Political Communication & Journalism Key Terms (Fall 2021)
Week 1: Introduction to political communication and journalism
Defining political communication: Who are the three key players and how do they
interact? - Politics, media, and the public. They all interact with eachother both ways.
Functions of the media - Information (informing citizens about what is happening in society),
education (explaining what events and facts mean), platform (for the exchange of ideas; public
sphere), watchdog (media control over politics), channel (where political ideas can be presented
to the public)
Role conceptions of journalists - Disseminator (spreading information), interpreter (interpreting
what news mean and explaining it to the public), adversarial (journalists don’t just believe what
they’re told, they check and inform themselves), populist mobilizer (journalists make sure that
the public is involved in politics)
Threats to these functions? - political actors regain control over media content (lack of
pluralism and independence), commercialization leading to decreased news quality
Media logic - process through which media presents and transmits information. media formats
create a framework or a perspective that is used to present as well as interpret phenomena
Journalistic routines - patterned and repeated practices and forms of work journalists use
Indexing - tendency of mainstream news organization to adjust the range of viewpoints in a
story to the dominant positions of those whom journalists perceive to have enough power to
affect the outcome of a situation
Political efficacy - the feeling that you can understand politics and also do something yourself
Videomalaise/mediamalaise - news is being dumbed down and people cannot and do not want
to process information anymore
Commercialization - news are being sold, quality over quantity
Mediatization: 4 phases of the process - first phase is mediation where media is the most
important source of information and channel of communication between citizens and political
institutions; second phase is when the media becomes more independent of governmental or
political bodies and have begun to be governed according to media logic rather than political
logic; third phase is when media have further increased independence and political and social
actors have to adapt to the media; fourth phase is when media logic and newsworthiness become
a part of the governing process, media are no longer external
Media systems - diverse media technologies, such as films, radio, or television, that reach a
large audience via mass communication
Media pluralism - when different voices about an issue are given a voice or when different
newspapers with different views and orientations are present
Week 1: Introduction to political communication and journalism
Defining political communication: Who are the three key players and how do they
interact? - Politics, media, and the public. They all interact with eachother both ways.
Functions of the media - Information (informing citizens about what is happening in society),
education (explaining what events and facts mean), platform (for the exchange of ideas; public
sphere), watchdog (media control over politics), channel (where political ideas can be presented
to the public)
Role conceptions of journalists - Disseminator (spreading information), interpreter (interpreting
what news mean and explaining it to the public), adversarial (journalists don’t just believe what
they’re told, they check and inform themselves), populist mobilizer (journalists make sure that
the public is involved in politics)
Threats to these functions? - political actors regain control over media content (lack of
pluralism and independence), commercialization leading to decreased news quality
Media logic - process through which media presents and transmits information. media formats
create a framework or a perspective that is used to present as well as interpret phenomena
Journalistic routines - patterned and repeated practices and forms of work journalists use
Indexing - tendency of mainstream news organization to adjust the range of viewpoints in a
story to the dominant positions of those whom journalists perceive to have enough power to
affect the outcome of a situation
Political efficacy - the feeling that you can understand politics and also do something yourself
Videomalaise/mediamalaise - news is being dumbed down and people cannot and do not want
to process information anymore
Commercialization - news are being sold, quality over quantity
Mediatization: 4 phases of the process - first phase is mediation where media is the most
important source of information and channel of communication between citizens and political
institutions; second phase is when the media becomes more independent of governmental or
political bodies and have begun to be governed according to media logic rather than political
logic; third phase is when media have further increased independence and political and social
actors have to adapt to the media; fourth phase is when media logic and newsworthiness become
a part of the governing process, media are no longer external
Media systems - diverse media technologies, such as films, radio, or television, that reach a
large audience via mass communication
Media pluralism - when different voices about an issue are given a voice or when different
newspapers with different views and orientations are present
