This book investigates how individual politicians and political parties strategically make use of the media to reach their political goals.
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.
1.Information and Arena. The Dual Function of the News Media for
Political Elites, Peter Van Aelst, Stefaan Walgrave.- Part 1.- 2. An
intervening intermediary. Making political sense of media influence, Gunnar
Thesen.- 3. Celebrities as Political Actors and Entertainment as Political
Media, Amber E. Boydstun, Regina G. Lawrence.- 4. Political Public Relations
and Mediatization: The Strategies of News Management, Jesper Strömbäck, Frank
Esser.- 5. Too powerful or just doing their job? Explaining Differences in
Conceptions of Media Power among Politicians and Journalists, Rens
Vliegenthart, Morten Skovsgaard.- Part 2.- 6. What Politicians Learn from the
Mass Media and Why They React to it. An Analytical Framework, Julie
Sevenans.- 7. The Media Dependency of Political Elites, Stefaan Walgrave,
Julie Sevenans, Alon Zoizner, Matthew Ayling.- 8. When do 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.- Part 3.- 9. Moving Beyond the Single Mediated Arena Model:
Media Uses and Influences Across Three Arenas, Aeron Davis.- 10. The Charm of
Salient Issues? Parties Strategic Behavior in Press Releases, Caroline
Dalmus, Regula Hänggli, Laurent Bernhard.- 11. Does News tone Affect the
Government in the News?, Christoffer Green-Pedersen, Peter B. Mortensen,
Gunnar Thesen.- Part 4.- 12. Why the Media Matters for Politicians. A Study
on the Strategic Use of Mass Media in Lawmaking, Lotte Melenhorst, Peter Van
Aelst.-
13. Information Source and Political Arena: How Actors from Inside
and Outside Politics Use the Media, Nayla Fawzi.- 14. Elaborating and
specifying the information & arena framework, Stefaan Walgrave & Peter Van
Aelst.
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.
