looking beyond a purely Americentric viewpoint, the chapters present data from more than ten Western democracies to argue that the media are both a source of information and an arena for political communication. This double functional role of the media is examined from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective, including chapters dealing with different aspects of politics - from campaigning to law making - and within different political contexts. The role of the news media is discussed from the perspective of the political actor, focusing on both the opportunities and the constraints the news media provide, resulting in a multidisciplinary text that will appeal to students and scholars of both communication and political science.  

• politicians
• political parties
• campaigning
• lawmaking
• Western democracies
• us politics

“How Political Actors Use the Media’ is a unique and coherent collection of well written chapters focusing on a very important topic. The eminent list of editors and contributors are among the best scholars worldwide on this topic. Centred around four core questions on the relationship between media and politics, the chapters address different sub-questions, using different methods, and provide evidence from a range of countries. The editors’ mission, to show that the media have a double function for political actors, being both a source of information and an arena that they need to access, is forcefully accomplished! This book is likely to set an agenda for further research in this area and become the key reference point for such future work.” (Claes de Vreese, University of Amsterdam)

“This book offers a rich exploration of how politicians use the news media. A common ‘information and arena’ framework provides a degree of focus that is rare in edited volumes. The result is a rich set of ideas about how to understand the media arena and its role in politics.” (Lance Bennett, University of Washington)

• Universiteit Antwerpen, Antwerpen, Belgium

  Peter Van Aelst, Stefaan Walgrave

Peter Van Aelst and Stefaan Walgrave are professors in political science at the University of Antwerp, Belgium and leading members of the research group ‘Media, Movements and Politics’(www.M2P.be). They have published widely on the relationship between media an d politics and the agenda-setting role of the media. 

Policies and ethics