The Relationships Between Politicians and Media - Essay Example

POLITICS AND THE MASS MEDIA INTRODUCTION Empirical research has long confirmed that for most people the mass media are the major sources of information about world events (Table 1.1) and about political affairs (Table 1.2). Table 1.1 Sources of most world news 1 1980 1983 1985 % % % Television 52 60 62 Radio 14 10 14 Newspapers 33 28 23 Magazines 0 0 0 Talking to People 1 1 1 However, despite television's growing importance as a source of information, regular readers of newspapers continue to attach a great deal of weight to the print medium (Table 1.2(b)). Non-readers show a greater dependence on television for political information. Both tables conceal significant variations in responses between readers of 'quality' and 'tabloid' newspapers (Table 1.3) 2 : the former remain wedded to their preferred medium, using it much more extensively as a means of surveying the world in depth, whilst readers of tabloid newspapers rely more heavily on television and also tend to attach greater credibility to it as a source of news (Table 1.4). 3 These tables confirm the centrality of the media for the public. They are the means by which the public acquires information about the world and, more importantly, through which the public derives its knowledge and perceptions of current political and social problems and of the means to their resolution. The approach to the study of ' politics and the mass media adopted here Table 1.2 Voters' major sources of political information 4 (a) % citing source: (b) % citing sources in top 2 media sources amongst: as most important in top 2 sources readers non-readers TV 63 88 88 85 Newspapers 29 73 80 35 Radio 4 14 11 29 is inevitably much broader than that usually found within political science. Traditionally, the study of politics and its relationship to the mass media has focused on institutions and bona fide political actors. Governments, politicians, departments or voting patterns have usually been the political scientists' fodder. When married to an interest in the mass media, the result has been an over-concentration on institutions, structures, and the political élite. While this remains of importance, this sort of approach overlooks the part the mass media play in generating public perceptions of political and social change as well as of policies and decision-making processes. The political significance of the political goes far beyond such questions as 'who controls the media?' and 'how do people get elected?'; even concerns over 'bias' and 'objectivity' are too narrow to take in the full significance of the political Politics and the political infuse all aspects of our lives, our attitudes, and our behaviour. And because the mass media are at the heart of the processes of communication through which 'problems' and their 'resolution' are framed and discussed, they deserve extensive analysis. 5 THE NATURE OF 'MEDIATED' KNOWLEDGE This broad approach to the political significance of the mass media is reflected in many contemporary writings. These emphasize the media's role in providing information-both images and texts-which forms the basis of public perceptions and responses to events. The media provide, in Blumler's words, 'the informational building blocks to structure views of the world… Table 1.3 Regular readers of: Telegraph, Times, Guardian or FT Express or Mail Mirror, Sun, or Star Main source of news % % % television 32 62 65 newspapers 57 28 24 radio 25 14 14 Table 1.4 Regular readers of: Telegraph, Times, Guardian or FT Express or Mail Mirror, Sun or Star Most believable source of news % % % television 30 59 66 newspapers 35 13 11 radio 20 16 13 from which may stem a range of actions'. 6 Although these 'informational building blocks' combine with a multiplicity of political and social factors to direct an individual's action, they determine the limits of our knowledge and of our perceptions of events and their causes. The growing interest in exploring the 'stored information about… objects held by individuals' 7 -sometimes referred to as cognitions-marks a shift away from the view of the media as of great importance in the formation of individual and specific attitudes or opinions. An individual may not acquire a specific attitude-on how to vote, about race or trade unions-from the mass media, but he/she will derive information from the media which will contribute something to each of these individual areas. It is therefore conceptually useful to distinguish between what the mass media tell us to think about-this is signalled by the events they cover-and what specific attitudes or opinions we have to adopt towards those events, though clearly these distinctions may be difficult to uphold in practice. A television or press report of an event, for example, will consist of a selection of information and that particular selection will inevitably inform as well as contribute towards, rather than directly form, specific attitudes. This distinction between cognitions (the informational building blocks, the stored bits of information) and specific attitudes or opinions is critical, for it not only emphasizes the public's growing dependence on the mass media for information but it also draws our attention to the consequences of such a dependence. Because only a small handful of events can ever be experienced by individuals at first hand, we inevitably rely on the mass media to inform us about events beyond our immediate grasp. But the mass media select which events to cover and they take decisions about how those events will be presented; therefore they not only inform us about (a small selection of) events but their presentation of those events will also consist of their explanations and interpretations of those events. To paraphrase C. Wright Mills, '…men [and women!] live in second-hand worlds…. The quality of their lives is determined by meanings they have received from others. Everyone lives in a world of such meanings.' 