CHAPTER EIGHT: POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

8.1 Democracy as a form of communication. The transmission model and its limits (pp. 139-40).

8.2 The development of the media from writing to the internet. Mass literacy as a function, achievement and affirmation of the modern state. The introduction of broadcasting (including radio) and the later fall in newspaper readership (pp. 140-42).

8.3 Contemporary trends: commercialization, fragmentation, globalization and interaction. Combined impact is to reduce politician’s access to the mass electorate. The shift from citizens to consumers (pp. 142-45).

8.4. Media structures: Hallin and Mancini’s classification: Anglo-American (liberal), Northern European (democratic corporatist) and Southern European (polarized pluralist) systems. Declining distinctiveness of these models (pp. 145-46).

8.5 Media impact: the media as the house in which we live. Reinforcement, agenda-setting, framing and priming. The distinct effects of television and newspapers (pp. 146-52).

8.6 Public opinion: what the public thinks or the considered judgement of the community on a common issue? The limits of its impact, especially on detail. Public lacks knowledge and can evade trade-offs. Measuring public opinion: opinion polls, sample surveys, deliberative opinion polls (citizens’ juries) and focus groups (pp. 152-55).

8.7 Techniques used to limit the media in authoritarian states. Justifications offered by rulers: to limit squabbling so as to maintain national harmony and facilitate development. Communism as an experiment in media impact. Extensive propaganda and agitation but limited effects, at least on the attitudes of the mass population (pp. 155-56).

8.8 Limits of media independence in illiberal democracies: ownership as a political resource; lack of a professional, news-gathering tradition; some intimidation and therefore self-censorship; leader’s direct enegagement with the population, especially through television (pp. 157-58).

<< back to Chapter notes list