APPLICATION FORM FOR PROSPECTIVE WORKSHOP DIRECTORS

To apply for running a workshop at the Joint Sessions in Turin, Italy, 22-27 March 2001, send the form below as the

cover sheet and a separate workshop proposal to the ECPR Central Services. You can do this by either emailing both documents as an attached file (in word format .doc or rich text format .rtf) to the ECPR Central Services at ecpr@essex.ac.uk. Alternatively, you can print up the information and send it as a fax to the Central Services, fax:

+44 1206 872500. The deadline for applications is 15 October 2000.

Title of proposed workshop:

“POLITICAL COMMUNICATION, THE MASS MEDIA, AND THE CONSOLIDATION OF NEW DEMOCRACIES”

Name of workshop director(s):

Katrin Voltmer Slavko Splichal

Name and address of institution(s): Katrin Voltmer Institute of Communications Studies University of Leeds Leeds, LS2 9JT United Kingdom Slavko Splichal Department of Communications Faculty of Ljubljana Kardeljeva pl. 5 1000 Ljubljana Slovenia

Telephone number/s: K. Voltmer: ++44-(0)133-233 5829

Fax number/s: K. Voltmer: ++44-(0)133-233 5820

e-mail address/s: K.Voltmer: icskv@leeds.ac.uk ; S. Splichal: slavko.spichal@guest.arnes.si

Please note that the information above is VERY important as it will be used in all future correspondence

and printed in the academic programme. The proposal should be typed with 1.5 line spacing on three/four A4 pages using this sheet as the first page, and should cover the points outlined in the guidelines (http://www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr/jointsessions/jsguidelines.htm). For further information, please contact either:

ECPR Central Services University of Essex Wivenhoe Park COLCHESTER CO4 3SQ Essex, UK Tel: +44 1206 872501/2497 Fax: +44 1206 872500 E-mail: ecpr@essex.ac.uk Web: www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr

Dr Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot (Workshop Committee Chair)

Institut d’Études Politiques de Bordeaux Domaine Universitaire, BP 101 F-33405 TALENCE CEDEX France Tel: +33 5 56 84 42 88 Fax: +33 5 56 84 43 29 Email: v.hoffmann-martinot@wanadoo.fr

Katrin Voltmer / Slavko Splichal

Political Communication, the Mass Media, and the Consolidation of New Democracies

Workshop proposal for the Joint Sessions of Workshops of the European Consortium for Political

Research, 2002

A. Outline of the topic

After the breakdown of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s interest in the

preconditions and the dynamics of regime change has grown enormously among political scientists. In

fact, transition research has developed into a growth industry which has significantly broadened the

theoretical and empirical scope of the discipline. However, research in this area has paid little attention

to political communication and the institutions that perform this vital function of politics (see Almond/

Powell 1966). This is a serious omission as democratic transition and the specific problems facing newly

established democracies today cannot be fully understood without considering the role of the mass

media in the struggle for power.

One reason why we believe that the role of the media needs to be systematically considered in

transition research is a normative one. Independent and pluralistic media of public communication are

an indispensable prerequisite of liberal democracy (Dahl 1989). They are the principal means which link

citizens and their elected representatives. The media are the only channel that enables political actors

to address the electorate as a whole; and for most citizens the media are the main, if not the only,

source from which they obtain information on political matters that occur beyond their immediate

environment. It can be assumed that the media are of even greater relevance in new democracies

(O’Neil 1998; Ungar 1990). Political regime change, which in post-communist societies coincides with a

change of the economic system, creates a situation of fundamental uncertainty. Thus, for politicians and

citizens alike the need for orientation and reliable information is extraordinarly high. Further, the

institutions of public communication also undergo a fundamental transition. After having been

instrumentalized as the mouthpiece of the former autocratic elite, the media are now expected to

constrain and check government power rather than to magnify it. Therefore, the way the media perform

their democratic communication function is of crucial importance for the successful consolidation of new

democracies.

The second reason for studying the role of the media in transition processes is an empirical one.

Evidently, new democracies immediately become media centered. The „americanization“ of politics

(Negrine/ Papathanassopoulos 1996; Swanson/ Mancini 1996) which is thought to be a recent

development in established democracies seems to characterize the political process in new

democracies from the very beginning. Due to civil society and the intermediary system being notoriously

weak in new democracies, the media become the main agents of political socialization and public

debate. This applies especially to election campaigns. Since the vote is still predominantely guided by

short-term factors that are prone to be influenced by actual media coverage election campaigns can

neither be conducted nor won without adopting effective media strategies. Hence, political actors,

especially political parties and governments, rely almost entirely on the media for mobilizing public

support. According to the theory of media dependency the impact of the media is assumed to be

particularly high when they are the primary means for actors to reach their goals (Ball-Rokeach/ DeFleur

1976).