8 As the influence of other agencies of socialization and knowledge transmission such as the Church, schools, and political parties declines, the mass media become even more central in the creation of the 'images in our heads of the world outside'. 9 What sort of information do the mass media select and how is that information presented? Analyses of 'news values' suggest that the information chosen is not simply a random selection of events. There is a clear pattern; a pattern which indicates a hierarchy of seemingly important events and individuals. Elite groups, nations, and individuals as well as large-scale, dramatic events dominate the news (see Chapter 7). Thus, the news values and news judgements which determine the content of the media not only direct our thinking to specific areas which the media define as 'important' but, conversely, direct our thinking away from other 'unimportant' areas. In this way they contribute to our mental maps of the world. In the realms of politics' they define-and also define away-opposition.' 10 News values and considerations of newsworthiness also prioritize events and they describe, establish, and reinforce images and relationships of order and power in our society. The prominence accorded to certain political actors, institutions, and practices is not simply an outcome of judgements of what is, or is not, somehow intrinsically important. News judgements contain within them an implicit understanding of the nature of our society, where power lies and how it is or should be exercised. For example, 'the very notion of "élite persons"'-a key category of newsworthiness-has, according to Hall, 'the "routine knowledge of social structures" inscribed within it'. In order to communicate, the mass media must 'infer what is already known, as a present or abstract structure…but [this structure] is a construction and interpretation about the world'. 11 It is not a mere reflection of it; the media do not simply report the world for us in any 'neutral' or 'objective' sense, they interpret the world for us. Furthermore, the items selected will usually have rich meanings within specific cultural contexts. So within specific cultural contexts, the mass media are able to employ existing cultural referents because, like coins of exchange, they are comprehended by all. In this way, there is reciprocity between the mass media and society/culture. They draw upon past and present political/social and cultural referents but, at the same time, they also contribute to these. This allows for cultural continuity as well as for cultural change. A good illustration of this is the way in which today's images and meanings of the monarchy have been successfully layered onto the more popular and spectacular historic traditions-so ignoring less popular and controversial republican ones-and, at the same time, given a contemporary appearance. Members of the Royal Family have long been aware that to remain in the public conscience requires coming to terms with, and feeding, the needs of the media. The Royal Family has thus judiciously assented to this and so has participated in the creation of its own image; in the process, it has ensured that the monarchy, as an institution and as a symbol, retains a cultural past, present, and (crucially) future. It goes without saying that both sets of institutions have benefited enormously from this symbiosis: the former from its continued popularity and support and the latter from a continuous stream of royal copy which appears to ensure increased sales. By 1992, as the Royal Family is confronted with internal marital problems, the relationship between the media and the Royals has become somewhat strained, though fundamentally unchanged. The media also perceive some institutions as more 'important' and hence more 'newsworthy' than others and they perpetuate that perception by locating themselves within or near those institutions. Political institutions, the judiciary, and the police, for example, are considered 'newsworthy' and become natural sources of information for the mass media. Consequently there is a 'bias towards authority' 12 ever present in media work. The very presence of the media also tends to alter the relationships between the political and social institutions which they link up. The mass media form a web of communications across institutions and their existence and practices have an impact on those institutions and their relationships to each other. The mass media have become an integral part of a complex network of institutions and they contribute, and give meaning, to the relationships between institutions and groups in the political system. This is true in at least two senses. I n the first place, the mass media are 'so deeply embedded in the [political ] system that without them political activity in its contemporary forms could hardly carry on at all'. 