Posted: May 12th, 2015

“Mediatisation” of Politics

“Mediatisation” of Politics

In the recent years there have been a transformation of the democratic which have taken place after the fall of the communism moreover the victory of the democracy and capitalism did not bring to an end to the history Schulz, (2004). On the other, hand this transformation of democracy has not brought with it a full satisfaction of the citizens rather it has come with complexity, less deferential and increasingly critical. This transformation has some other effects like the low rate of turn-up during the election, not to mention the increasingly autonomous, market driven and also critical media. Thus a mediatisation is the process where there is a partial or intermediate transformation and the country or state is left not fully sovereign i.e. the sovereignty is said to be mediatized. This makes the national political institution to be in a dilemma or entangle with pressure from citizens who are less satisfied and also a great pressure from the natural calamities like global warming and famine (Hjarvard, 2013).

The recent trend of expanding the national democracies has come with a lot of demands that is so hard for the political institutions to bear. This hard and difficult task is left for this institution to bear on their shoulders (Hjarvard, 2013). Thus, their trials of meeting the demand most of the time are less than the expectation of the citizens which makes the public disappointed. Thus, this gives the political institutions a pressure in meeting the demands of their citizens. This makes the decision making procedure to be more staunch and firmer than ever before and thus weakening the public deliberation and political legitimacy. Thus the political system is left venerable and weaker due to this pressure from the citizens.

Kriesi (2013) states that media plays an important role in understanding the individualization and globalization. Also media plays a vital role in observing and understanding any transformation of the established democracies which might be taking place in the country. Thus the media’s role of delivering or giving information for the citizen and also as a channel of communication by the policy makers has a significant importance. This role has a major impact and no political institution can, any way ignores that vital role. Therefore, in simple term media has a role in political decision making and also in aiding communication at political level (Kunelius, 2012). This has led to some scholars defining mediatisation as the social aspect which has been influenced by change in the media. This aspect includes both cultural technology and the organization. Furthermore, other scholars view this aspect as a process through which the society has been submitted to or depended on the media and their logics.

In view of the role of the media, we can confidently say that it has a major role in establishing the democracy, thus the transformation of the democracies is led by this mediatisation which is also characterized by other transformative social processes like individualism and globalization. This is due to the fact that information on any media is passed very easily to the targeted group thus making the information spread with ease. In the past decade, the mediatisation has not only been associated with politics only, but it has also other social areas like consumption and other cultural things. Mediatisation is therefore a distinct process of mediation in the sense that it is broader and complex. The aspect of mediation which is just the process in which message is conveyed to the target group from the source in political platforms. Therefore, it would be a mistake to take the two as synonyms. It goes without saying that the mediatisation is a dynamic process through which one does not necessarily mean the transmission of the message only or the communication through media (Thielmann, 2010). Although there has been unresolved issues about the true definition about what really mediatisation means, leading to both the sensitizing and definitive concept of this term. Definitive concept has more defined and has led into precise operationalization that can be used in any empirical research. This has led into a different approach to this matter and different conceptualization depending on the field of the study.

The different approach to this matter has some effect such that some of the terms lose their definitions or may at sometimes find definition at different stages of the analysis. Some of the scholars fear in accepting other concepts likes the definition of mediatisation and its operationalization since by accepting it may lose its complexity nature (ESSER, 2014). This has led to both theory and theoretical concepts trying to explain and understand the world around us. The main thing is that mediatisation is a concept that needs further research and analysis, such that it can be fully defined and verified. If this is not done correctly this concept may even turn to be a belief (Strömbäck, 2008). Thus to start with this concept of mediatisation of politics can be taken as a four-dimensional concept. The first concept and process are that of the media’s role. This takes the role of the media as a long process of where there is an increased media’s importance and also an increased direct and indirect influence of the media in society. In other words mediatisation can be taken as a long process through which the media has an influence and importance on the political processes, institutions and organizations. Some scholars like Landerer (2013) has moved a step further in explaining the concept of mediatisation of politics and media in which they perceives it as the state in which the politics has lost its autonomy and there has been an increased dependency of the media in. This has led to some alliance of the political institutions with the media. Therefore, this dimension perceives mediatisation as the state at which the politics becomes mediated (Thielmann, 2010).

In the second dimension, the media is seen as a separate entity through which it is independent of other political and social institution (Strömbäck, 2008). This means that the politics are not influenced in any way by the media and they operate as different body parts. This aspect most of the time do not exist for all institutions are seen as interdependent entities. Therefore, for the media being an independent state it must form an institution of their own right. This mean that the media will have their own right of the messages that they convey to the targeted group, which gives them power on what to mediate.

In the third dimension the media coverage and their contents of politics are guided by the political logic and media logic ESSER, (2014). Thus, in this dimension the media is seen as controlled on what the message to include in its coverage. This is mostly when it comes to the politics, they are led on how and the manner in which they convey it. Therefore dimensions can be referred to extend in which the political institutions have control on what and how to cover it. The last and the fourth dimension is concerned with the extent to which the political institutions and different organization are guided by the media logic and political logic. Therefore, this dimension expresses the nature of mediatisation and it shows the effects that the media has on the political process and on the political institutions (Strömbäck, 2011).

This breakdown of the dimension of the mediatisation helps in greater understanding the complex nature of the mediatisation and also the different dimensions (Krotz, 2007). Also media has a different role to play when it comes to information delivery, thus it has a more or less important task. Furthermore, it may be more or less independent from the political institution depending on the nature of the information being given and they can be sometimes being guided by the media logic rather than the political logic. This makes it possible to have different political institutions and organizations in the same country. This makes the degree of mediatisation in different dimensions to have a different empirical question and to be more contextual. This makes the four dimensions to be interdependent or linked together (Hjarvard, 2013).

From the four dimensions of the media, it can be picked that media is the vital and most important source in the mediatisation. In this only news media are Important that is the newspapers, news magazines, televisions and the radios for they have a role to play in conveying the information to the target group. Thus the news media that dominates the media environment are the news media. The political logic and media logic is concepts which are virtually accounts for the mediatisation of politics. Thereby some scholars like Lundby (2009) define mediatisation as the process where the culture and society depends on the media and their logic. Other scholar like Strömbäck (2008) defines mediatisation as the implementation or institutionalization of media logic in some of the societal subsystems. According to my own concept I view, mediatisation as the degree in which the media contents are fully guided by the media logics and on the other hand political logics have an influence on the third and the fourth dimensions of the mediatisation of the politics.

In most cases this two logic that is political and media logics are criticized and most of the time the political logic is left unspecified Schulz (2004). On the other hand, the media logics highly criticized since they are too elusive and vague this can be explained in the view that they suggest linearity and   which do not exist (Krotz, 2007). In addition the media logic sometimes may tend to hide the actual patterns of the social interactions. Furthermore this concept is unclear since they do not explain the true meaning of the “logic” (Hjarvard, et al., 2013).

In view of all the dimensions and the theory, there in then it is sufficient to say that mediatisation on politics is a wide scope that needs further research and analysis in order to find a standard and universal definition (Kaun, et al., 2014). Also, it should be in position the answer the question of how the media and political logic should be conceptualized within the framework of the mediatisation of politics. To sum up, I can say that mediatisation is simply the process by which there is an independent existence of the media and he political institutions, where the media plays a role of delivering the news or information to the citizens.

Reference

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