Media and Politics
Discus about the Political party stress on importance of communication.
Political parties belonging to any country, stress on the importance of communication to make their ideas and policies known. In democratic nations especially, political communication is of utmost significance. With the emergence of the social media, the politicians found a more effective way to communicate with their subjects (Kruikemeier et al., 2013). Social networking sites provided an extraordinary opportunity for politicians to connect with their people directly and catch their pulse. The mainstream media on the other hand, continued it traditional role of disseminating information without engaging the viewers. The inclination of politicians towards social media provided that impetus for the mainstream media to device new ways to draw the politicians’ attention. In this paper, the decreasing importance of mainstream media as a tool for political communication and the shift in the role of mainstream journalists as information seekers and politicians as information providers shall be discussed. The paper will also highlight the reason behind the success of the social media in becoming such a crucial tool for political communication. The essay will begin with an explanation of the link between media, political institutions and the public.
Media has transformed drastically since the 19th century and it is now viewed as one of the most powerful tools to propagate any issue. Many consider the 1991 coverage of the Gulf War by the U.S. media was the turning point in the history of mainstream media. The coverage was the first of its kind as it provided live feed of the war. Since then, the mainstream media came a long way and became an important pillar of governance especially in a democracy. The waves of the media reached the political arena as well and politicians did not waste any time utilizing it.
The need for political communication was mostly realized during the phase of the two World Wars when dominant countries looked to propagate their agenda to the people in order to ensure maximum support. In that case, they needed proper channels to disseminate their ideas and philosophies. The print media was then the dominant medium for disseminating information and politicians made full use of it through distribution of pamphlets and such other items. With the advent of the 20th century, the broadcast media came to the fore and by the 1990s; the media became mainstream owing to the coverage of the 1991 Gulf War, as discussed above. Althaus et al. (2014), mention that the Gulf War coverage made the media a hero in the eyes of the public and politicians took it as a great opportunity to accomplish their needs. The authors also comment that the 1990s events also led to an increase in the need for researching and analyzing the relevance of mainstream media regarding political issues.
The Emergence of Social Media
The media has a long association with politics and the political institutions of any country. As Xenos, Vromen and Loader (2014) describe, politics and the media are mutually dependent n each other. Both politicians and media professionals have the same goal that is audience and to achieve their goals, they have to engage in some form of collaboration. At times, both the parties share common objectives that are to address and sustain credibility with a larger audience. The intention behind the attainment of goals is different as media professionals aim at seizing the attention of the viewers by using a mix of information and entertainment while politicians intend to grab audiences’ attention to persuade them in adopting positive views about them. In order to meet these intentions, both the parties have to adapt to each other’s ways. The politicians require access to communication channels controlled by the media and the media requires access to politicians to collect information to produce content that attracts audience attention.
When the two entities – media and politics – combine to produce content that concerns the public, the public too becomes involved in this association. Both media and politics rely on the response of the public and consequently, the pubic relies on the information provided to them by the politicians via a communication channel to know about the changes and happenings. Ekman and Widholm (2015) further stress on the importance of the relationship between journalism and political journalism. The authors state, “Political journalism would be unthinkable without established relations with political institutions and their relationship with the news media”. While further commenting on this relationship, the authors state that the capacity of politicians to communicate their schema depends largely on the on the kind of relationship they have with the journalists. This relationship raises a vital question of whether the media controls power over political institutions or the politicians exert power over the media. During the earlier times, politicians had the option of the mainstream media to convey their messages to a larger audience. However, times have changed drastically and the mainstream media seems to lose that power. According to Gil de Zúñiga, Molyneux and Zheng (2014) however, both mainstream media and political institutions do not possess more power over the other but constructed on a mutual relationship.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the traditional media’s supremacy was challenged with the emergence of the social media. Sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube became the ultimate platforms for the common citizens to share stories from around the world. Politics too had seen considerable changes over the years. The new breeds of politicians have come up who are more aware about their people and their needs. The politicians are able to catch the pulse of the common masses and utilize the power of the social media to gain attention and prominence. Politicians use both the mainstream media and the social media to communicate their ideas and plans to the common masses but the growing power of social media cannot be denied. The upsurge of the social media also made sure that mainstream media could no longer claim monopoly in the dissemination of information to the public. As this continues to be the trend, there is also enough evidence that reveals that providers of information, which are placed outside the mainstream media institutions growingly challenge the journalistic structures through different forms of communication, but not at all through platforms of the social media.
Mainstream Media vs Social Media
In a study carried out by Ekman and Widholm (2015), they found that the mainstream media is changing ways to cover and report news stories across the globe to attract viewership. However, many experts believe that the social media has been damaging to the traditional media or the mainstream media. In contrast to this view, the mainstream panel strongly argues that it has the capability to confront the social media and defeat it. The present scenario tells a different story altogether. Social media has become so influential that even the mainstream media uses it for reaching out to the people. Reporters worldwide are seen posting stories and events in the social media platforms and taking help from videos uploaded in YouTube (Graham et al., 2013).