The proposed workshop provides the opportunity to expand our theoretical and empirical understanding

of the dynamics of political communication and its consequences for the consolidation of new

democracies. The thematic focus of the workshop is based on the concept of political communication as

the production of political messages aiming to mould public opinion. Political communications evolves

from close, though highly conflictual interaction between the mass media and political actors (Blumler/

Gurevitch 1981; Graber 1993; McNair 1999). This interaction is particularly problematic in periods of

transition when both sides are seeking to establish their own position and any kind of „gentlemen’s

agreement“ is still to be achieved. In this light the workshop seeks to address the following questions:

The Media: How do the media perform their democratic function, how do they inform the citizens about

political matters? How do journalists understand their own role, and to what extent are journalistic role

perceptions rooted in the historical legacies of the past? Do the media, or relevant parts of them,

consistently support particular political parties or social groups, and what are the consequences of

thoses biases for the quality of information? How independent are the mass media today, and to what

extent are they instrumentalized by political actors?

Political actors: To what extent do political actors adapt to „media logic“ (Mazzoleni 1987) in order to get

access to the media agenda, specifically do they develop modern campaign techniques that are

designed to be congruent with the „media logic“, such as personalization, non-ideological appeals,

populism, and pseudo-events? These kinds of strategies may be most evident during election

campaigns, but may be used at any time to influence public opinion.

Context: How do external factors constrain political communication in new democracies and shape the

quality and range of information which is conveyed to the citizens? These factors include the economic

structure of the newly developing media industry, most notably monopolization and the intrusion of

international media conglomerates; further technological developments, like the expansion of the

internet; and cultural traditions and values, especially historical experiences.

B. Relation to existing literature

The specific contribution of the proposed workshop to the existing literature would be threefold:

First, the workshop incorporates the disciplinary perspectives of political science and mass

communication research. With this combined expertise specific problems of the politics of

democratization can be addressed that have been ignored by existing transition research so far

(exceptions being Gunther/ Mughan 2000; Randall 1998). It is a fascinating question, for example,

whether new democracies are developing into a new, maybe „postmodern“, type of democracy (Ignatow

2000) where the mass media and the exploitation of symbolic politics become more important for the

distribution of political power than formal institutional settings (Elder/ Cobb 1983).

Second, the thematic focus of the proposed workshop on the interaction of the mass media and political

actors aims to supplement the policy perspective which prevails in most publications from

communications research (Hallenberger/ Krzeminski 1994; Paletz/ Jakubowicz/ Novosel 1995).

Undoubtedly, the structure of media organizations and issues of regulation are of crucial importance as

formal arrangements substantially constrain the media’s ability to perform their democratic function.

However, as new democracies are entering the phase of consolidation the focus of interest moves

toward the politics perspective, i.e. the dynamics of political communication and the conflicts involved in

that process.

Third, most research on political communications in new democracies has been confined to a particular

region, or even to single countries, with post-communist countries in Eastern Europe gaining the most of

academic attention. However, we feel that the perspective should be broadened to include a wider

range of new democracies so that general patterns as well as specific developments can be identified

more clearly. Therefore, we will seek contributions covering any of the countries that can be classified

as „third wave“ democracies (Huntington 1991). This would not only include the most recent group of

transitions in Eastern Europe, but also earlier transtions in Southern Europe and Latin America, as well

as new democracies all over the world. While these countries differ widely with regard to the progress

they have made toward the establishment of a stable democracy, they are similar in that the experience

with a non-democratic regime is still an important point of reference in actual public debates. In most of

these countries the role of the media in political communication is still insecure and vulnerable to

political interference.