13 Few contemporary political strategies are conceived without considerable attention being paid to media considerations. This is particularly so during election campaigns, though one can easily cite numerous other and different examples (see Chapter 8). Beyond this accessible and easily comprehensible illustration of the 'impact' of the mass media and the extent to which political activity is a by-product of the existence of the mass media, there is another, more elusive, but just as significant aspect to the media's role in contemporary society: the nature of political practice and the contours of the political system are, to an extent, derived from the work of the mass media. To quote Gitlin at some length, the texture of political life has changed since broadcasting became a central feature of American life. The very ubiquity of the mass media removes media as a whole system from the scope of positivist social analysis; for how may we 'measure' the 'impact' of a social force which is omnipresent within social life and which has a great deal to do with constituting it? 14 The contours of the political system cannot be seen as something external to the mass media, something on which they have an 'impact', since they play a part in its determination by, for instance, giving meanings to events, by setting the agenda for debate, and by shaping the political climate. The recent coverage of environmental issues illustrates this point. By giving substantial coverage to environmental issues, the mass media call attention to them. Publicity forces policy-makers to respond. Those lobbying on behalf of the environment may also gain a legitimate place within the policy-making process and the character of their organization may change as a consequence. All these changes fall well within the observation that 'political activity in its contemporary form' owes a great deal to the existence and practices of the mass media. Media activity gives shape to the ill-defined contours of the political system: it brings new players and issues into the political arena, it leaves others out, and it rearranges positions and placings. Such activity goes beyond the granting or withdrawing of legitimacy. In a real way, the mass media give political systems their contemporary form and operational concepts within the political system their contemporary flavour. But the mass media do not single-handedly give shape to the contours of the political system. Much recent research has focused on the degrees of co-operation and collusion between the mass media and those with the power to impress their own definitions of the world onto the practices of news organizations. This would suggest that the study of politics and the mass media needs to take account of the relationships between the media and those in positions of power; it also needs to focus on specific and recognizable instances of 'impact' and 'effects' as well as the deeper level of perceptions of politics and of the political system. THE MEDIA, THEIR 'POLITICAL IMPACT', AND 'THE QUESTION OF "REALITY"' Although it is plainly easier to examine the narrower conception of the media's political impact by exploring specific case studies, long-term and fundamental changes in the public's perceptions of the political world must not be overlooked. These two dimensions of the media's political influence can be illustrated by briefly comparing two contrasting, albeit complementary, approaches to the study of the role of the mass media within the political system. (1) Political 'impact' as changed relationships: the work of Colin Seymour-Ure Seymour-Ure's detailed study of the part the mass media have played in British politics contains a considered summary, and clarification, of the concepts of 'effect' and 'impact'. Though he often poses specific questions when exploring individual case studies, he nevertheless adopts a fairly wideranging conception of 'effects' since his orientation is towards such broad questions as 'effect of what kind upon whom or what?' 15 and 'How far and in what ways are the political relationships and individuals affected by the communication between them?' 16 In adopting this approach, Seymour-Ure avoids the idea of the mass media having a universal and unitary effect on all members of the audience. The 'impact' of the mass media will, according to his analysis, differ depending on the context of the communication and the actors concerned. He also distances himself from approaches to the study of media 'impact' which conceive of them in a fairly narrow way. Instead of using the Lasswellian framework for the study of the media's effect on, say, individual voting preferences-namely, what is 'the effect of the media on the election'-Seymour-Ure suggests that one should rephrase the question as follows: 'What is the function of media in the electoral process?' This would avoid the 'assumption that the effect of the media is limited to the potency of their messages'. 17 The suggestion that the media can have a multiplicity of 'effects' on a variety of different actors is developed fully in his examination of the meaning, and nature, of media 'effects'. 'At its broadest', he writes, '"effect" is defined…as any change within the political system induced directly or indirectly by the mass media.' 18 These can vary in intensity: the media may be the cause of something or, at the other extreme, merely a catalyst. In essence, though, 'all political effects are initially upon individuals. They consist in increments of information, which may or may not modify attitudes which may or may not modify behaviour.' 19 At the most basic level, an 'effect' would consist of an individual's changed 'relationship with at least one other individual'. 20 Such effects could take place at a number of different levels within the political system: an individual's relationship to another could change as a result of the media just as an individual's relationship to an institution could change as an outcome of media work, and so on. Seymour-Ure sets out five such possible levels or 'changed relationships', with appropriate examples: ● political system/individual e.g. Enoch Powell's 1968 'rivers of blood' speech had an enormous 'impact' on British politics; ● political system/institution e.g. the entrenchment of the monarchy; ● institution/institution e.g. the relative strengths of the political parties; ● institution/individual e.g. resignations of individual politicians; ● individual/individual e.g. the televised Kennedy/Nixon debates in the early 1960s worked to the former's advantage. 