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Bibliographic Details
The International Encyclopedia of Communication
Edited by: Wolfgang Donsbach
eISBN: 9781405131995
Print publication date: 2008
Update: 2008-06-05 Revision History

Mediatization of Politics
Gianpietro Mazzoleni
Subject

Politics
Communication Reception and Effects Communication, Politics and
Elections

DOI:

10.1111/b.9781405131995.2008.x

Mediatization of politics is a complex process that is closely linked to the presence of a media logic in society
and in the political sphere. It is distinguished from the idea of mediation, a natural, preordained mission of
mass media to convey meaning from communicators to their target audiences. To define politics as mediated
is a simple truism, in that communication and mass media are necessary prerequisites to the functioning of
political systems (Mazzoleni & Schulz 1999). Some scholars, such as Deutsch (1963), even hold that politics is
communication. Certainly, politics and the way it is performed and communicated have been widely affected by
the rise of mass media between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. Such media-driven influence in the
political environment is the core of the concept of mediatization. The media have become indispensable actors
within the political domain. They have gained a central position in most political routines, such as election
campaigns, government communication, public diplomacy and image building, and national and international
celebrations.
The centrality of the media in the political arena is a peculiarity of modern democracies, which are strongly
characterized by interconnecting forms of mass communication (Media Democracy). The media's rise to a
pivotal place in the political processes has caused significant changes and developments in politics as a whole,
to the extent that politics is often considered by political communication scholars as media dependent. The
concept of dependence, however, is not supported by solid empirical evidence. The interdependence of media
and politics seems to constitute a better pattern to represent the actual nature of the relationships between
them. The media are nevertheless frequently credited with exercising overwhelming influence on political
events, persons, issues, and opinions, and, at the same time, politicians are aware of the media's attention
rules, production routines, and selection criteria, and adapt their communication behavior to media
requirements.

EFFECTS OF MEDIATIZATION
Research has pointed out several effects of mediatization, among which are the capacity of the media to set the
agenda of the political debate, the spectacularization and personalization of political communication, the
fragmentation of political discourse, and the winnowing effect.

Agenda Setting
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The mass media, especially the information outlets, are acknowledged to have significant power to structure
and frame political reality by determining what is relevant for public discussion, by raising issues, and by
providing criticism (Agenda-Setting Effects). By pointing their spotlights on certain political events and by
investigative reporting, the news media are in a position to drive the public debate, influence the campaign
agenda, and prompt political figures to focus and take stances on the issues raised. This power is exalted or
mitigated by the nature of the political milieu in a given national context. For example, in political systems that
grant large autonomy to the media, political communicators are less successful in neutralizing the agenda
shaping of the media. However, in political milieus where mediapolitics relations are characterized by close
interdependence, the political agenda is more likely to be the joint output of the interaction of both actors
(Semetko et al. 1991).

Spectacularization and Personalization of Politics

The spectacularization of politics is an effect especially linked to the influential presence of television on the
political scene. The grammar of television language has increasingly changed the patterns of political
communication (Political Communication Culture). By becoming the target of an incessant dramatization on
the part of commercial media, political activity has been driven to adjust its traditional forms of communication
to the new canons of a media-centered environment (Mazzoleni 1987). This fact has entailed a recasting of the
symbolic and expressive devices of political representation. In addressing citizens and voters, political
communicators no longer rely on the mediation of militants. They can no longer use the rhetoric of
mobilization of supporters, but the rhetoric of seduction of the masses (Lecomte & Denni 1990). In other
words, the most significant effect of the mediatization/spectacularization of politics is somewhat equal to a
genetic mutation of political discourse. No politician can communicate successfully without molding his or
her message to suit the most preferred and most popular language schemes of the mass media, especially those
of entertainment, showbiz, and advertising. By dramatizing politics, the news media take advantage of the
popular propensity to believe in things as they seem rather than as they are, and jointly with politicians who
have swiftly embraced the imperatives of mediated communication, the media contrive to construct politics as
spectacle (Nimmo & Combs 1990).
A necessary condition of spectacularization is the tendency of mass media, especially those that are
commercially oriented, like the tabloids (Tabloid Press) and their equivalent in broadcast media, to
personalize political information by focusing on who and how, rather than on issues, context, structure, and
interpretation. Average news consumers prefer to read about other people, not about abstract groups or
remote bureaucracies and government agencies. To cater to these preferences, news stories, especially those
that appear on television, are routinely framed from the point of view of central actors Inevitably, stories
about groups are transformed into stories about group leaders (Davis 1990). Political players on the
contemporary post-ideology political stage seem to respond enthusiastically to this media-driven tendency.
They adjust willingly to media personalization, responding to the demands of visibility, look, and image
(Personalization of Campaigning). Television is once more the deus ex machina of this adaptation: Political
figures cannot help subjecting themselves to the rules of TV popularity, obliged as they are to be either stars or
nullities Television is indeed the medium that resorts more to personalisation and relies a lot on rivalry
among politicians (Mouchon 1989).
A side-effect of personalization is what could be termed the leaderization of politics. In certain political
milieus political leadership is strongly personalized, either for institutional reasons (as in a presidential system
such as that of the US) or induced by the influence of the mass media. Political leaders extend their personal
charisma (or idiosyncrasies) to the whole political process, setting themselves against collective actors such as
parties or any shared expression of authority. The natural preference of the media for personalized political
discourse provides a powerful support to the process of the strengthening of leadership in modern politics, and
also in contexts where collective, impersonal, party-centered political action is the traditional pattern.
The media exert a further strong influence on political messages when these messages are carried on the mass
communication channels. During this process, political debate fragments into pills and clips. Audiovisual
communication tends to propose a political speech which is fleeting, fluid, instantaneous, privileging verbal
tricks rather than discursive strategy, in like manner of jingles-ads (Courtine 1993). The well-known practice of
sound bites favors the coverage and reporting of short and preferably catchy sentences at the expense of
information on perhaps more substantial topics and issues in the domestic political debate. Like personalized
framing of stories, sound-bite communication makes politicians into the accomplices, whether willing or
unwilling, of media producers. In doing so, politicians attempt to adjust to the velocity of contemporary
broadcast news, squeezing up their speech and thus increasing their chance of being covered by the media.

