The term “media democracy” insinuates that the media and mediated communication are of central relevance for modern democracies due to their decisive influence on (or consequences for) political institutions (macro level) and political actors (meso level) as well as individual citizens (micro level). Theoretically associated with the media democracy concept is the notion of a “media society.” This idea implies that traditional mass media, as well as the new online media, are pervading all spheres of society and social life and have thus become the central precondition of exchanges and interactions among individuals and organizations of society.
The media society can be seen as the result of a process of functional differentiation making the media increasingly independent of their former sponsors which were, in the European tradition, primarily the churches and the political parties. The media now operate according to a specific media logic and, due to economic necessities, guided by commercial rules in order to maximize their audience shares. Part of this evolutionary process took place following the development of communication technologies. But to a certain degree the process is also influenced by general tendencies of social change.
Changing Political Systems
The media democracy concept signifies special aspects of the transformation of politics, in analogy to the notions of “media-centered democracies” (Plasser 2004), “mediated politics” (Bennett & Entman 2001), and the mediatization of politics (Mazzoleni & Schulz 1999). These terms imply fundamental political changes, particularly structural transformations of the political communication system and the public sphere leading to what Blumler & Kavanagh (1999) have termed “the third age of political communication.” According to Blumler and Kavanagh, in this still emerging age of media abundance political communication is reshaped by an intensified professionalization of political publicity, increased competitive pressures on political actors, diversification of political communication forms, and changes in how audiences receive politics.
The changes attributed to the influence of mass media are leading to phenomena such as media events and pseudo-events, mediated populism, mediated terrorism, and symbolic politics. Governments, parties, and other political groups or organizations, with the aid of political consultants and spin doctors, are trying to influence the public issue agenda through professionalized strategic communication. Some forms of public relations activities that are targeting the political elite affect the democratic core of political organizations (Jarren & Donges 2006). Further, as content analyses show, the media’s presentation of politics has become more complex, more negative, and also more sensational and entertaining. There is concern that, in the long run, this is affecting people’s images of politics, their attitudes toward democratic institutions, and their willingness to participate in politics.
A key role in these processes is ascribed to television as the “lead medium” in public communication. Television through its visual images is said to have the power to shape and to distort reality. Moreover, a growing personalization of politics is assumed to result from televised reporting of political events, particularly during election campaigns. The expansion of commercial television intensified the critical debate about suspected political changes because the commercial programs cover comparatively little institutional politics and instead concentrate on entertainment formats thus abetting politainment and the entertainization of politics. Like television, most other media are also subject to a creeping commercialization process. Since they are dependent on advertising, sponsoring, and PR material, they have to adapt to economic actors and cater to the interests of specialized target groups. As a consequence of commercialization, the differentiation and fragmentation of the media system continutes to accelerate.
Reasons For Changes In The Media–Politics Relationship
Initially the change processes were regarded as Americanization tendencies, particularly in western Europe where in the 1980s most countries deregulated their broadcasting markets and introduced commercial radio and television, with a subsequent decline in the importance of public service broadcasting. Today, the predominant view is that it would be more useful, rather than talking of Americanization, to understand the changes as a process of modernization which takes a similar progression in many western democracies (Swanson & Mancini 1996).
In explaining the changes in the media–politics relationship several authors assume that the media have become a functional prerequisite for the political system and its actors. Kepplinger, for example, holds that there has been a fundamental power shift at the expense of political institutions and in favor of the mass media. Moreover, because of feedback loops from the media coverage of politics to the political events and issues covered, politics became “mediatized” and to some degree a media construction: “What the media present as politics is partly the consequence of the conditions set by the media” (Kepplinger 2002, 983). Furthermore, because of the media’s focusing on political conflicts and scandals, they evoke a negative image of politics and the “dismantling of politics.” Similarly, Meyer (2002) observes a change from party democracy to media democracy with political institutions increasingly losing credibility. He posits a “colonization of politics” by the media leading to what he calls a “mediocracy.” This line of arguing was earlier highlighted by the seminal publications of Edelman (1964), Nimmo & Combs (1983), and Blumler (1990) which provide rich insights into the transformations of the media–politics relationship; yet these authors do not explicitly use the term “media democracy.”
Most theoretical explanations draw on systems theories postulating a functional relationship between the political and the media systems. Three different explanatory paradigms may be distinguished: (1) redistribution of powers (the media emerging as the “Fourth Estate”); (2) domination and dependency (of media over politics or vice versa); (3) interdependency or symbiosis of media and politics.
Whereas the first paradigm implies the presumption of media autonomy, the second is rooted in specific conjectures about power and control, particularly regarding the changing possibilities of both media and politics to maximize influence. The third explanation assumes a mutual interrelationship, in which under varying circumstances, either the media or politics prove the stronger influence. The three paradigms are explicitly or implicitly based on different normative ideas about the specific societal functions of politics and the media and their respective degree of power and autonomy.
In spite of the limited empirical evidence available for these hypotheses about macro phenomena it seems clear that the sole responsibility for the structural transformation and functional differentiation associated with the notion of media democracy cannot be attributed to the media, that is, these changes cannot be seen (only) as effects of the media. As for the micro and meso levels, it seems fruitful to redefine the media–politics relationship again and again empirically, starting from the premise of interdependency.
Media Democracy In Critical Perspective
Several gloomy implications of the media democracy concept may be contested. For example, speaking of the media and thus implying a homogeneous mass media institution is quite unrealistic. Instead, in all modern democracies we find a highly differentiated and specialized media system with a large diversity of content supply. Mass media are still expanding, offering ever greater choices of political information. Moreover, political actors are disseminating information themselves via Internet and employing new means of strategic communication, for example by appearing in entertaining media formats. These changes may be expected to result in increasing political media use and political learning, at least among some groups of society.
Generalizations about media democracy are quite frequently based on singular phenomena in a specific national and historical context, often during election campaigns. Yet comparative research shows that political systems and media systems differ considerably, with corresponding implications for political actors and processes. It is also apparent that political actors and organizations adapt to the changing media environments and develop institutional arrangements that compensate for a loss of autonomy (Schulz 2004). Moreover, the model of democracy is also changing (as it is, e.g., indicated by the substitution of the “government” concept by “governance”). These changes have not yet been adequately considered in the media democracy discourse.
The consequences of mediatization for institutional structures and processes in politics, particularly at the meso level, deserve greater attention in empirical research and theory development. Institutionalism approaches seem to be particularly promising (Donges 2006). Political actors do not only adapt to environmental changes; they also have an impact on the rules for other actors, which can trigger institutional changes. On this background, it seems useful to start out from a view of political communication cultures as relatively stable social arrangements. That the media are taking over the functions of political institutions, as some authors claim, is not in sight. Even in media democracies collectively binding decisions are made by the actors of the political system. And while it can be established that mass media have an influence on political decisions, other societal groups and actors are also participating in the decision processes.
Although the media democracy concept has been increasingly used in political communication research since the mid-1990s, its analytical usefulness is still contested. The concept is hardly more than a cipher for various phenomena that can be observed empirically and that are – within communication and political science – reflected theoretically. However, it has served to stimulate the discussion about the transformation of the media–politics relationship and its societal consequences and about the normative grounds for political communication in modern democracies.
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