21 An interest in 'the relationships that the media affect' means, in effect, that one can legitimately explore an enormous field of activity; no field is precluded since the media are omnipresent. The areas that the political scientist will explore will, however, most likely depend on the sorts of 'effects' and relationships they are interested in. Television and 'the question of "reality"': the work of Kurt and Gladys Lang Whilst Seymour-Ure's approach is focused on individual case studies, he hints at but does not examine a range of important, but empirically not easily verifiable, effects of mass media in general, and of television in particular: effects which may be both cumulative and long-term. Such studies are rare since they require an examination of media practices and content as well as a critical assessment of the media's presentation of the 'real world'-an assessment which takes it for granted that the media do not reproduce 'reality' in a pure form; their use of language and images as well as the working practices of journalists inevitably refract 'reality', so 'distorting' it. Probably the best example of this type of approach to the study of the mass media is the Langs' classic study of MacArthur Day in Chicago in 1952. 22 This study set out to examine television coverage of a procession in Chicago in honour of General MacArthur, who had had a distinguished military career in the Far East, and to contrast television's 'unique perspective' with the direct experiences of actual participants amongst the crowds. The study has often been used to illustrate the way television deals with events and constructs meanings around those events. Although the coverage provided by television is by no means neutral or impartial, television's 'bias' is seen as the product of routine practices and is, therefore, a form of unintended or unwitting bias. The study also provides a wealth of information which points to the way television, and by extension the media, alter relationships within the political system. The Langs observed that the most important single media effect…of MacArthur Day was the dissemination of an image of overwhelming public sentiment in favour of the General (MacArthur). This effect gathered force as it was incorporated into political strategy, picked up by other media, entered into gossip, and thus came to overshadow immediate reality as it might have been recorded by an observer on the scene. 23 Thirty years later, in a review of their own earlier work, the Langs reaffirmed their original conclusions and added some important insights. These brought to centre stage their concern with media 'reality': the public is dependent on what the mass media disseminate 'yet under no circumstances can the picture replicate the world in its full complexity.' 'Media reality', according to the Langs, constitutes 'a symbolic environment… superimposed on the natural environment'. The public plays no part in this 'social construction'; it can do 'little more than accept or ignore what is transmitted'. 24 The 'public definition of an event' is therefore no more than the outcome of a struggle to control the 'flow of information to the public about such an event' 25 and these struggles are themselves part of politics. Television's 'cumulative effects' are thus related to the ways in which it 'transmits reality and affects the imagery of politics and political figures'. Such effects, they concluded, extend 'to the shared experience of politics provided by television to which individuals, political actors and institutions somehow accommodate'. 26 In recent years, there have been several examples of governments excluding or controlling television cameras in order to control the 'flow of information' and so minimize the political impact of the medium. In the early 1980s the South African Government restricted television's movements in the townships and, in 1987-8, the Israeli Government imposed restrictions on television's movements in Gaza and the occupied territories. These examples have their parallels in Europe and the United States; Britain did not let television loose during the Falklands campaign. And following the British lessons in the Falklands, the US authorities excluded the media when US forces invaded Grenada. Similarly, during the Gulf War in 1991, the media were severely restricted in what they could and could not do. Whether these attempts at control have been successful or not is, in many ways, irrelevant. The central point is that by controlling the moving pictures of dissent, governments believe that they can not only minimize the dissent itself but also completely remove the major source of criticism. As will be argued more fully below, for many television 'reality' is political reality and so by manipulating the former one is attempting to control the latter. THE MASS MEDIA IN POLITICS There can be little doubt that the mass media are a vital part of the political system. Political strategies now usually incorporate media strategies as well; indeed, the two are no longer separate. Perhaps the best recent example of this, and of the media's growing significance in overtly political activity, can be seen in the Labour Party's strategies in the period immediately preceding the 1987 general election. Throughout 1986 and 1987, the popular press created and reinforced the image of 'the loony left' and 'the militant left' in Labour politics. Stories of alleged 'loony left' politics became a standard feature of their political coverage: the apocryphal 'baa baa white sheep', 'black rubbish bins', and the true or false antics of Labour Party candidates or spokespersons entered the public consciousness. 