Many mainstream media analysts and experts believe that using the media for political communication has always focused on the power of the message conveyed to the larger audience. In addition, it also ensured the credibility of the message conveyed. As Moon and Hadley (2014) point out, the mainstream media has managed for long to maintain the credibility of the information it provides to the audiences. The author argues that although social media has taken over the political institutions and almost all forms of political communications, the people suspect its credibility. In addition, the author also states that the social media is not valued as are the mainstream media for conducting high-level meetings and summits. Stieglitz, Brockmann and Dang-Xuan (2012) however argue that the even the most powerful political leaders in the world use social sites like Twitter to inform about their policies and ideas to the public. It allows these leaders to interact and connect directly with their subjects and address their concerns.
According to Broersma and Graham (2016), the inefficiency of the mainstream media lies on its old and rigid system of political reporting in the “hybrid media”. In the views of the author, swiftness of political communication processes has increased remarkably due to the presence of information systems that ensures easier and smoother connection with the sources and capacity to post any information at an instant. The author has put one interesting aspect of this phenomenon forward when he states that the networked communications have smeared the “distinctive but interdependent roles of journalists and politicians now that they can both broadcast information”. It is a valid point made by the author because politicians did not possess this power prior to the emergence of the social media and they had to rely on mainstream media channels for the dissemination of information. Now, they can even manipulate the audiences with the help of the social sites by including information that highlights only the positives and hides anything remotely negative. Broersma and Graham (2016) further highlight the emergence of Twitter as the most influential tool for political communication. While other social sites are focused more on distributing and promoting news stories, “Twitter’s affordances make it tremendously useful for reporting”. The recent trends also indicate to this fact as each day, hundreds of tweets or messages are posted by political leaders, parties and other prominent people on Twitter to be read by the masses. The reporters largely rely on the tweets by people regarding certain events like natural disasters or terrorist attacks or any significant event to have the information. Whilst not being at the place of the event, reporters get the information they want from online. Blumler and Gurevitch (2002) however believe that politicians utilize the social media like the Twitter to influence the journalists of the mainstream media and convey their message to set their own agenda. Likewise, political reporters utilize the messages on Twitters as a way to approach critically the politicians, their parties and the government as a whole.
Politicians in today’s world have become conscious about the feedbacks and response from the people they target. They want to know everything about the masses and to achieve that, social sites like Twitter is the best platform for them. Political communications through the channels of the social media carry markedly more significance than through the mainstream media. Politicians are increasingly assuming the role of information broadcaster and the role of mainstream journalists thus seems to change. They have become the receivers of the information from the politicians to fuel their viewership. As discussed in the essay, although the mainstream media holds significance as important tool for political communication, the interdependency ratio has remarkably changed. While previously the politicians used to depend on the media to convey any information, now the media depends on the messages or tweets posted by the politicians to find information.
References:
Althaus, S. L., Swigger, N., Chernykh, S., Hendry, D. J., Wals, S. C., & Tiwald, C. (2014). Uplifting manhood to wonderful heights? News coverage of the human costs of military conflict from World War I to Gulf War Two. Political Communication, 31(2), 193-217.
Blumler, J., & Gurevitch, M. (2002). Politicians and the press: An essay on role relationships. In The Crisis of Public Communication (pp. 33-52). Routledge.
Broersma, M., & Graham, T. (2016). Tipping the Balance of Power Social Media and the Transformation of Political Journalism. The Routledge companion to social media and politics, 89-103.
Ekman, M., & Widholm, A. (2015). Politicians as Media Producers: Current trajectories in the relation between journalists and politicians in the age of social media. Journalism practice, 9(1), 78-91.
Gil de Zúñiga, H., Molyneux, L., & Zheng, P. (2014). Social media, political expression, and political participation: Panel analysis of lagged and concurrent relationships. Journal of Communication, 64(4), 612-634.
Graham, T., Broersma, M., Hazelhoff, K., & Van’T Haar, G. (2013). Between broadcasting political messages and interacting with voters: The use of Twitter during the 2010 UK general election campaign. Information, Communication & Society, 16(5), 692-716.
Kruikemeier, S., Van Noort, G., Vliegenthart, R., & De Vreese, C. H. (2013). Getting closer: The effects of personalized and interactive online political communication. European Journal of Communication, 28(1), 53-66.
Moon, S. J., & Hadley, P. (2014). Routinizing a new technology in the newsroom: Twitter as a news source in mainstream media. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 58(2), 289-305.
Stieglitz, S., Brockmann, T., & Dang-Xuan, L. (2012, July). Usage Of Social Media For Political Communication. In PACIS(p. 22).
Xenos, M., Vromen, A., & Loader, B. D. (2014). The great equalizer? Patterns of social media use and youth political engagement in three advanced democracies. Information,
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