C. Participants

Tomasz Fricz (Hungarian Academy of Science, Budapest, Hungary)

Mihaly Galik (University of Economic Sciences, Budapest, Hungary)

Plamen Georgiev (University of Varna, Bulgaria)

Karol Jakubowicz (Polish Broadcasting Company, Poland)

Dorothee de Nève (University of Mannheim, Germany)

Eberhard Sandschneider (Free University Berlin, Germany)

Ruediger Schmitt-Beck (University of Mannheim, Germany)

Milan Smid (Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic)

Colin Sparks (Westminster University, London, United Kingdom)

Silvia von Steinsdorff (University of Munich, Germany)

Miklos Sükösd (Central European University, Budapest, Hungary)

Barbara Thomass (University of Hamburg, Germany)

D. Type of paper

Since we regard the proposed workshop as a forum to further elaborate a still underdeveloped research

area we would like to welcome papers applying a plurality of theoretical and methodological

approaches. Papers should be located at the intersection of democracization research and mass

communication research. We would especially welcome theoretical papers that elaborate the

relationship between the mass media and democracy in general, as well as papers that discuss this

relationship in the particular context of transition processes. We regard studies that look at the

interrelationship between media and politics from a historical perspective as particularly important. We

would also like to obtain papers that employ any kind of quantitative or qualitative empirical enquiry.

These papers might look at more specific aspects, such as the structure of media coverage, single

election campaigns, journalists‘ attitudes towards politics, or media effects on public opinion.

Comparative papers would be highly welcome, although a collection of single-country studies could add

up to a meaningful basis of comparative generalizations as a result of the workshop.

E. Funding

The prospective workshop directors will make strong efforts to bring in external funding.

F. Biographical notes

Dr Katrin Voltmer, Senior Lecturer in Political Communication, Institute of Communications Studies,

University of Leeds, United Kingdom. Research interests include: political communication, in particular

media in new democracies, news research, media effects on political attitudes and behaviour; political

sociology. Recent publications: Medienqualitaet und Demokratie (Nomos 1999); Constructing political

reality in Russia: Izvestiya – Between old and new journalistic practices (European Journal of

Communication, 2000); Massenmedien und demokratische Transformation in Osteuropa – Strukturen

und Dynamik oeffentlicher Kommunikation im Prozess des Regimewechsels, in: Hans-Dieter

Klingemann/ Friedhelm Neidhardt: Die Zukunft der Demokratie (Sigma 2000).

Slavko Splichal, Professor of Communications, Department of Communications, University of Ljubljana,

Slovenia. Research interests include: communication theory, political economy of the media, political

communication, public opinion research. Editor of the journal Javnost-The Public; member of the

editorial board of several journals, including Journal of Communication and Journalism Studies. Recent

publications: Media Beyond Socialism: Theory and Practice in Post-socialist Countries (1994);

Information Society & Civil Society (co-edited with A. Calabrese and C. Sparks); Public Opinion:

Development and Controversies in the 20th Century (1999).

References

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Brown.

Ball-Rokeach, S. J./ DeFleur, M. L. (1976): A Dependency Model of Mass-Media Effects, in: Communication

Research 3, 3-21.

Blumler, Jay G./ Gurevitch, Michael (1981): Politicians and the Press: An Essay on Role Relationships, in: Dan D.

Nimmo/Keith R. Sanders (eds.): Handbook of Political Communication, Beverly Hills/London: Sage, 467-493.

Dahl, Robert A. (1989): Democracy and Its Critics, New Haven: Yale University Press.

Elder, Charles D./ Cobb, Roger W. (1983): The Political Uses of Symbols, New York/London: Longman.

Graber, Doris (1993): Political Communication: Scope, Progress, Promise, in: Ada W. Finifter (ed.): Political Sciene:

The State of the Discipline II, Washington, D.C.: American Political Science Association, pp. 305-332.

Gunther, Richard/ Mughan, Anthony (eds.) (2000): Democracy and the Media: A Comparative Perspective,

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Huntington, Samuel P. (1991): The Third Wave. Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, Norman/London:

University of Oklahoma Press.

Ignatow, Assen (2000): Ist Osteuropa "postmodern"? Der Begriff der Postmoderne und die Osteuropaforschung, in:

Berichte des Bundesinstituts für ostwissenschaftliche und internationale Studien 4-2000.

Mazzoleni, Gianpietro (1987): Media Logic and Party Logic in Campaign Coverage: The Italian General Election of

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McNair, Brian (1999): An Introduction to Political Communication, (2nd edition). London/New York: Routledge.

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O'Neil, Patrick H. (ed.) (1997): Post-Communism and the Media in Eastern-Europe, London: Frank Cass.

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Paletz, David/ Jakubowicz, Karol/ Novosel, Pavao (eds.) (1995): Glasnost and After. Media and Change in Central

and Eastern Europe, Cresskill: Hampton.

Randall, Vicky (1998): Special Issue "Democratization and the Media", in: Democratization (5).

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Democracy and the Mass Media, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 368-398.