1st Edition
Mass Media and Political Communication in New Democracies
This book examines how political communication and the mass media have played a central role in the consolidation of emerging democracies around the world.
Covering a broad range of political and cultural contexts, including Eastern and Southern Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa, this new volume investigates the problems and conflicts arising in the process of establishing an independent media and competitive politics in post-autocratic societies. Considering the changing dynamic in the relationship between political actors, the media and their audience, the authors of this volume address the following issues:
- changing journalistic role perceptions and journalistic quality
- the reasons and consequences of persisting instrumentalization of the media by political actors
- the role of the media in election campaigns
- the way in which the citizens interpret political messages and the extent to which the media influence political attitudes and electoral behaviour
- the role of the Internet in building a democratic public sphere
This book will be of great interest to all those studying and researching democracy and democratization, comparative politics, political communication, journalism, media and the Internet.
1 Katrin Voltmer
The mass media and the dynamics of political communication in
Processes of democratization – an introduction
Part I: The mass media and journalistic practice – normative dilemmas,
professionalization and political instrumentalization
2 Carlos Barrera and Ricardo Zugasti
The role of the press in times of transition: the building of the
Spanish democracy (1975 – 78)
3 Hedwig de Smaele
‘In the name of democracy’: the paradox of democracy and press
freedom in post-communist Russia
4 Herman Wasserman and Arnold S. de Beer
Conflicts of interest? Debating the media’s role in post-apartheid
South Africa
5 Silvio Waisbord
In journalism we trust? Credibility and fragmented journalism in Latin
America
6 Natalya Krasnoboka and Kees Brants
Old and new media, old and new politics? On- and offline reporting in
The 2002 Ukrainian election campaign
Part II: Political parties, governments and elections: communication strategies and the mediatization of politics
7 Roberto Espindola
Electoral campaigning in Latin America’s new democracies: the Southern
Cone
8 Gary Rawnsley
Democratization and election campaigning in Taiwan: professionalizing
the professionals
9 Sarah Oates
Where’s the party? Television and election campaigns in Russia
10 Ming-Ying Lee
The Internet in politics: democracy in e-government in Taiwan
Part III: Audience responses to political messages: interpretations and effects
11 Ellen Mickiewicz
Does ‘trust’ mean attention, comprehension and acceptance? Paradoxes
of Russian viewers’ news processing
12 Stephen White and Ian McAllister
Politics and the media in post-communist Russia
13 Katrin Voltmer and Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck
New democracies without citizens? Mass media and democratic
orientations – a four country comparison
14 Katrin Voltmer
Political Communication between democratization and the trajectories of the past.
Biography
Katrin Voltmer is Senior Lecturer of Political Communication at the Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds, UK.
'The authors of each of the books sections provide a wealth of interesting cases, the writings in this volume draw a gripping picture of the media's changing role within it, from an instrument of autocratic power to an independent voice.'
- Political Studies Review