Fragmentation of Politics
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This sort of fragmentation of political discourse, triggered mostly by highly commercialized broadcast news
media, has different national intensities, according to the strength of local newsmaking traditions. For example,
in a number of European countries, such as France, Germany, and Italy, the news media still allocate a great deal
of space to the complex dialectics between the many political contenders, and European politicians still exhibit a
preference for articulated and somewhat lengthy declarations. Even if political discourse in these countries still
enjoys significant attention in the media, there are several signals of an Americanization in the news coverage,
thanks to the proliferation of channels and the sharp increase in competition between them for the conquest of
audiences (Americanization of the Media).

Effects on Recruitment of Political Personnel

A final effect of the mediatization of politics is the selection (winnowing) of political elites through the
imposition of media-driven requisites and coverage formats upon political communication as a whole (Matthews
1978). There is also some indication of a progressive weakening of party organizations in many western
democracies. For example, there has been a transfer of methods for recruiting political personnel (leaders,
activists, candidates, mayors, etc.) from party machines to external agents mostly communication experts,
spin doctors, and media professionals that implement tactics and follow criteria that collide with those of
traditional professional politics.
The actual selection of political personnel and candidates is to a certain extent affected by the degree of media
attention. Leaders chosen in this manner respond to the media's predilection for telegenic, controversial, and
possibly colorful personalities. Politicians who are natural newsmakers are assured of significant public visibility,
while the media ignore those who are not media-genic talents. Those who eventually succeed in election
contests are no more local notables, but mediatic personages, individuals who master better than others
communication techniques; a new breed of communication specialists takes the place of militants and of
apparatchiks (Manin 1995).
Vis--vis the rapid diffusion of online media, Schulz (2004) questions whether the traditional patterns of
mediatization of politics will disappear to leave room for new ways of interdependence between the new media
and political players. In fact, the new communication environment created by the Internet and other new
media is likely to challenge the media logic that characterized the era of mass communication, and
consequently its clutch on political communications. Schulz's argument is that there is not yet an end of
mediatization as we have known it to date: Since the new media do not displace the old media, the
mediatization effects of the latter endure in the new media environment. In addition, the new media bring
along new patterns of mediatization. Clearly, the new media logic will affect politics and political discourse, but
the adaptation process will be mutual, not simply on the part of the political players, thanks to interactivity, a
feature that conventional media do not possess.
SEE ALSO:Agenda BuildingAgenda-Setting EffectsAmericanization of the Media
Communication Research and PoliticsElection Campaign CommunicationInternetMedia
DemocracyMedia DiplomacyMedia LogicMediatization of SocietyMedium Theory
Personalization of CampaigningPolitainmentPolitical Communication CulturePolitical
DiscourseTabloid Press

References and Suggested Readings

Bennett, W. L., & Entman, R. M. (eds.) (2001). Mediated politics: Communication in the future of democracy.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Blumler, J. G., & Kavanagh, D. (1999). The third age of political communication: Influences and features.
Political Communication, (16) (3), 209230.
Courtine, J.-J., quoted in Lecomte, P. (1993). Communication, tlvision et dmocratie. Lyon: Pul.
Davis, D. K. (1990). News and politics. In D. L. Swanson & D. D. Nimmo (eds.), New directions in political
communication. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, pp. 147184.
Deutsch, K. W. (1963). The nerves of government: Models of political communication and control. New York:
Free Press.
Kepplinger, H. M. (2002). Mediatization of politics: Theory and data. Journal of Communication, (52) (4), 972
986.
Lecomte, P., & Denni, B. (1990). SociologieWRFQRGH"TXHU\
du politique. Grenoble:
Presses universitaires
de Grenoble.
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Lecomte, P., & Denni, B. (1990). Sociologie du politique. Grenoble: Presses universitaires de Grenoble.
Manin, B. (1995) Principes du gouvernment representatif [Principles of representative government]. Paris:
Calmann-Levi.
Matthews, D. R. (1978). Winnowing: The news media and the 1976 presidential nominations. In J. D. Barber
(ed.), Race for the presidency. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Mazzoleni, G. (1987). Media logic and party logic in campaign coverage: The Italian general election of 1983.
European Journal of Communication, (2) (1), 81103.
Mazzoleni, G., & Schulz, W. (1999). Mediatization of politics: A challenge for democracy? Political
Communication, (16) , 247261.
Mouchon, J. (1989). Mdiatisation de la communication politique et logiques structurantes [Mediatization of
political communication and structuring logics]. Mots, (20) , 4356.
Nimmo, D. D., & Combs, J. E. (1990). Mediated political realities. New York: Longman.
Schulz, W. (2004). Reconstructing mediatization as an analytical concept. European Journal of Communication,
(19) , 87101.
Semetko, H. A., Blumler, J. G., Gurevitch, M., & Weaver, D. H. (1991). The formation of campaign agendas.
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Cite this article

Mazzoleni, Gianpietro. "Mediatization of Politics." The International Encyclopedia of Communication. Donsbach,
Wolfgang (ed). Blackwell Publishing, 2008. Blackwell Reference Online. 08 January 2016
<http://www.communicationencyclopedia.com/subscriber/tocnode.html?
id=g9781405131995_chunk_g978140513199518_ss62-1>

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