Lecture 3 Flashcards
Media companies as commercial entities
Commercial logic: Need to be competitive
Market for attention, subscriptions, advertisements
Dominant underlying rationale for many news routines, decisions
Social responsibility of journalism
Journalists also act from professional values & principles
Many media organizations have written or unwritten goals beyond profit
Public logic: what should citizens know?
1947 Hutchins Committee
The press plays an important role in the development and stability of modern society and, as such, it is imperative that a commitment of social responsibility be imposed on mass media
[which implies] factual accuracy, promotion of open debate, representation of diverse views [..] a watchdog against government abuse
Political logic
Political logic poorly conceptualized in mediatization literature
Vote seeking, office seeking, policy seeking
Landerer: Policy dimension vs electoral dimension
Normative logic
- idealized view of what should be for the well-being of a democratic society
- imperative of problem-solving
- Value-orientated
- Elitist
- Suplly-driven
- Public Logic
- Policy logic
Market logic
- Maximization of self-interested goals
- Imperative of newsworthiness
- Audience-oriented
- Populist
- Demand-driven
- Commercial logic
- Electoral logic - office- seeking actors
(Brants et al., 2010, pp. 30–31, quoted in Landerer)
As a consequence [of the commercialization of the media], the selection of news, of what is politically relevant and who is politically important, could well be based more on market considerations, of what sells, than on what is relevant in the public interest.
Under such circumstances, incidents, and the latest polls become more important than substantive coverage of political issues. It strengthens the need for politicians to ‘perform’ in an audience democracy, to be authentic and empathic, populist and entertaining, preferably all together.
Populism & the Media
Against Immigrants
Against EU/internationalism
Exploit fear for “the other”
and sense of loss
Speak on behalf of “the people”
Often called “populists”
Populism: a brief history
James B. Weaver
US People’s Party
(1892-1908)
Juan & “Evita” Peron
Argentinian Peronismo
(1946-1955)
(Hendrik) “Boer Koekoek”
Boerenpartij (farmers party)
(1963-1981)
Right-wing (Neo-)populisme in the Netherlands
Hans Janmaat
Centrum Democrats
1992 – 1998
Pim Fortuyn
Lijst Pim Fortuyn
Killed in 2002
Rita Verdonk
Proud of Netherlands
2007 - 2011
Geert Wilders
Freedom Party
2006 - now
Thierry Baudet
Forum for Democracy
2018 - now
WHAT is populism?
For the “people”
Against “the elite”
Neo-populism: against “the other”
Is this a communication style or a political platform?
(Taggart (200) Populism; Mudde (2007) Populist Radical-Right Parties in Europe)
POPULISM AS COMMUNICATION STYLE
Features of populist communication
Simplistic
Simple solutions
No nuance/compromise
Extremist
Always go a little bit further
Opportunistic
Take any ‘hot’ issue position
Relate to people vs elite (vs other)
(Aalberg et al., 2016, Populist political communication in Europe)
(NEO-) POPULISM AS A SUBSTANTIVE THEORY
Is it all just a rhetorical trick?
What is the position of populists in the political landscape?
What is a “political landscape”?
Political landscape:
- Parties compete on various issues
- Most salient dimension: left vs right
CLEAVAGES AND DIMENSIONS
Cleavage:
A societal division mobilized as a political conflict
originating from a historical clash
Parties compete on dimensions
shaped by cleavages
SUBSTANTIVE GROUND FOR POPULIST POLITICS: Why do people vote for Trump/Wilders/Brexit/…?
Real fear of losing out from globalization
2008 crisis: job losses
2015 refugee crisis: more migrants
COVID?
Existing political parties don’t address the issues
Because they are split themselves
Leaving room for new parties
Causing:
Legitimacy crisis
Fragmentation of politics (NL)
Splits within parties (Trump, brexit)
Media and populism
“Elective Affinity” between 21st C. media and populist resurgence
Populism through the media:
Journalists give platform to populists
–> High news value of populist statements
Populism by the media:
journalists make anti-elite statements
–> Journalist functions as watchdog
–> Critical attitude can turn into cynical across the board negativity
THE HYBRID MEDIA SYSTEM
Hybridization of ‘old’ (institutionalized, broadcast) & ‘new’/social media (decentralized, networked)
Increased volatility, different rules for attention
(cf. 1st principle)
Increased focus on attention income
(cf. Landerer, rethinking the logics), focus on quantity over quality of coverage (cf. front/back door, but is that actually true?)
STUDYING THE 2016 ELECTION
Timeline of stories about candidates:
Mainstream and partisan media
Tweets and retweets
Events (staged/unstaged, media/politics)
Nationwide popularity
Research Questions:
RQ1: Differences between media in attention for candidates
RQ2: Responsiveness of media to tweets/events
Conclusions:
Trump consciously and successfully uses social media to sustain attention in traditional media (→another “side door”?)
Media react uniformly to tweets (→populism through the media?),
possibly driven by audience demand (→commercial logic?)
Sanders never managed to play this game as well as Trump did
(→more about hybrid media than about populism?)