27 Stung by these allegations, the Labour Party reappraised its strategy. In the short run it attempted to detach itself from its 'extremist' wing-more properly, those sections of the Labour Party which the right-wing popular press considered extreme-on the grounds that the 'loony left' cost it electoral votes. In the long run it was to create a new 'image' of itself which was purposely devoid of politics, as well as left-wing politics. The Labour Party's obsession with distancing itself from anything which the right-wing media could pick up and exploit as 'extremist' is well described by Wainwright in her account of a Labour Party election rally. The (significantly titled) Labour Family Fun Day in Islington, London-an American-style political convention with a well staged show-was a well-policed event. To test the atmosphere, Wainwright purposely bought a copy of Socialist Worker. 'Slipping it under my arm', she writes, I returned to the hall. When I came to be searched, an earnest young man asked me: 'Please could you leave the paper on one side and pick it up afterwards?' 'Don't be ridiculous,' I replied laughing. 'Why should I do that?' 'Please,' he pleaded, 'it will embarrass Neil Kinnock' [the Labour leader]. 28 The Labour Party's insecurity in the face of the press continued into the election. It nevertheless managed to run a good (television) election campaign. In this respect, it behaved as others who have political power, money, or status do: it manipulated the media in order to create favourable impressions and images. Mikhail Gorbachev achieved the same goal during the 1985 Geneva Summit meeting with Reagan. The Russians changed their 'style' in order to capture Western media attention, in order to transform their image. As one reporter remarked, 'the success of the Soviet presummit public relations effort…has infuriated the Americans who are used to dominating the media without even trying.' 29 Media presentation has now become such a critical feature of the process of negotiations and public image-making that those who do not give it its due credit are likely to find their credibility in question. It is possible to detect a similar set of concerns in accounts of the National Union of Mineworkers' handling of the media in their year-long dispute with the Goal Board over pit closures in 1984-5. 30 Sometimes, however, the media cannot be so easily deployed by political actors and the media may, in consequence, exert an indeterminate and sometimes capricious effect on the doings of political institutions and actors. In the 1985-6 Westland Affair two political opponents deployed the media as part of their armoury but, in the event, both were forced to resign as the affair gained a momentum of its own. 31 Undue concern with presentation can also create contradictions between media reality and the substance of events. This problem is most acute when the individual (or group) courting media attention seeks to placate different and conflicting audiences, for example an international/foreign audience and a home one. A good example is the meeting between President Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Begin of Israel in Jerusalem in 1977. This superbly staged meeting between the two heads of state did little to further the peace process in the Middle East. In fact, it did much to disguise THEORIES OF THE MEDIA Of all the existing means of mass communication, it is only the press that has spawned a set of 'theories' to explain and to justify its actions and its purposes. Means of communication that have developed since the inception of the press in the 17th and 18th centuries-notably, television and radio-have tended to adapt these theories to suit their own special requirements. In some cases, even the notion of 'the freedom of the press' has been transposed into other contexts and used to defend practices in radio and television. Yet the press has gone through many significant changes since ideas about 'press freedom' were first discussed well over 200 years ago. 1 New forms of journalism have developed, there have been changes in printing techniques, changes in ownership, and even changes in perceptions of the role of the newspaper within society. Furthermore, the press is now only one medium amongst many. Radio, and later television, have usurped some of its duties. Despite the enormity of these changes, and the social, economic, and political transformation of the societies within which these changes have taken place, the concepts most often used to justify the existence, and role, of the press-and latterly, the media-today still retain significant elements of 19th century (and sometimes earlier) political thought. Discussion of the roles and duties of the media in the contemporary scene must inevitably go beyond earlier and rather limited comments on the press. Nevertheless, one must not underestimate the importance of earlier ideas about press freedom, nor must one underestimate the extent to which these ideas still reside within more complex statements about the mass medis. The 1986 Peacock Committee, for example, considered the future of television in Britain by invoking parallels with the press and the abolition of pre-publication censorship in 1694. 2 Such ideas, and lessons of history, are clearly of fundamental importance and should not be dismissed out of hand. Can they, however, satisfactorily incorporate the changes in societies which now determine the existence and practices of the present media? How do they help us understand developments in the media? Read More